The Night Villa: A Novel [Paperback]

Carol Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2008

An evocative tale of intrigue, romance, and treachery, Carol Goodman’s spellbinding new novel, The Night Villa, follows the fascinating lives of two remarkable women centuries apart.

The eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 buried a city and its people, their treasures and secrets. Centuries later, echoes of this disaster resonate with profound consequences in the life of classics professor Sophie Chase.

In the aftermath of a tragic shooting on the University of Texas campus, Sophie seeks sanctuary on the isle of Capri, immersing herself in her latest scholarly project alongside her colleagues, her star pupil, and their benefactor, the compelling yet enigmatic business mogul John Lyros.

Beneath layers of volcanic ash lies the Villa della Notte–the Night Villa–home to first-century nobles, as well as to the captivating slave girl at the heart of an ancient controversy. And secreted in a subterranean labyrinth rests a cache of antique documents believed lost to the ages: a prize too tantalizing for Sophie to resist. But suspicion, fear, and danger roam the long-untrodden tunnels and chambers beneath the once sumptuous estate–especially after Sophie sees the face of her former lover in the darkness, leaving her to wonder if she is chasing shadows or succumbing to the siren song of the Night Villa. Whatever shocking events transpired in the face of Vesuvius’s fury have led to deeper, darker machinations that inexorably draw Sophie into their vortex, rich in stunning revelations and laden with unseen menace.

Praise for The Night VIlla:

“Visit The Night Villa: Carol Goodman’s luminous prose and superb storytelling will keep you entertained into the late hours.”
–Nancy Pickard

“The pleasure of a Carol Goodman novel is in her enviable command of the classical canon–and the deft way she [writes] a book that’s light enough for a weekend on the beach but literary enough for a weekend in the Hamptons.”
–Chicago Tribune

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this complex and lyrical literary thriller from Goodman (The Sonnet Lover), University of Texas classics professor Sophie Chase, after barely surviving a gunman with ties to a sinister cult, joins an expedition to Capri. A donor has funded both the exact reconstruction of a Roman villa destroyed when Mount Vesuvius buried nearby Herculaneum in A.D. 79, and a computer system that can decipher the charred scrolls being excavated from the villa's ruins. Sophie's hopes for a recuperative idyll fade after her old boyfriend, who disappeared years before into the same cult as the campus gunman, appears in the area, implicating the cult in a criminal conspiracy. Meanwhile, extracts from the scrolls—the journals of a Roman visiting the villa just before the volcano erupted—shade toward bloodshed and betrayal. The scrolls' oddly modern tone aside, Goodman deftly mixes cultural and religious history, geography, myth, personal memory, dream and even portent without sacrificing narrative drive, against the beautiful backdrop of the locale with its echoes of unimaginable loss. 5-city author tour.(Sept.)
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From Booklist

Goodman has made a name for herself writing elegant literary thrillers. Her newest follows the template of The Sonnet Lover (2007), as Sophie Chase, a classics professor at the University of Texas, researches the fate of Petronia Iusta, a slave girl living in Capri in AD 79, the year Vesuvius erupted. After the boyfriend of one her students goes on a shooting rampage, leaving two dead and Sophie wounded, the handsome but rakish professor Elgin Lawrence convinces Sophie to travel to Capri to translate the scrolls of a Roman writer named Phineas Aulus. After all, evidence suggests that Petronia was at the Villa della Notte at the same time as Phineas. Upon arriving, she is soon drawn into a dangerous conspiracy when she encounters an ex-lover and learns that the Tetraktyans, a cult that worships Pythagoras, are equally interested in the scrolls—and will stop at nothing to get them. Graceful, fluid prose; an intricately plotted dual mystery set in the past and present; a strong heroine; and handsome and mysterious men—all combine to make for a thoroughly scintillating read. --Kristine Huntley

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Product Details

• Paperback: 413 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345479602
• ISBN-13: 978-0345479600
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carol Goodman graduated from Vassar College, where she majored in Latin. After teaching Latin for several years, she studied for an MFA in Fiction. Her writing has been published in a number of literary magazines. She currently teaches writing and works as a writer-in-residence. She lives in Long Island, USA.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Night Villa" radiates with the tradition of Gothic Literature, August 18, 2008

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Villa: A Novel (Paperback)

THE NIGHT VILLA, award-winning author Carol Goodman's sixth novel, begins with a tragic shooting on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin. It involves the jealous ex-boyfriend of student Agnes Hancock, who opens fire on a classroom filled with students and teachers, and ends up taking two lives before turning the gun on himself. Injured in the attack is Dr. Sophie Chase, who bravely attempted to thwart shooter Dale Henry and ends up being shot in the chest, causing serious damage to her lungs.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, Dr. Elgin Lawrence puts together a team of experts (archaeologists, historians, theologians and a student) to travel to Italy as part of a project sponsored by a philanthropic billionaire. Dubbed the Papyrus Project, it revolves around the use of new spectrograph technology that allows ancient scrolls to be scanned and interpreted. The texts in question are located in the Villa della Notte --- the Night Villa --- and had been buried under centuries of ash and debris following the devastating eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

The narrator, and main focus, of THE NIGHT VILLA is Dr. Sophie Chase, and her reason for participating in the excavation is not just to escape the tragic campus shooting. Sophie also leaves behind the memory of her former lover, Ely Markowitz, who she has lost to his obsession with the Tetraktys, a cult that worships and follows the teaching of Pythagoras. The ritual of becoming a full-fledged Tetrakty consists of immersion at one of their communes and a five-year vow of total silence with no communication to the outside world. With Ely all but lost to Sophie forever, she has renewed interest in joining the Papyrus Project. During the excavation of the scrolls found at the Night Villa, an ancient story begins to reveal itself --- a diary scribed by Phineas in A.D. 79 that prominently features a young slave girl named Iusta --- and unearths a subterranean labyrinth that provides the team with further documents believed lost forever.

