She Treads Softly: Strangers in the Villa

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Strangers in the Villa

Strangers in the Villa Book Cover

Strangers in the Villa by Robyn Harding
3/3/26; 336 pages
Grand Central Publishing

Strangers in the Villa by Robyn Harding is a highly recommended psychological thriller focusing on a couple who are trying to rebuild trust in their relationship when they befriend a couple of tourists.

Curtis, Sydney Lowe’s husband, has admitted to having an affair which sends them to couples counseling. The two decide to leave NYC and move to Spain to repair their marriage while while also renovating a remote hilltop villa in Spain’s Costa Brava. One day they have a young Australian couple, Bianca and Damian, show up at their door with car problems. Sydney, craving companionship, invites them inside and eventually encourages them to stay, saying they could help them work on the villa. Curtis isn't as thrilled with her decision. Soon it becomes clear that everyone has secrets and the Aussie's have their own agenda.

After I the jumped the enormous hurdle of setting aside disbelief and accepted that anyone would be foolish and naive enough to invite strangers to stay in their home, and this took great effort, the novel quickly became tension packed and compelling. Everyone has some secret agenda going and clearly there is more to everyone's story than they are admitting. The setting serves to isolates all the characters while slowly releasing clues to increase the trepidation that something is very wrong and there are many secrets left unspoken.

The well-written, fast-paced narrative follows the point-of-view of the various characters and also includes notes from the marriage counselor the Lowe's were seeing before they moved. Some of the secrets are slowly revealed, but they are not always what it is assumed. Sydney is obsessed with the woman Curtis said he was with for only one night. Curtis has a bigger concealed problem. Damien and Bianca have even more hidden objectives. Once everything begins to come out, the novel becomes un-put-downable.

Strangers in the Villa is a good choice for those who enjoy destination psychological thrillers and can set disbelief aside. Thanks to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.