Did you read The Villa by Rachel Hawkins and are looking for a full plot summary, a character list, an explanation of the ending of The Villa or just someone to talk to about this complicated book? Pull up a chair, make yourself a limoncello cocktail (haha) or a lemonade and let’s kick off this Spoiler Discussion for The Villa by Rachel Hawkins.
Character List for The Villa by Rachel Hawkins
Characters: 1970s
Mari Godwick: published the horror novel Lilith Rising in 1976 (based on Villa Rosato). Died in 1993.
William Godwick: Mari’s father, a famous writer
Marianne: Mari’s mother, also a writer/journalist; died in childbirth.
Pierce Sheldon: Mari’s boyfriend, a musician. Murdered at the Villa on July 29, 1974.
Frances: Pierce’s wife. Takes her own life shortly before Pierce’s death.
Billy: Pierce and Mari’s baby son, who died of a chest infection in 1973.
Jane: Mari’s stepmother
Lara (Janet): Mari’s stepsister, a musician who wrote the album Aestes with the famous song, “Golden Chain.” Died of a drug overdose.
Noel Gordon: famous musician with a band called The Rovers. Dies in a plane crash in 1981.
Lady Arabella Wentworth: Noel’s wife. Divorced Noel during Johnnie’s trial.
John “Johnnie” Dorchester: friend of Noel, convicted of Pierce’s murder. Took his own life in prison.
Characters: Present day
Emily McRae Sheridan: main character, cozy mystery writer, recently divorced.
Jessica “Chess” Chandler: Emily’s friend and a succesful self-help guru.
Matt Sheridan: Emily’s ex-husband.
Characters and Plot Summary for Lilith Rising by Mari Godwick
Victoria, who has come to a house called Somerton and falls in love with an evil priest and kills him and her family.
Plot Summary for the Villa by Rachel Hawkins
Emily and Chess meet for lunch. Emily is working through a difficult time, first suffering from a mystery illness and then splitting from her husband, Matt. She’s struggling to work on the latest installment in her cozy mystery series.
Chess invites Emily to spend six weeks in Italy, writing. But the two soon learn that their destination, Villa Aestas is a “murder house.”
In the 1970s, Lara also suggests a trip to Italy to her stepsister, Mari.
Emily finds a copy of Lilith Rising by Mari Godwick at the Villa, which used to be called Villa Rosato. She begins to read and it’s clear that Somerton, the house in the book, was inspired by the Villa.
In 1974, the group (Pierce, Noel, Lara, Mari and Johnnie) settle into the villa. Johnnie carves an M on the window for Mari.
Kali and Bex are podcasting about the Villa Rosado murders in the 1970s. Pierce was the victim, a married man who started sleeping with sixteen year old Mari in 1971, who then had his baby at seventeen.
Emily asks her agent if she can write about the murders.
Back in 1974, Mari catches Noel and Pierce kissing. She joins them and all three sleep together. Lara finds them the next day and is upset.
Newspaper article about how Noel was supposedly murdered by Johnnie who then took his own life in prison.
Two novels about the Villa Aestes murder!
Fascinated by Lilith Rising and her research on the 1974 murder, Emily starts writing a true crime memoir. Chess peeks at it and suggests they collaborate and write it together. Emily, who has been struggling with writer’s block and wants this project for herself, says.
Chess writes to her agent and says she wants to write a true crime story about Lara and Mari.
Mari is depressed because it would have been her son’s second birthday (wow, and she is only 16) and agrees to go into town with Johnnie. They go to Pozzo di San Patrizio, St Patrick’s Well, a site named after a cave in Ireland that is so deep that you can cross into the underworld.
Chess and Emily go on a picnic. Emily tells Chess that her husband Matt cheated on her. Chess is sympathetic though I would not be surprised if she was the one Matt was sleeping with!
Emily finds the first part of Mari’s hidden secret 1974 diary:
Chess tells her that Mari returned to the Villa in 1993. Emily wonders why, then finds Mari’s diary hidden in the same place where Mari’s character Victoria hid her diary: under the window seat.
