Breakaway Books

Authored by Lisa Scottoline; Published July 2025; Thriller

⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

The Unraveling of Julia can’t seem to decide what kind of novel it wants to be. Part flirtation with the supernatural, part murder mystery, part white-collar scheming, there is just too much jumbled into this novel.

In The Unraveling of Julia, the titular woman is enjoying a picture-perfect life with her husband Mike, until it all comes crashing down with his murder. Julia quickly starts to deteriorate mentally, becoming obsessed with the criminal investigation and, strangely, astrology, until she receives a phone call informing her that she is the benefactor of a huge inheritance in Tuscany. When she arrives at the villa, however, she is disturbed by its run-down state—and the hallucinations that immediately begin to haunt her. As Julia works to discover whether her benefactor is a lost relative, her inquiries put her in terrible danger.

I wish this novel had contained just a little more in the way of subtlety. As it is, the plot progresses straightforwardly if choppily, without any of the slow and steady rise of tension that a thriller normally features. There is no wondering who the true perpetrator is or trying to solve the mystery—whomever occurred to Julia immediately is surely the true bad guy. No red herrings or twists make for a dull novel, and I found it hard to maintain interest in this one. Very little was left to the imagination, with Julia narrating her every feeling and prediction, rather than allowing the reader to infer anything for themselves. 

But perhaps the hardest element for me to swallow is just how flat and unrealistic the characters are. At times, their actions beggar belief—like when Julia tries to bully police officers in a foreign country into following her lead and somehow succeeds, despite her complete lack of understanding of the legal system. Additionally, Julia and her best friend were difficult for me to sympathize with, especially when their emotional reactions seem abrupt and exaggerated at best, completely unrealistic at most. For me, Julia’s obsession with astrology and the paranormal is also frustrating, not only because I’m a skeptic, but because the author goes out of the way to present rational explanations for the odd events that happen to Julia, only to have Julia proceed as if she never heard them. It left me feeling confused about why the author introduced these explanations at all.

The Unraveling of Julia is not my favorite thriller so far this year. Unless you are truly desperate to get lost in the Tuscan countryside, I would give this one a pass.