Genre ~ psychological thriller
Featuring ~ dual timeline ~ present & 1974, infidelity, murder, illness, miscarriage, mystery
POV ~ dual 1st person
Release date ~ January 3, 2023
Page count ~ 283
Audio length ~ 7 hours and 57 minutes and 44 seconds
My rating ~ 3.35⭐
My review:
Our narrators are Emily in the present and Mari in the past.
BFF’s and author’s Emily and Chess head to Italy to reconnect and write. They stay at a Villa where a murder took place decades ago that involves Mari, who is an author too. Emily is fascinated by this and wants to figure out what happened. It’s a book within a book since we have multiple authors putting their two cents in. Wasn’t super in love with any of the characters really.
Regarding the infidelity ~ I called who it was with and I didn’t like it and I didn’t like how Emily dealt with it.
Had a bit of an eye roll at this part
“So, maybe it wasn’t completely crazy to think Mari came back here to hide one last thing. Maybe I just misinterpreted the riddle.
That’s when I spot it.”
seemed like she was in the right place at the right time to have this thought.
Overall, it was fine, not mind-blowing, with an eye catching cover.
I was fortunate enough to receive a kindle copy and the audiobook to review. Both ways were fine, but I did more listening than reading. The narrators are Julia Whelan, Kimberly M. Wetherell and Shiromi Arserio for 7 hours and 57 minutes and 44 seconds. I was very pleased with all of them and so happy there were three.
*Thanks to the author, St Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my audio and ARC. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*
Let me know what you think.
Add to your never ending TBR ~ goodreads
Book blurb:
From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set at an Italian villa with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.
As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.
Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.
As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred––and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.
Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge––and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.
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I like the idea of a book within a book, and love Julia Whelan’s audiobook narrations. I’ll probably give this book a try, though it hasn’t made it to my TBR yet.
I’m curious to see what you think, but I won’t hold my breath for your review 😂