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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: AudiobookHub Recommendation
Chapter 2: — The Best Friend You Might Hate
Chapter 3: — A Villa With a Body Count
Chapter 4: — Arrival in Orvieto, Arrival in the Past
Chapter 5: — Clues in Paper, Cracks in Friendship
Chapter 6: — The Etched Initial and the First Turn
Chapter 7: — The Hidden Pages and the Truth That Splits
Chapter 8: — The Anklet, The Call, The Betrayal Revealed
Chapter 9: — The Pond Repeats the Pattern
Chapter 10: — The Book, The Door, The Cost
Description
The Villa follows Emily—an exhausted cozy-mystery author reeling from illness, divorce, and a career slump—when her famous self-help best friend, Chess, invites her to spend six weeks in a stunning Italian villa outside Orvieto.
The house has a dark legend: in 1974 it hosted a rock-star summer that ended in the brutal murder of musician Pierce Sheldon. As Emily falls into research mode, the novel alternates between Emily’s present-day unraveling and the 1974 storyline of young writer Mari Godwick, her stepsister Lara Larchmont, and the men orbiting them. Emily’s obsession deepens when she discovers hidden pages—evidence that the official story of the murder may be wrong, and that art itself can be a confession.
As jealousy, ambition, and betrayal fracture Emily and Chess, the villa’s history repeats with terrifying symmetry—forcing Emily to decide whether truth is worth the cost, or whether the “best” ending is the one you manufacture.
Who Should Listen
- Listeners who love dual-timeline mysteries where the past actively poisons the present.
- Fans of dark female friendship stories—frenemies, envy, and betrayal beneath “bestie” energy.
- Readers drawn to literary-adjacent crime tales about art, authorship, and who profits from tragedy.