Mari’s 1974 Diary Part 1:
One night, Mari wakes up to find Pierce naked and screaming in their room. He had a nightmare of her covered in blood. This inspires her writing about Victoria and she’s able to continue writing t the book.
Then Mari finds Lara, crying and playing the guitar. Lara is pregnant.
The Present
Emily is reading the diary. She wishes the pages covered Pierce’s murder but peeked ahead and they don’t.
Emily sees a bunch of missed calls from Matt. He wants her to proceed with their divorce. She drinks a limoncello cocktail prepared by Chess and immediately starts feeling the mystery illness symptoms (dizziness, nausea, vomiting) that plagued her before.
Mari’s Diary 1974 continued:
Mari tells Noel that Lara is pregnant and he’s the father. He has no intention of having anything to do with the baby, though he offers to give Lara money.
Pierce is excited about the baby which annoys Mari. He then gets a telegram saying that his wife, Frances, drowned herself Virginia Woolf style.
The Present
In the present, Emily is almost done with her new book. She searches the villa for more of Mari’s writing but finds nothing.
She then peeks at Chess’s laptop and sees that Chess wrote an unflattering description of Emily in her new self-help book. Fair but really rude…
Emily also finds another piece of writing that Chess did about Lara and her part in the Villa tragedy. Emily reads what Chess wrote about Lara’s song lyrics, and she knows where to find the rest of Mari’s diary.
WHERE?! Does the book ever tell us? I don’t think so. If you know, please tell us in comments!
More of Mari’s 1974 diary:
Mari is trying to finish her book. Johnnie comes and flirts with her but she rebuffs him. He tells her that Pierce is no good – that he cheated with Lara and basically drove his own wife to suicide. Pierce overhears and they fight. Pierce wants to leave but Mari’s writing is going well. She thinks he’s selfish.
Newspaper article:
The testimony of the Villa maid, Elena, was what got Johnnie convicted.
Back in 1974, Mari and Pierce are fighting. He says that his wife Frances’s parents are going to seek custody of his son with Frances and he wants Lara’s baby instead. Pierce points out that, actually, he could be the father of Lara’s baby. Yikes. Mari is (surprisingly) shocked.
Account One of Pierce’s Death: Mari’s Confession (from the hidden Mari papers that Emily found)
Pierce accidentally steps on Lara’s guitar. Furious, Lara pushes him and he falls and hits his head. Mari then hits Pierce with a statue until he’s dead. The two of them then find Johnnie passed out and decide to frame him for Pierce’s murder. Then Mari finishes writing her book.
Emily is shocked by the fact that Mari killed Pierce. She is tempted to tell Chess but since they are both writing books about the case, she is afraid that Chess will betray her. She finds Chess sneakily talking on the phone with a guy. (Hmmm… who could that be?)
Certain that Chess was talking to Matt, Emily confronts her and they have a physical fight. Chess admits to a one night stand with Matt but drops a bombshell: she thinks Matt was the one making Emily sick. (Was he poisoning her? No just stressing her out so much that she got sick. Okay.
What is the ending of The Villa by Rachel Hawkins?
Emily tells Chess that Matt is after her money and will get the proceeds of this new book. Then she shows Chess Mari’s diary. (Except the very last part.)
They make a plan.
At the 90% point of the book, something FINALLY happens in the present: Matt arrives at the villa.
News article: Matt drowned in the Villa pool.
Mari’s papers: 1980
Noel and Mari meet in London for dinner. Noel makes a toast to the memories of Johnnie and Pierce. Mari wonders if Noel knows she killed Pierce.
After dinner Mari impulsively calls Lara, who says she knew Mari would call one day. Mari says she loves Lara’s album. Lara expresses regret for the murder and says they should’ve just left the villa. She hangs up on Mari.
News article: reception for the publication of The Villa by Chess and Emily.
Chess and Emily are meeting for lunch. The Villa is going to be an HBO miniseries shot on location in Italy. Chess wants the two of them to write another book. Emily doesn’t want to. Chess suggests they write about other famous murders.
