4Boxers!!!!

Skip it.

Revisado: 12-14-24

Usually like Rhys Bowen. Not this. Plot, though based on real place, is preposterous. Depiction of newspaper reporting and policing inauthentic and, often, just silly. Prose is overly dramatic and sophomoric. Add to this narration that manages to be both pretentiously serious and gushing, you'll be embarrassed to have anyone overhear it playing in your car. Some of same can be said for Royal Spyness series but I had always assumed, perhaps wrongly, those books were intentionally over-the-top and intentionally implausible but fun (similar to M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisen books). This is presented as a serious mystery novel. Stick to Constable Evans

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Captivating. Compelling.

Revisado: 04-12-24

Superb narration does justice to this tale, one much more nuanced, psychologically complex & redemptive than most body double plots. Even had the novel lacked these sophisticated elements, it would still have been a rollicking good story; with them it is a gem.

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For Trollope Fans...

Revisado: 07-23-22

Classic Trollope although not his best. The characters' inner thoughts, which Trollope is such a master at unfolding in finely- wrought nuance, drag on in this one far too long to sustain interest. But the narrator's cadence & pace is perfect & enhances so much that the Audible version, to my surprise, well redeems the flaws one is aware of in print.

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Can't get past the narration

Revisado: 04-30-22

I suspect this is a good tale. I have enjoyed Mary Stewart books much but the narration is so stilted and juvenile, I cant listen any longer.

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Can't stomach another minute of this audio

Revisado: 01-24-22

Have tried to get through this Audible book at least 5 times now to no avail. Narrator is so contrived and at the same time stilted in delivery it's impossible to decide if the problem is the narration or the text. Regret using a credit on this one.

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Another exquisitely-rendered narration

Revisado: 05-28-21

Not my favorite Gaskell; even so absolutely worth a listen. Compelling storyline (albeit a little maudlin at times). The treasure here is Juliet Stevenson's narration ...superb.

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Exceptional in every way

Revisado: 02-27-21

Read this justly lauded novel yrs & yrs ago & loved the drama & adventure. This narrator evokes the drive, tension & development of the protagonist's inner life so skillfully that the listener lives w/in the story & becomes transformed along w/ E. Dantes. A must-listen gold std. narration of a classic--one of few that exceed reading in print.

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Conflicted

Revisado: 09-01-20

Narration wonderful. Frustrating to discover only OT. Audible description very unclear/misleading. Even more frustrating that no TOC by book division/not indexed by book name, just a series of consecutive chapter numbers. Makes this unusable to me.

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Disappointed

Revisado: 07-29-20

I have enjoyed many D.E. Stevenson books on Audible thoroughly. Not sure if the story itself is more infantile in construction than other D.E. Stevenson books or whether it is the reading by Emma D'Inverno that renders the children's voices (even as 17 & 18 year olds sound as if they are but rather dim 4 year olds), but this is like sitting through the kindergarten reading circle before naptime. I have kept plowing on to the next chapter to date in the hopes that the reading will adjust or the storyline become compelling enough to overcome the annoyance, but I don't think I can keep at this one much longer. Regret the purchase price.

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Interesting plot hook, but...

Revisado: 12-09-16

Is there anything you would change about this book?

See below.

Would you recommend Villa in Italy to your friends? Why or why not?

It depends; it is a pleasant enough diversion for someone who likes ensemble casts, a bit of mystery & is happy to while away time without more. The book, however, becomes rather tedious as the initially clever plot device is spooled out for far too long without any meaningful character development or personal insight beyond the typically mundane to justify such prolonged stringing. The secrets that haunt the characters have the feel of the hackneyed and worn and oft-written about them. About 2/3 of the way through, one finds oneself exclaiming; "Enough already! I know all I would ever want to know about these people. I have no interest any longer in what happens to them.Just wrap this up." Further, the author is fairly heavy handed (and often without accuracy) in flogging a particular political bent, which becomes increasingly apparent and annoying given the tedium of the stretched story line. For example, one character states as fact that happiness is written into the U.S. constitution. The fallacy, all too common even among those who consider themselves educated, is routinely promulgated in interviews, newspapers, on the internet, on so-called news shows, among pundits and talking heads and almost always without challenge as is the case in this book and has wreaked nearly irretrievable civic damage by embedding in the common conscience the rightness of a particular particular view of the role of government. (The phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is found in the Declaration of Independence. While that is an important document by which the United States was declared to be its own sovereign it has absolutely nothing to do with the framework or role of government.That is the purview of the Constitution, which limits government so citizens remain, by and large, free of government direction, oversight and structure. Any who promulgate the utterly erroneously constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness promote an unlimited government completely antithetical to the foundation of the US. Were there such a constitutional right, it would be incumbent on government to do all it could to enable all to pursue happiness. Any aggrieved person would have a constitutional right to demand government step in; that is a recipe for an ever-expanding list of laws, regulations, requirements with the accompanying, crippling, enormous government budget. That kind of government is precisely what the Constitution tried to ensure could not exist.) Now, with the civics lesson over, I'll return to the book. I suppose it is not surprising that an author who devises such a manipulative and secretive (albeit, ultimately,benevolent) testator to sort out several lives would have no issue with controlling intervention of the governmental sort. And, while the initial concept is clever, the threads that bind the characters together when finally revealed are so preposterous one wonders why one persisted to narration's end.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Probably not now that I have been through the book, however, I would rather have seen a movie than plowed through this audio book had that been an option. After all, a relatively good script writer could easily shorten this into a two hour movie, which is about all that is necessary for this yarn. The setting, beautiful and transporting, could be the most compelling of the characters and propel the movie into a couple hours of pleasant diversion.

Any additional comments?

Nicely narrated.

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