Villa in Italy Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Elizabeth Edmondson (Author), Nicolette McKenzie (Narrator), Audible Studios (Publisher)

9,974 ratings

See all formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

$11.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$11.05

—

$11.05

Paperback

"Please retry"

$17.95

$14.97

$10.67

MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$14.98

$11.70

—

Kindle Edition
$11.99 Read with Our Free App
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial
Hardcover
$11.05

5 Used from $11.05 1 Collectible from $140.96
Paperback
$17.95

19 Used from $10.67 12 New from $14.97 1 Collectible from $82.38
MP3 CD
$14.98

4 New from $11.70

Marvellously atmospheric tale of strangers summoned to a grand but neglected villa on the Italian coast. Each of them has been named in a will, but nobody knows their benefactress....

Four very different people are named in a will. Delia, an opera singer robbed of her voice by illness; George, an idealistic scientist who cannot face what his skills have created; Marjorie, desperately poor and unable to dislodge her writer’s block; and Lucius, ostensibly in control but whose personal life is in chaos. All are summoned to the Villa Dante, home of the late Beatrice Malaspina. But who was she?

While they wait to find out, the villa begins to work its seductive magic. With its faded frescoes, overgrown garden, and magnificent mediaeval tower, it is unlike anywhere they have been before.

Slowly four characters who have gone to great lengths to hide their troubles find that change - and even hope - is possible after all. But the mysterious Beatrice has a devastating secret to reveal that will affect them all....

A beautiful evocation of Italy in the aftermath of World War Two and the personal consequences of living through such a time and a celebration of humankind’s ability to heal and learn to love again, this most absorbing novel will win Elizabeth Edmondson a host of new fans.

Listening Length

13 hours and 16 minutes
Author

Elizabeth Edmondson
Narrator

Nicolette McKenzie
Audible release date

May 19 2015
Language

English
Publisher

Audible Studios
ASIN

B071ZQ2W9S
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
See all details

1 credit a month good for any title of your choice, yours to keep.
The Plus Catalogue—listen all you want to thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts, and audiobooks.
Access to exclusive member-only sales, as well as 30% off your purchases of any additional titles.
After 30 days Audible is $14.95/month + applicable taxes. Renews automatically.

Learn more about membership

Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

List Price: $27.21

You Save: $3.40 (12%)

By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

People who bought this also bought

Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1

Open Season: A Joe Pickett Novel
C. J. Box
17,624
Audible Audiobook
Dreamland: A Novel
Nicholas Sparks
17,298
Audible Audiobook
Still Life: Chief Inspector Gamache, Book 1
Louise Penny
43,967
Audible Audiobook
The Tuscan Child
Rhys Bowen
39,051
Audible Audiobook
The Love Letter
Lucinda Riley
7,264
Audible Audiobook

Only from Audible

Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1

Liar
K. L. Slater
10,934
Audible Audiobook
Voyage of Innocence
Elizabeth Edmondson
873
Audible Audiobook
Masked Ball at Broxley Manor: A Royal Spyness Novella
Rhys Bowen
1,842
Audible Audiobook

Product details

Listening Length	13 hours and 16 minutes
Author	Elizabeth Edmondson
Narrator	Nicolette McKenzie
Audible.ca Release Date	May 19 2015
Publisher	Audible Studios
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B071ZQ2W9S
Best Sellers Rank	#43,816 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #732 in Historical Romance (Audible Books & Originals) #1,112 in Romantic Suspense (Audible Books & Originals) #1,116 in 20th Century Historical Romance (Books)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

9,974 global ratings

5 star		45%
4 star		32%
3 star		15%
2 star		5%
1 star		4%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Thom Bennett

Most enjoyable read. Filled with delightful characters and interesting ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 19, 2018

Verified Purchase

Most enjoyable read. Filled with delightful characters and interesting plot twists. Made me want to book a flight to Italy!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

John Zenker

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 20, 2016

Verified Purchase

I liked the story. Pleasant reading and relaxing. Should make a movie out of this.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Marion Parton

Entertaining

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 1, 2014

Verified Purchase

Enjoyable light summer reading. The mystery was interesting and the reveal worth the wait. I found this to be a good read.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jeannie Millar

