Excerpt from The Villa by Rachel Hawkins, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

That's always been her style. Okay, to be fair, it's always been our style. We were in each other's pockets every day for such a long time, all the way through our years together at UNC, but after college, that changed. It happens, right? Lives go in different directions, you make new friends, new connections. Chess had moved to Charleston with Stefanie, both of them working at some fancy restaurant while Stefanie worked on getting the website off the ground, and I'd come back to Asheville with a B.A. in English, and not much else. Chess had invited me to move to Charleston with her, had even insisted she could get me a job at the same restaurant, but I missed home, and my parents thought it would be smart for me to save some money by moving back in with them. Dad was still holding on to his dream that I'd go to law school, but I hadn't been ready to commit to another expensive degree, and had ended up substitute teaching and occasionally answering phones at Dad's accounting firm.

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been a little bit jealous, watching Chess's life unfold through social media. I mean, sure, she was just waitressing then, but she was living somewhere new, meeting new people, and I felt like maybe I'd somehow fallen back in time, still sleeping in my childhood bedroom under a poster of Justin Timberlake.

It had all worked out for the best, obviously. If Chess hadn't been living with Stefanie, she wouldn't have started writing for Stefanie's site, and if I hadn't been so depressed staying at home and contemplating law school, I never would've randomly picked up a cozy mystery I saw at the library, drawn in by its colorful cover and silly title, wouldn't have read dozens more just like it and then, finally, started writing my own. Petal Bloom owes her whole existence—and I owe my whole career—to the fact that my life had diverged from Chess's.

Even if we are ships in the night most of the time, she is still my oldest and best friend. Which these days means we text when we can, call hardly ever, and see each other once a year if we're lucky.

So, I'm surprised when I get a notification from her the day after our lunch.

I have a crazy thought.

With Chess, that can mean pretty much anything. She might be thinking of marrying a stranger or it could just mean she's thinking about reintroducing carbs to her diet. Hard to say.

Excerpted from The Villa by Rachel Hawkins. Copyright © 2023 by Rachel Hawkins. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.