Books to Borrow Martinsburg Public Library Recommends

Emily, a cozy novel writer, and Chess, a self-help goddess, used to be inseparable, but life happened, and the two dear friends grew apart. Now, as Emily struggles with a gut-wrenching divorce and the accompanying writer’s block, Chess suggests a chance to reconnect and refresh: a summer in an Italian villa.

This is not just any Italian villa, though. Villa Aestas (once Villa Rosato) is infamous for a murder that took place there in 1974 when rockstar Noel Gordon invites up-and-coming musician Pierce Sheldon and his girlfriend Mari, as well as Mari’s half-sister Lara, to join him for a summer of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. It is a summer full of artistic accomplishments. Mari writes “Lilith Rising,” one of the greatest horror novels of all time. Lara writes the platinum-selling album “Aestas,” for which the villa is renamed. Pierce ends up dead.

Emily starts to investigate the villa’s history. She realizes that there are eerie similarities between Mari’s novel and the villa itself, and she begins to wonder if there is more than meets the eye to the sad story of that lost summer. As Emily makes her way deeper into the past, things become even more stressed between her and Chess, especially when Chess reads the beginning of Emily’s book about the murder at the villa and proposes that they write it together. Tensions rise, present day deceptions come to light, and decisions will be made that will yet again alter the story of this quiet little villa.

Alternating between the present and the summer of 1974, “The Villa” tells the twisted story of two groups of friends and the hurt that love, loyalty and loneliness can cause.

Rachel Hawkins is the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs and Reckless Girls (also available at the Martinsburg Community Library).