Iusta's story is captivating as she proves to be more than just a simple slave girl. She is a strong-willed woman who seeks to win her own freedom from slavery in events that defy the pagan beliefs and rituals of the time and may potentially rewrite Italy's religious history in the process. What is more striking are the similarities that Iusta's tale has with the lives of both Dr. Sophie Chase and Agnes Hancock --- two modern women seeking to change their lives while revealing secrets of the past. What transpires at this point is an engaging mystery where revealing the secrets of the scrolls ends up being only one of the issues the team faces.

Goodman's books always involve characters who are complex and whose present lives seem to be incomplete until past histories are revealed and understood. The parallel stories of Sophie and Agnes with the ancient tale of Iusta is utterly fascinating, and the novel switches back and forth at times between present day and the deciphering of the latest set of ancient scrolls. Readers may easily lose sight of the fact that they are involved in a page-turning mystery as they become further immersed in the stories of these deeply layered characters who never cease to surprise you.

Being a fellow Long Islander, I had the opportunity to speak with Carol Goodman regarding the impetus for THE NIGHT VILLA. In addition to her degree in Latin, she also has extensive knowledge of Italy, having conducted research there for her prior novel, THE SONNET LOVER. It was during the book tour for THE SONNET LOVER that she met up with an old friend and Greek professor who told her about the Papyrus Project. Regrettably, he passed away in March 2008 and is named in the book's acknowledgements. Goodman's husband, Lee, even gets into the act, having penned the poems that are included here.

Goodman's novels always radiate with the tradition of Gothic literature made famous by authors like Charlotte Bronte and Daphne du Maurier, and THE NIGHT VILLA continues this tradition in admirable style.

--- Reviewed by Ray Palen

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Goodman's mojo missing in action, March 2, 2009

By 

Redaurella (Sydney Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Villa: A Novel (Paperback)

The first mystery about this novel is why the heroine is called Cory Chase on the back cover but Sophie Chase in the book. ( A late change of name? I bought my copy in Australia). The second is why Carol Goodman has lost her mojo.

I enjoyed Goodman's earlier novels which were set in the American Gothic genre similar to that of Donna Tartt (if not as morally complex). They created detailed imaginary worlds which were just real enough to be believable and the characters were engaging and at times moving. The Ghost Orchid and the Drowning Tree were particularly outstanding. But Goodman seems to have been seduced by the Chick-lit/Summer in Provence school of writing and has abandoned what she knows for fanciful, annoying stories set in idyllic Italian settings. The Sonnet Lover with its Italian lover, shopping trips, and travelogue style writing was plain depressing. In this story many of the elements are similar - academic with tragic love story seizes opportunity to go to Italy and solves historical mystery - but it is even weaker.

It is hard to believe that Goodman taught the classics as she makes historical errors and almost laughable assumptions about archaeology in Pompeii which will frustrate readers who are actually intersted in Pompeii's history. This could be forgiven if the story was enthralling but sadly it isn't. It has the feeling of a book written in a hurry to meet a contractual obligation.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A most exciting romantic thriller, August 7, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Villa: A Novel (Paperback)

Prolific writer, Carol Goodman, has created another exciting page-turner in The Night Villa. The villa of the novel is located in the Italian (Roman) village of Herculaneum that was destroyed in 79 A.D. by the same volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that buried the city of Pompeii. In the novel, Classics scholar Professor Sophie Chase is recruited as a member of an expedition to help translate ancient Greek and/or Latin scrolls that have been found at an archeological site-the Night Villa which is named for a statue of a night goddess that was found there.

Since this book encompasses ancient history, there are many references to the historical eruption of the volcano and what happened because of it. The scrolls were written by a traveler who visits the villa in his quest to study various pagan religious rites and celebrations. At least that is what the scholars initially believe. However, it seems he was also interested in a philosophy that the ancient mathematician, Pythagoras developed. There are also some fairly graphic descriptions of erotic artwork and unusual sexual practices and rites.

The Night Villa is also a romantic thriller. Therefore it is not surprising that the heroine, Sophie, has romantic history with other characters-both the good guys and the bad. There is also a subplot romance involving an ancient slave girl and the traveler. The slave girl had been the subject of Sophie's doctoral thesis and remained a point of strong interest. The liaisons between various members of the study expedition add to the intrigue that develops from the very first chapter of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I could hardly put it down to deal with more mundane activities, like work or sleeping. Its literary style would make it an excellent book club choice.

The intriguing plot would capture readers who are fond of books such as Dan Brown's DaVinci Code as well as those who are fans of Goodman's earlier works.

Armchair Interviews agrees.