Emily reflects that getting rid of Matt was the only way to solve their problems. But she realizes she’s now bound to Chess forever.
Mari 1993: the final part of Mari’s papers
Mari is back at the Villa. She is terminally ill, with only a few months to live. She thinks about Noel and Pierce and Johnnie. Mari spent 20 years try not to think about the night of the murder, but lets herself remember.
Who really killed Pierce? The Ending of The Villa Explained
On the night of Pierce’s murder, Mari was writing. She heard an argument, went downstairs and saw Pierce lying on the floor. Johnnie standing over Pierce’s body with something in his hand.
For some unknown reason, Mari decides to write a different story in which she’s the one who hit Pierce. (omg shades of Verity!!)
Mari then writes an account of having dinner with Noel in 1980, an account in which she suggests that Lara feels guilty about the murder.
But Mari and Lara and didn’t kill Pierce, Johnny did. Mari takes the pages she wrote and hides them, one part under the window seat, and the other part somewhere more secret. Somewhere only a true fan would find them. (WHERE??)
Spoiler Discussion for The Villa by Rachel Hawkins
Well. We have quite a lot to discuss, and I’ll try to be organized. If you have topics to add, please leave a comment!
Do you like the Past or Present Narrative in the Villa?
In most reviews I’ve seen, readers strongly prefer one or the other. I am #Team1970s.
I LOVED the way that the 1970s narrative was a total retelling of the famous 1816 summer that Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Polidori (thought of as the creator of vampire fiction, poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Mary’s stepsister Claire spent at a house in Switzerland, telling each other spooky stories that would be the basis for Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. If you are interested, I talk a LOT about this in my Review of The Villa. It’s a CRAZY story, so check it out!!
I didn’t love the present narrative, because nothing happened until the very end. We’ll get to that. But did you prefer one narrative over the other?
Why did Mari write two different narratives of Pierce’s murder?
This feels like a Team Letter/Team Manuscript situation reminiscent of Verity by Colleen Hoover. Why do you think she did this, and do you think that she and Lara killed Pierce?
I think they did not, but I am open to a counter-argument!
What did you think of the ending of The Villa?
Why did Emily manipulate Chess into helping her kill Matt?
I don’t know. Was this really necessary? Was it to punish Matt and Chess? She wanted to kill him and wanted an accomplice? I don’t really get it.
What do you think was the point of The Villa?
The retelling aspect hasn’t been highlighted as far as I have seen.
I feel like Hawkins fell WAY into the retelling rabbit hole, maybe so much that she should have focused the book on that. I didn’t feel like the past/present storylines were that related to each other (as I found Emily and Chess SO dull).
Feminism? I don’t know. I think this book intended to be feminist, about female creativity. But Chess and Emily hardly had this aspirational sisterhood, nor did Lara and Mari. More like female rivalry?
Just a “murder house” book? Maybe. I did like the whole vibe of the spooky house.
Overall I did really enjoy this one. If your book club is arguing between Taylor Jenkins Reid and a classic, The Villa can offer both.
What did you think? What are your questions and observations? Where was the last part of the diary? What did I miss?!?!?
Check out my Spoilers Reviews of ALL Rachel Hawkins books:
Haha I came to this to try and find out where the pages were because I thought I missed it too!
Ahhhh!!!! Tasha, welcome! omg I tore that book apart more than Mari tore apart the Villa looking for the answer. I’m a fast reader so I thought I missed it. Just put this post up so maybe someone else will come along and tell us!
I am here for the same reason. I also may have messaged the author on Instagram. Still waiting for a response. I need to know. Potentially suspect under the wallpaper. Look at the second paragraph of the very first page.
Ooh, way to get an answer. Please come back and tell us. And yes, putting the pages under the wallpaper would be a great callback to that feminist classic, The Yellow Wallpaper.
I agree with the wallpaper theory! The book cover appears to be lemon wallpaper that has been “torn”.
Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that.
Me too! I kept thinking I missed that part and went back and still couldn’t find it.