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 20, 2017

Verified Purchase

Very much enjoyed.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Barbara M. Webb

A Masterpiece of a Novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 5, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is my first Elizabeth Edmondson book and I loved it.
Edmondson created fascinating characters plucked out of the past connections of Beatrice Malespine
whose last will summons a former writer, a former artist, an opera singer and a scientist to the Dante Villa. All four are challenged by their past as well as their present close proximity to each other's in the stylish and artistic Dante Villa.
I like the glorious setting. Who wouldn't like to be in Italy? I like the way art, music and writing are fused to produce a smorgasbord of sensuous experiences and that is before synchronicity starts to play havoc with the slightest of plans.
We wait with bated breath for all the mystery to unravel in an impressive climax at the end.
I recommend this very skilfully crafted novel.
I have now bought another of Edmondson's novels and will bury myself in South France for a change.

27 people found this helpful

Janet Nixon

Fascinating read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 7, 2019

Verified Purchase

I wouldn't have chosen this book, it was my book club's choice and to be frank, looking at the cover decided it wasn't my kind of book. In fact, I almost felt like it was going to be a waste of time; too many good books not enough time. I was wrong, as I was absorbed almost from the off. It is a mystery story and the prose isn't difficult. Others on here, have already given a brief outline of the setting and characters, so I won't but it is book that operates on more than one level. It's a mystery story and there are lots of clues that you have to hold on to and, like a jigsaw puzzle fit together. In some ways it reminded me of Dan Brown's work, of which I am not a fan. But on a another level it's about 5 people who go on a journey, the kind that Dante wrote about in his Divine Comedy. I found myself, totally absorbed and, despite my initial misgivings, really enjoyed it.

7 people found this helpful

Kate Hopkins

Light Romantic Mystery

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

I first came across Elizabeth Edmondson's work at university when I read one of her novels written as Elizabeth Pewsey - a light romance set in a cathedral town, with some good episodes but some truly awful sex scenes! This is an example of the more serious historical novels that she wrote - poised between the popular fiction style of authors such as Kate Furnivall or Rosanna Ley and more serious literary fiction (which is possibly why she never became a best-seller - the books possibly felt a bit too high-brow for someone wanting escapism, but weren't nearly literary enough for serious readers).

On the whole 'The Villa in Italy' is a pleasant and rather compelling light read. It's set in the 1950s, when Delia (an opera singer suffering from chronic bronchitis), George (a scientist who's not recovered from his guilt at helping to create the atom bomb, and who feels a longing for his former Catholic faith), Marjorie (a detective writer with writer's block and an unhappy secret) and Lucius (an American banker who longs to become an artist) all receive a mysterious bequest from an Anglo-Italian woman called Beatrice Malaspina. Beatrice left instructions that the four of them go to her villa in Italy (Tuscany, I believe, but it's already gone hazy in my mind) and there search for a codicil to her will, which will answer all their questions about why she has left them a bequest, and also benefit them greatly. And so, for the bulk of the book the four guests (plus Delia's friend Jessica) enjoy life at the Villa Dante (well, it would be called that, wouldn't it?), eating wonderful food, drinking wine, swimming, making music and slowly searching for the codicil. There's also several revelations, a romance and a dramatic finale when various other people converge on the Villa Dante.

There's some good writing - particularly about George's religious/scientific dilemmas and about Marjorie's troubled past - and some lovely scene-setting, and Edmondson is both more knowledgeable historically and more accomplished as a stylist than most writers in this genre. And the characters are pretty likeable. But it's somehow all a bit... well, prone to fluffiness. There are too many scenes that merely involve characters lounging around and re-hashing problems from the past (usually rich parents trying to force them to do things they don't want or cut them off). For four very intelligent people, the friends seem remarkably unintelligent about finding the codicil. Beatrice Malaspina never really comes to life (other than in the blandest terms of being a rich, beautiful woman who liked art and was kind to people). And at times the book can collapse into mere silliness, such as during the scene with the friends trying to dynamite a well (or something like that) or Delia's claims that opera was terrible because all the women die, but musicals were wonderfully life-enhancing (actually, tragedy doesn't have to be depressing, a lot of women survive in opera, and musicals, which usually expect women to be sweet little airheads, are, I would say, far more degrading to women!). The end - with its numerous revelations of affairs and illegitimate babies - was a bit unbelievable too, particularly the final, filmic embrace.

