My Readers Guide to the Unraveling of Julia will discuss this book which I found very unusual. It is not a legal thriller, which is Lisa Scottoline’s regular writing lane. So what is this book like, and is it a good fit for you? Let’s discuss it!
Readers Guide for The Unraveling of Julia
Table of Contents:
- Jen’s Quick Take on The Unraveling of Julia
- List of characters in The Unraveling of Julia
- Plot Summary for The Unraveling of Julia
- The Unraveling of Julia: The Ending Explained
The Unraveling of Julia: Jen’s Quick Take
- The Unraveling of Julia, as indicated on the cover, says it is psychological suspense, but I’m not sure that is how I’d describe it.
- The book also has paranormal elements. At first I thought it was just gaslighting, but no, it’s definitely a paranormal mystery. Just so you know, as that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
- There’s also a romance subplot, but it’s a pretty minor aspect.
- For me, the book had callbacks to Scottoline’s very first book, Everywhere That Mary Went (1993) which also featured a young widow as the main character.
- The book is set in Italy, and offers a great travelogue (and food). These videos on Lisa Scottoline’s website discuss the travelogue aspect and they are AWESOME.
- I think I’d call this paranormal suspense verging toward paranormal romance. So if you enjoy that, you should definitely add this book to your list.
- Publication date: July 8, 2025 by Grand Central Publishing.
List of characters in The Unraveling of Julia
- Julia Pritzker: recent widow and astrology fan
- Michael Shalette: Julia’s late husband
- Emilia Rossi: woman who leaves an Italian villa to Julia
- Massimiliano Lombardi: Caterina’s lawyer
- Courtney: Julia’s friend
- Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano: the villa caretakers
- Franco Patelli: real estate agent who wants Julia to sell the property
- Gustavo Caputo: the investigator hired by Lombardi to find the connection between Julia and Emilia. But Julia fires him.
- Gianluca Moretti: librarian at the Ufizzi Gallery who helps Julia research Rossi.
- Marshal Torti: local (Savernella) police officer
- Poppy Whitcomb: genealogy investigator
- Detective Tom Molloy: Philadelphia officer on Mike’s case
- Helen Davenport: the medium
- Fiamma Settimi: Italian teacher who resembles Julia.
- Marshal Vernio: Florence police officer
Plot Summary with Spoilers for The Unraveling of Julia
To protect readers who HATE being spoiled you will need to click on the blue “Show Me” box below and log in with a Grow account, Facebook, or Google. By doing so, you will be added to my email list and receive awesome weekly updates about new books! For more information on why I protect my spoilers, please read this post! If you are having any issues check this tutorial OR leave a comment below as I want to help!
Less than a year ago, Julia Pritzker’s husband Mike was killed in a mugging in Philadelphia.
Julia receives a strange email that she’s inherited an Italian villa from a woman named Emilia Rossi. While Julia is adopted, she has not heard of Emilia and can’t figure out their connection.
But Julia heads to Tuscany to see the crumbling villa and hear about Emilia, who was reclusive and thought she was descended from Duchess Caterina Sforza.
Emilia’s lawyer, Massimiliano Lombardi, who never met Emilia in person, urges her to sell the villa and refers her to a real estate agent, Franco Patelli.
Upon staying at the villa, Julia has strange and disturbing dreams and feels like someone is following her.
At the Ufizzi Gallery, Julia meets a librarian, Gianluca, who is fascinated by her research project. He takes her to Caterina Sforza’s castle.
Julia and Gianluca go to the local police to report that a white Fiat keeps following her. Marshal Torti, the police officer, says there is nothing they can do.
Julia sees a ghost who slips through a wall. So Julia opens up the wall and finds a tunnel that leads to a hidden child’s bedroom.
Marshal Torti comes to investigate the room and see if there was a crime committed. Julia wonders if the child kept prisoner there could be a relative. Piero digs in the vineyard looking for bodies.
Gianluca wonders if Emilia was involved in something criminal.
He also tells Julia that he’s fallen in love with her.
Villa caretakers Anna Mattia and Piero are creeped out by the police activity and have fled the villa, leaving Julia a gun. Franco teaches her how to shoot it. Also, Bianco the dog might have been poisoned with a hallucinogenic drug. Has someone been poisoning Julia too?
Julia learns that Gianluca was badly injured in a motorcycle accident.
Julia meets his family at the hospital and decides to ask for a drug test while she is there. She tests positive for the hallucinogen.
Courtney shows up by surprise and two of them find an abandoned well on the property and when they pull up the bucket, they find a lockbox. Inside is money and two Italian passports for Elena Ritorno, with Emilia’s picture, and Patrizia Ritorno, a baby. There are also photos with evidence of injuries and abuse and the two women wonder if Emilia and her child were trying to escape an abuser.
Julia goes to see a medium, who tells her that she has psychic abilities and can communicate with the dead directly.
After that, Julia goes to the hospital to visit Gianluca. She has a vision of him being chased by a police car and a white van. She tells Rafaella, Gianluca’s sister, to guard him.
Based on another vision Julia had of her mother as a teacher, she and Courtney are visiting nearby schools looking for her.
Courtney finds hidden cameras in the villa. Also their car has a tracker and a microphone.
They find a school has a teacher who looks like Julia.
They send her to Florence to meet the woman, Fiamma, who has an art show.
Julia researched Adamo Bucci, who was mentioned by someone at the school. He looks familiar to Julia, who remembers she saw him having lunch with Franco the realtor. She wonders if Bucci is one of the prospective buyers of her villa.
They decided that Bucci and Franco might have hurt Gianluca as he was urging her not to sell. And that they preemptively killed Mike so he wouldn’t inherit the villa after she died. What???
At the art show, Fiamma introduces her paintings of an orphanage, and says that her mother admired Duchess Caterina.
Fiamma confronts Julia, seeming upset. But two men, one the driver of the Fiat and one in a hoodie, are coming, so Julia runs, sending Courtney a pin from her phone.
Julia creates a blue aura around herself and pushes the man away.
Julia tells her whole story to the police in Florence. They are willing to investigate until she gets to the part about the blue aura and the spirit of Duchess Caterina helping her.
Fiamma shows up at the villa and is horrified at its condition. And Fiamma was the one kept in the cell bedroom, where her mother hid her a few days a month.
Fiamma tells Julia that she clashed with her mother as a teen, and then got pregnant. She and her boyfriend Roberta Colapino, decided to put the baby up for adoption. Julia asks Fiamma why her mother didn’t leave the villa and money to her and Fiamma says she doesn’t want it.
Fiamma can’t understand why her mother hid her and never let her go to school, so Julia explains that she thinks Emilia was an abused woman.
What was the ending of The Unraveling of Julia?
The guy with the hoodie goes on trial in Philadelphia for Mike’s murder.
Anna Mattia and Franco admitted that Franco paid them to drug Julia. Franco was working with a man at Adamo Bucci’s company, who wanted to buy the villa and then flip it in a sale to Bucci. The men in the Fiat (Bernardo Vitali and Ciro Nardini) were hired by Marshal Torti.
Yes, all of the drama was over real estate!
Julia and Gianluca move into the villa and have a baby daughter.
If you have questions or think I forgot something or got something wrong, leave a comment!