Do you think the 2nd book was behind a brick at the well or behind a brick in the house? It is bothering me that I can’t figure it out. I guess the house knows. And I think Chess is crazy and was drugging her the whole time. She wanted her life or her and I guess she really got it.
Ooh, the well is pretty important to the book. I wonder if the pages would have survived the elements all those years but I love that theory!
Yeah, not a fan of Chess or the fact that they are stuck together forever. If this was supposed to be a new sisterhood like Mari and Lara, I don’t get it.
I agree I think Matt and Chess maybe were more than a one time thing and chess conspired with Matt to drugging her (he was drugging Emily while they were still together). Chess wanted to seal the deal somehow but driving Emily on the trip.
Glad that I wasn’t alone with questions at the end of this book! The whole thing with Chess and Matt had me yelling at Emily in my mind. Perhaps Matt’s death was a way to show Emily whose side Chess was really on? I enjoyed the modern storyline more until they talked more about Italy then it flipped…the setting totally made this book for me. Has anyone read Lilith Rising? There is one with the tag line is “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” which felt appropriate. I could totally be missing the boat in that one though.
Hi! So glad you stopped in as I love chatting with you on Instagram! I thought Lilith Rising was made-up (a feminist stand in for Frankenstein) but I am not sure. The Matt/Chess/Emily thing was super-weird. Like just really strange. Chess slept with her close friend Emily’s husband but it’s okay, she helped Emily murder him so it’s all good. It felt so weird that I feel like it all could have been in Emily’s imagination. Maybe Emily was researching Mary Shelley, drank too much limoncello and the whole modern part was some crazy bad dream lolol
Yes I’m with the person above who thought the extra pages were at the well. Just my thought for now. I might come to a different conclusion later as I think more about it. Lol
I think the the papers are behind the mirror.
Maybe? Tell us more! There is a mirror but it’s not mentioned much.
I also suspect the mirror.
(1) Emily has her realization of where the papers are hidden **while she’s staring at the mirror**, then the next thing you know, the papers are excerpted in the novel.
(2) Emily uses clues from Lilith Rising to find the pages. In Lilith Rising, when the protagonist is sent away to the mental hospital at the end, she hides her diary in the manor house. She “tucked it away in a special spot …. [w]here even from far away, it would remain close to her.” I read that as a clue for a mirror (“close to her” because it had contained her reflection).
ooh, I really like these theories!!
I am trying to get back into reading and I randomly picked up this book at the library.
I found its philosophy and the ending really dark and meaningless.
So in the book all men are pigs 🙂 They are awful people exploiting women with very few redeeming qualities: Pierce, Noel, Johnny, and Matt. Cheating, narcissistic, extortionist, etc.
The solution to their abuse of power is to just murder them (Matt, Pierce in one version) 🙂 🙁 And there are no real life consequences. Maybe some vague feelings of guilt or entrapment (by Chess).
Seems like fantasy revenge feminism, just kill’em all.
Admittedly, I am a male so maybe this is just not a book meant for me. Maybe I am missing something. At the same time, the author seems to be (happily?) married. So it does not seem like her experience in life. So is this pandering to her female audience?
By the way, thank you for setting up the page. I found the discussion very helpful too. I am also curious, where the last part of the diary was.
Hi CR,
So sorry but this ended up in spam and I just found it.
Yes, I do think that a lot of thrillers these days are the “men are pigs” variety. Books like The Plot and Dream Girl and many more.
And I also think the whole “open-ended” thing is another trend, one I do not approve of. Many of us read thrillers and mysteries for the closure!
I think your timeline is a little off on when Mari had her baby. They mention several times that she’s 19 at the time they were at the villa. She told Johnny that Billy would have been 2 years old meaning she had him when she was 17. The storyline of her meeting Pierce when she was 16 makes total sense with this timeline.
I can’t figure out where she hid the pages either. At the end she made reference to a “hidey hole”. I listen to the audio version of this book so can’t go back to check specific pages.
I don’t think Mari killed Pierce. Perhaps she wrote the version with her killing him because she felt guilty she didn’t go downstairs when he called for her which might have prevented his murder. In that version she didn’t seem to have any remorse for pinning it on Johnny because she knew Johnny really did it.