It's a shame, because there's a good book in here - and ideas that would be better in literary fiction. The under-developed Marjorie could have been a terrific character, like one of Sarah Waters's heroines, and the story of George and his tragic past (he lost his wife during World War II), scientific work and religious struggles is worth a novel in itself. But Edmondson always holds herself back from being too serious, as though she's mindful that she needs to appeal to a popular market.

A pleasant read, that passed the time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (when I was too tired to concentrate on anything serious) rather agreeably. But I did feel it could have been so much better! I'm going to be interested to see if the other two Edmondson novels I own (both of which I think deal with the 1930s) have any more depth.

One person found this helpful

SusannahB

Easy Summertime Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 13, 2020

Verified Purchase

Set in the 1950s ‘The Villa in Italy’ focuses on four main protagonists: Delia, a professional opera singer who is having doubts about her career; Lucius, an American banker who’d rather be an artist; George, a scientist, part of a team that created the atom bomb and now suffering from intense guilt about his involvement after the destruction caused by its use; and Marjorie, a writer of murder mystery stories who is suffering from writer’s block - all four of whom do not know each other and all four of whom have been summoned to the Villa Dante at the request of the late Beatrice Malaspina , a very wealthy and rather mysterious woman, unknown to any of them. Aware that it would be in their interests to comply with Beatrice’s request, the four of them arrive in Italy and take up residence at the Villa Dante, Beatrice's beautiful house overlooking the sea, where they are informed by Beatrice’s solicitor that they will each receive a bequest providing they find the codicil to her will within thirty days. Why there should be a codicil and why the four have to discover it for themselves is not revealed to our legatees, but during the following days and weeks - in which each of them undergo some sort of catharsis - they learn why Beatrice chose to act in this unusual manner.

An easy and pleasant story with some interesting characters and some interesting dilemmas for them to solve, but I have to say that although there were some darker aspects to this story, I didn't feel the author looked at these deeply enough; I also felt that parts of the story - especially towards the end where a surprising number of unexpected characters arrive at the villa and reveal all sorts of secrets and previously unknown information - rather unconvincing and almost comically overdone in places. That said, if not taken too seriously, there is quite a lot to enjoy here - especially the author’s descriptions of the villa with its medieval tower and its fountains and frescoes, and for an undemanding summertime read this worked rather well; I read it during the current heatwave in the garden under an umbrella - which, apart from being in Italy itself, was just the place to read it.

3 Stars.

Bookworm 262

Light reading.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

I finished this book while still waiting for the story to start. I enjoyed the plot that was there but I kept waiting for a body to turn up. It was actually about a group of people who are all living their lives without reaching their potential and how they find themselves in this beautiful villa in Italy. Lots of descriptions about the house and idyllic surroundings, a bit reminiscent of Mary Stewart. That may have been why I was waiting for some peril to strike the heroine. Or it may just have been that I read some other books by the same author (Very English Mystery) and thought this would be a similar mystery.

For what it is its not a bad book its just not my usual thing. Having said that I always enjoy this authors writing. She can evoke the period settings VERY well. The characters are light and this particular story has a bit of a morality tale in it. The bringing of life back to the house giving some life back to the local community ie working together to bring water to the fountains and to the fields below the villa. I found it interesting that the only bit of high drama was provided by the life of the one person who was brought into the story as an extra, It was a clever touch.

This would be a light read on holiday and will appeal to those with a liking for travel, romance and happy ever afters.

5 people found this helpful

See all reviews

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	Amazon Business Everything for your business	Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands

Warehouse Deals Open-Box Discounts	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust	Blink Smart Security for Every Home

Villa in Italy Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Most popular

People who bought this also bought

Related to this topic

Only from Audible

Product details

Customer reviews

Top reviews from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Villa in Italy Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Free with an Audible trial $0.00$0.00

Buy with 1-Click $23.81$23.81

Most popular

People who bought this also bought

Related to this topic

Only from Audible

Product details

Customer reviews

Top reviews from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Free with an Audible trial

$0.00

Buy with 1-Click

$23.81