Lisa Scottoline

I picked this up and skimmed the first couple lines--and, completely unexpectedly, I was hooked. I bombed through the whole thing in just a couple of days, knowing nothing about any other books in the series, and I was never once lost. Writing a series book that can also be a standalone takes some serious skill, and I'd say Scottoline has accomplished that very well.

Yeah, the English major snob in me had moments of eye-rolling disbelief...but in the end, I didn't care. Or rather, I did care show more because I actually ended up liking it. Because you know what? It turns out this book was exactly what I needed right now. A bunch of strong, powerful women running their own worlds, loving their careers, supporting each other professionally and personally--both colleagues and friends--and choosing to only hang out with men that loved and supported them, too. It's so easy to feel alone in life, and so often it seems like that's what books focus on: the chosen one, the reluctant leader, the odd one out. But for once, I found a book where everyone had a role but also shared roles. Collaboration was way more important than competition. Communities of women and families and neighborhoods mattered more than individual egos, at least to the main characters.

The world is enough like an episode of Black Mirror right now. People are lonely and afraid. I never expected a legal thriller to remind me that there is an alternative. Books don't just have to show the world as it is or at its worst--they can also show us the best possible reality. So while I don't buy for a minute that lawyers with reputations to uphold would accuse other lawyers of murder without actual solid evidence, I also prefer to focus on the family that believes in their child and supports her even when they don't totally understand her choices.

Sometimes it's nice to dream about a world where eye-rolling disbelief exists instead of being par for the Twitter course. Where good and evil can be a little bit easier to spot and--more importantly--to stop.

So yes, I'm me, and I'm going to talk about the things that annoyed me. But who cares? I had enough fun reading this book to relax and enjoy the ride anyway.

Quote Roundup

p. 27) Mary was totally confused, since she thought they were talking about the Way of the Tao, not the Way of the Sage, and in any event, she had been raised Catholic, which was My Way Or The Highway.
There was some really great humor in here. Or maybe I just appreciated it because I went to school with so many (Irish) Catholics in Massachusetts.

p. 122) Frankly, Detective Krakoff's behavior in this situation seems perfectly reasonable to me, however much it frustrates Bennie. There's no reason at all why he should have to give information out to a random person--never mind a person who actually could have some bearing to his case. Throughout this book there were numerous instances where I wondered just how blurred the boundaries were between fiction and reality, because these lawyers say some crazy things and go to some surprising places that I would have thought would compromise their cases. It made me question the "legal" part of "legal thriller".

p. 164) Another instance that strained credulity: one lawyer calling another's client to harass them about the case. I get that this is part of his character, but it just seems wildly implausible. Is it?

p. 217) "You have read that President Richard Nixon stated, 'I am not a crook.' It went down in history as a statement that everybody remembered, because to deny something so absurd gives it credibility that it would not otherwise have."
Um, actually, if I'm remembering my history right, it was more like it got remembered because he actually wasa crook and it turned out that the denial was the absurd part. Maybe not the best example.

p. 238) More unprofessional behavior that seems like it could be grounds for being disbarred. But funny.

p. 340) "You're vaguely aware that there's a code of ethics for attorneys, aren't you?"
A question to ask of every lawyer in the book!

p. 369) Can't say I was totally happy with the murderer. I mean, it was great from a plot perspective, but it strained credulity a bit. "All of a sudden..." No kidding!

And now that I apparently wasted my quotes on complaints, I'd like to wrap up with a few more things that I liked:

> A pregnant main character. Seriously, how often does that happen? And she's not resentful that the baby's going to ruin her life, though she does worry, and she works out her worries with help from her husband.
> A wonderful, lively character with cerebral palsy who is enjoying life.
> Said character is loved by his family and friends, with no hint from anyone that he is a burden.
> A supportive husband who has his own life and is not a doormat but also likes and supports his wife's friends.
> Neighbors who are there for each other, whether the "other" is well-known or someone new! The Tonys! Little old lady clubs!
> Women characters who support each other instead of going all Mean Girls (they easily could have, in the hands of a different author).
> Women taking control of their lives, but also seriously listening to, considering, and acting on input from others--because no woman is an island, and no one always knows what's best for themselves.
> Women deciding what they want in life and pursuing it, whether that's career, romance, family, something else, or a combination of the four.
> Realistic emotional development--and stalling out.
> Men who support women, both as women and as fellow human beings. We saw this in husbands, coworkers, clients...all over the place, despite the overarching theme of sexism.

So yeah...maybe not a literary feat, but a very fun book that really hit the spot for me right now. show less

Lisa Scottoline is the author I always, always, always preorder and her latest novel Someone Knows once again demonstrates why. Scottoline has the ability to draw you completely into the story and to experience a full range of emotions. And she is spot on with her portrayal of the characters. Those teenagers felt so true. Reading Someone Knows I felt as if I was back in high school.

The story opens with Allie Garvey returning to the upscale Philadelphia suburb she grew up in for the funeral show more of a former classmate. A classmate that she shared a horrible experience and secret with, along with three other students, twenty years ago. Allie was an outsider then and she is an outsider now. She’s never gotten over the guilt about what happened and it’s affected every aspect of her life. When she reconnects with the last two remaining students, she sees the mean kids are now the mean adults. Are we already who we are going to be as adults by the time we are teenagers?

