Title: The Gaia Project

Author: Kate Howard

Genre: Mystery

Publisher: The Book Guild

Publication Date: 28th May 2026

Rating: 4/5

Cover:

Summary:

On a warm Italian evening, fourteen-year-old Gaia vanishes after walking away from a village festa. Two decades later, the mystery still shadows everyone who knew her: Frank, the distant father who never understood her; Paul, the American half-brother who had only just begun to; and Bree, who met Gaia during that long-ago holiday and found the girl’s presence unsettling in ways she has never fully faced.

Now Bree returns to Italy with her young daughter whilst grieving for her mother and hoping to reconnect with Frank and Paul. But Paul is consumed by a secretive documentary project about his sister’s disappearance, and Bree is drawn back into the tangle of desires, jealousies and omissions that shaped the summer Gaia went missing.

As past and present collide, painful truths about that night begin to surface – truths that threaten the fragile bonds Bree has rebuilt and force her to confront the consequences of what she witnessed.

Review:

The Gaia Project is an atmospheric and layered mystery split over two timelines, both of which slowly but surely unfold to give the reader a complicated picture concerning the disappearance of Gaia, a teenage girl who vanished two decades ago after walking away from a ‘festa’ in an Italian village. Bree, a woman who knew her and was there the summer Gaia disappeared, returns to Italy after the death of her mother, intending to reconnect with Gaia’s father and half-brother. Having the action split into the two distinct time periods works very well for this type of slow burn mystery which unfolds bit by bit and divulges more about these characters and their sometimes fractured ties to one another as we go. I can’t pretend to have particularly liked many of the main characters but that doesn’t bother me at all as long as the narrative keeps me intrigued, which this did. The rustic Italian village setting is quite possibly the strongest aspect of The Gaia Project, Howard paints a beautifully evocative picture of the setting and the heightened summer heat builds the tension and mystery perfectly as we uncover more on the truth of what happened in the past and how it connects to the present. The Gaia Project is definitely more of a slow burn and quietly unsettling mystery as opposed to being full of twists and action but if that kind of character driven story appeals to you then I would definitely recommend adding it to your summer reading list.

★★★★

Huge thanks to Insta Book Tours and The Book Guild for having me on the tour and sending me a copy of the book. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.