Thanks, Gail. I was confused by the podcasters, who said that Mari was sleeping with Pierce when she was 16. And I thought the baby died when he was two, but Mari actually said he would have been two in 1974. (All these numbers!!)
But your timeline is correct: Mari and Pierce met in 1971 (she was 16, he was 22). She has the baby (Billy) in 1972 and Billy dies in 1973. When the murder takes place 1974, you’re right, she must be 19. I appreciate the correction!
And yes, WHERE is the hidey-hole???
The most confusing part for me was that there appeared to be no suspicion on Chess and Emily when Matt dies mysteriously immediately after arriving (it would’ve been easy to find his flight info and see that he’d just arrived) and to see that Emily and Matt were going through a divorce, so why would he be visiting? Chess’ story she told Matt to get him to come there doesn’t make sense with Matt being intoxicated and taking a casual swim while the girls are in town (“yeah i was cheating you on your best friend and we’re gonna be together now, hope it’s alright if we all casually hang out here, im gonna take a swim”???). And then the girls IMMEDIATELY release a book recounting the untold story of how 2 women murdered a man at the same place Matt just mysteriously died. Although now that I’m saying this I’m not sure that it explicitly says they published the version where mari kills pierce… but surely Chess & Em’s book wouldn’t have been such a hit without such an exciting development of the case??
I agree – I think this is a bit suspicious. A lot suspicious!
My theory is that Chess pretended she slept with Emily’s husband to give Emily anither reason to want him dead. Emily and Chess kill the husband and this puts Chess in Emily’s life forever. Chess wants the money and accolsdes for co writing a book that she thinjs ee be a huge success.
I think Johnnie killed Pierce. I think Mari wrote the alternative narritive with her and Lara to cement her legacy and or to ejoy knowing people would read it in the future and not kniw the truth. She gave herself and Lara agency ( power) by making them the murderes. Johnnie killibg Pierce makes him the man rescuing the women.
Interesting – I can see that with C and E. I wish the book had done a bit more to explain why Chess is so obsessed with Emily
hi Jen, I think Chess was deeply jealous of Emily…Emily was in a large, loving, bustling family with three brothers, all of whom are successful, while Chess lived in a small place with just her mom. Chess changed her name 3 times? 4 times? to perpetually create new identities for herself….After they graduated, Emily was able to return home to sort herself out and see if she wanted to go to law school, while Chess moved and started waitressing. Emily was bored at home and felt stuck, but Chess may have viewed her as so fortunate to have her loving home to return to. I am actually surprised Chess didn’t try to date one of the brothers! That would’ve made much more sense in real life, but not for this novel.
Hi Amy – Thanks for this very thoughtful comment. Your analysis makes a lot of sense to me and helped me see their relationship in a whole new light. I hope you will join another discussion!
I think Chess and Em kill Matt each for their own selfish reasons–Em so Matt can’t continue to lay claim to her future earnings, Chess so he can’t hold over her head the threat of telling the world she cheated on her best friend and thus ruining her reputation (I think the affair was totally for real otherwise Chess wouldn’t have the anklet).
Thanks! That makes a lot of sense!
One thing that made no sense is why the Catholic church would “conspire” to tarnish Lillith. Lilith is part Jewish apocryphal writings, not Christian. Shades of Dan Brown.
Also a powerful women book, where all the women betray each other over men and the main character’s illness is all in her mind seems an odd choice. Unfortunately, there weren’t really any likeable characters to me – except very peripheral characters (like the betrayed wives and the maid and it didn’t end well for them).
I agree that the police would have to be corrupt not to investigate Emily and Chess, and even if they were, why wouldn’t podcasters and amateur sleuths be all over this?
This post is getting such great comments. I just read another Lilith book (my review comes out next week)!
I agree about the women characters. I guess you could argue that the 1970s characters were very young, but Chess and Emily were just not my favorite either. Yes, we need a new book where a podcaster exposes them!