Opinions of a Wolf

When Emily’s on-again off-again best friend (who also just so happens to be a power of positive thinking influencer) invites her to spend the summer at an Italian villa, she’s surprised to discover it’s the same villa famous for a murder in the 1970s.

Summary:
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.

Review:
Told in both the 1970s and the present, this thriller highlights the similarities and differences of fame and near-fame for women.

The present-day perspective is that of Emily, a moderately successful cozy author going through a nasty divorce. While she’s able to make a living entirely off her writing, her success pales in comparison to her sometimes best friend Chess. Chess has a positivity influencer brand that includes publishing power of positive thinking style books (think The Secret merged with Girl, Wash Your Face.) The 1970s perspective is that of Mari, the girlfriend of one of the musicians who stayed at the villa in the 1970s. Both she and her stepsister found fame after the murder. Mari in the form of a horror book. Her stepsister in the form of an insanely popular singer/songwriter album.

The book’s central premise is that the men in these women’s lives are holding them back from finding their own artistic expression, fame, and success. The question is, are the women’s reactions justified? Put another way, are the women using self-defense (of their art) to an appropriate level given the threat? Another secondary question is can two women ever really fully support each other’s art or is someone always getting the short end of the stick?

The book isn’t heavy-handed in exploring these questions. Indeed, I was primarily wrapped up in the two mysteries going on. The first being who committed the initial murder in the villa in the 1970s. The second being why has Emily been suffering from a mysterious medical condition and does Chess have ulterior motives to having invited her to the villa? That’s a lot of mystery for one quick thriller, and it works.

I was impressed at the amount of backstory and extra information the author had to consider in putting together the two timelines. We have snippets of Mari’s book, a horror best seller by a woman in the 1970s that rivaled The Shining (my review) in this imaginary version of the 1970s. There are excerpts from that book in this one that the author had to write in a completely different tone and manner than her own writing and in a way that would make sense for the 70s. There’s also snippets of Chess’s brand, basic characters and plot for Emily’s cozy series, an excerpt from a podcast episode about the murder, Mari’s writing about her summer at the villa, and lines from her stepsister’s songs from her most famous album. That’s a lot of different voices and moving parts to keep straight, and the author does a great job of that. I found myself wishing there was more found items in the book, like another podcast episode or something. That’s not a critique. I enjoyed it so much I wanted more.

There were two things that I didn’t love about the book. These are both spoilers, so consider yourself warned! First, Emily’s illness is repeatedly brushed off by doctors as in her head. This is very frustrating and relatable for anyone who’s dealt with a mystery illness. However, by the end of the book it’s revealed that the illness is indeed psychosomatic. Even talking to her husband on the phone makes Emily sick. So the stress of being with him has been making her ill. I found this to be a really disappointing depiction. Yes, chronic illness can improve when a stressor is removed. But that wasn’t the situation in this book. Emily was only sick because of being so stressed out about her marriage. Once that’s removed, she’s better. A disappointing perspective to see in the book. Second, Chess and Emily decide to kill Emily’s soon-to-be-ex-husband since he’s dragging Emily to court for partial rights to her cozy series and threatening to do that for anything else she writes, as well as is blackmailing Chess. That’s a fine twist that makes sense. The issue is, the book shows them inviting him to visit them in the villa and reveals that he drowned and that the local police ruled it an accidental drowning. But it doesn’t show us how Emily and Chess did it. Nor is it really believable that they would be cleared so quickly in the death given the nasty divorce proceedings Emily was current undergoing. She would obviously have been a serious suspect, not brushed off so easily as one. Unless they did something with the murder that made it impossible to suspect her at all. But, again, this isn’t shown in the book. It was a short book with very little time dedicated to this murder, and I think it would have benefited from that.

Overall, in spite of two plot points I either didn’t appreciate for chronic illness representation issues or felt didn’t make much plot sense, I still enjoyed the read. It was a unique merging of a period piece thriller and a modern thriller featuring an influencer and female friendship. Recommended to thriller readers looking for a book rich in female characters who also enjoy the arts and the 1970s.

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4 out of 5 stars

Length: 279 pages – average but on the shorter side

Source: NetGalley

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