You know from the start that five kids went into the woods and four came out, so as each character is introduced you wonder if that’s the one. Every time they go into the woods you wonder if that’s the time. The suspense just keeps building.

After the funeral Allie is determined to find out what really happened once and for all. But it’s not as simple as that. There was so much more going on then, and now, than anybody realized. She and others are in real danger.

I couldn’t stop turning the pages. Each answer came with another question. As the action ramped up the chapters got shorter and shorter. I wanted to know what happened but at the same time was almost afraid to find out. And the ending – wow! I thought I was at the end more than once because the story had come to a very satisfactory conclusion. But Scottoline wasn’t done yet, and off we went again. I did not see the ending coming but it worked perfectly. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed this latest Lisa Scottoline book, highly recommend it and can’t wait for the next one. I purchased my copy of Someone Knows and all opinions are my own. show less

Julia thought she was escaping grief. Instead, she inherited a villa, a mystery, and a legacy coded in stars. But can she reach out toward life and happiness again?

Lisa Scottoline’s The Unraveling of Julia is a compelling, genre-blending novel that pulled me back again and again as it slowly raised the stakes. It’s a gothic thriller pulsing with suspicion, a romantic escape bathed in Tuscan sunlight, a psychological horror set in a haunted pre-Renaissance villa, and a women’s fiction show more journey of self-discovery and emotional rebirth.

For me, this book feels like Rebecca meets Suspicion, with echoes of the contemporary emotional suspense in Forget Me Not and the atmospheric tension of The Lake Escape. If those stories spoke to you, Julia’s journey will pull you into a world where inheritance is never just property—it’s prophecy, paranoia, and maybe fate.

The novel’s brilliance lies in its ambiguity: are Julia and Signora Rossi paranoid, or perceptive? Are the stars in the genealogical murals symbolic—or something else? Does the horoscope represent fate speaking to you, or is it simply your heart searching for a message? Is Gianluca a romantic lead—or a plant?

Scottoline’s pacing is taut, the emotional stakes are high, and the inheritance is never just property—it’s memory, myth, and maybe madness. Her prose is vivid and tightly controlled; as a reader, I felt as if I was Julia—caught in the tension, looking over my shoulder, questioning every glance and gesture, searching for roots that connect. This is not a book you simply read—it’s one you step inside and participate in.

And through it all, there’s a luminous thread of human connection—between love, loss, and found sisters. Julia’s bond with her best friend Courtney reminds us that even in the darkest moments, there’s a sparkle of hope. Scottoline never lets us forget: friends who are closer than family are family. show less

Julia Pritzker's life has been nothing but loss. Her adoptive parents are gone. Then one night in Philadelphia, her husband Mike is stabbed to death right in front of her during what appears to be a random street mugging — he stepped in front of her, and that was it. Julia is left alone, paralyzed by grief, guilt, and a creeping agoraphobia. In her spiral, she becomes increasingly fixated on astrology, convinced that her horoscope essentially predicted Mike's death and that her fate is show more therefore already written, out of her hands entirely. Then a letter arrives from Italy. She has inherited a Tuscan villa, a vineyard, and a substantial fortune from a woman named Emilia Rossi — a complete stranger. Julia, who is adopted and has never had information about her biological family, wonders if Rossi might be a blood relative, and she boards a plane for Tuscany.
What she finds there is unsettling. Emilia Rossi was a paranoid recluse who believed herself to be a descendant of Caterina Sforza, a ferocious and legendary Renaissance duchess who ruled Forlì in the 1490s and was famous for defying popes and armies. Julia is stunned to discover that she bears an uncanny physical resemblance to both Emilia and to historical portraits of Caterina herself. Eerie parallels between their lives begin to emerge. Strange things start happening around the villa. Julia begins to suspect she's being followed. A handsome Florentine named Gianluca enters her orbit. Events turn increasingly dangerous, and Julia begins to lose her grip on what is real and what is hallucination, what is supernatural and what is drugged. The conspiracy underneath the inheritance turns out to involve real estate corruption, child trafficking, and corrupt local police — decidedly earthly forces dressed in gothic clothes. A departure from Scottoline's usual legal procedurals, described as gothic paranormal suspense with a romance thread.

[May contain spoilers]
The paranormal elements are real rather than explained away — the connections between Julia, Emilia, and Caterina Sforza are genuinely supernatural rather than coincidental or the product of Julia's unraveling mind. The mugging that killed Mike was not random — it was connected to the inheritance and the criminal conspiracy around the Tuscan estate, meaning Julia's husband died because of forces she was about to inherit into. The ending ties up the murder, the conspiracy, and Julia's identity questions, and she and Gianluca end up together. Best friend Courtney flies to Italy mid-novel to support Julia when things get truly harrowing.
What I think: This is gothic Tuscany thriller with paranormal bones — big Scottoline energy, lots of Italian atmosphere, a grief protagonist who holds your sympathy even as she loses her grip on reality, and a conspiracy that escalates satisfyingly. It's more supernatural than her usual work which will land differently depending on your mood. The Caterina Sforza historical thread is genuinely interesting. Probably a 3.5 to 4 from you — propulsive and atmospheric but the paranormal turn may or may not fully satisfy. show less