Friday, March 17, 2023

The Villa

*I received a free copy of this novel from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my honest review.*

Emily and Chess grew up together, but as adults have grown apart. Chess has reinvented herself several times and is now a self help guru with millions of followers while Emily has a cozy mystery series with several more books to write for the series. Emily is also going through recovering from an illness and now a divorce. Chess suggests going to a villa in Italy to reconnect their relationship. And the house that she rents turns out to be where an infamous murder occurred in the 1970s. Emily starts digging around the house and writing a story about the murder and it seems that Chess has lost her muse.

I could very much relate to Emily being in the shadow of Chess and being suspicious of her actions. I enjoyed how the story unfolded, but I felt like the novel could have just stayed within the current and 1970's storyline and left the third out of it. The third storyline was a little confusing and I am not really sure how it was resolved. I did enjoy the setting of the villa and the twists at the end. I wish things had resolved in a slightly different way because Chess was such an unlikeable character. But it also tied Emily and Chess together. Forever. So Creepy!!

Four stars for me. And this book was published in January 2023. Definitely worth a read!

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