What a brilliant story of a great character - it was bold, extremely clever and full of rare insight into the live of this woman. I found it compulsively readable.

Amazing!!!! The Favour is such a clever and immersing book, and I can’t wait to go back and read it in written word form.

With echoes of The Secret History, The Favour examines power structures within groups of friends. The whole book was beautifully written - I could picture it all. The first-person protagonist was the perfect unreliable narrator: annoying and self-absorbed, a portrayal of callous social climbing.

This book really transported me to Rome and to the life of the rich and entitled, the tension was just right and I was dying to see where it would go from the first few pages.⁠

It was a great look at the elite, how people long to be part of it and how one split second choice can shape a life. I loved the ending as I genuinely wasn’t expecting it and overall really enjoyed the book


I think the narrator really got the vibe and tone right.⁠

When Ada Howell’s adoptive father dies she and her mother are forced to sell the grand but fading country house in Wales and move to a much more modest home in the suburbs of London. How is Ada to make the connections she craves with the sophisticated and privileged elite from this humble base, she wonders. And then a rejection from Oxford University rubs salt in the wound. But a gift from her godmother, who largely funds a two month art and history trip to Italy, provides Ada with an opportunity to rub shoulders with just the sort of people she is seeking. So starts this engrossing tale, a story that starts slowly but ends with a punch to the gut I’m still reeling from.

The trip is to commence in Venice and move through various locations including Florence and Rome. When Ada joins the group – she arrives a little late as she’s saved money on travel by booking a cheap flight to more distant Treviso rather than the city’s official airport – she quickly realises that many of the small group are established friends and some are even related to each other. Integrating herself successfully into this group is going to be harder work than she expected. The trip is run by a small company called Dilettanti Discoveries and the party will be accompanied on their journey by three young, well informed guides.

Ada comes across as scheming and rather hard to like, dropping into conversation tales of the grand house the family were required to sell off and calling attention to the fact that her late father was a writer. She’s tough on the one naïve American in the group and watchful of the others, ever looking for ways of gaining their interest and their trust. One member of the group in particular takes a dislike to her – and she to him. The author introduces a lot of detailed information on art and architecture here which is a little on the heavy side for my tastes but did a provide a sense of authenticity to this trip, designed to be a modern representation of the Grand Tour of old. But then an incident occurs, a death. The circumstances are odd and it shakes up the group, disrupting the mood of reverie and self-congratulation.

This first section of the book is really just a warm up to the main story. We follow Ada’s ongoing communications and occasional meetings with members of the party on their return from the trip, her determined attempts not to lose contact with the Dilettanti, as they now call themselves. Is she still an outsider or has she now cemented her place amongst these more wealthy and better connected people? And what of her future: what course should her career, and in fact the rest of her life, take - and can she use her ‘friendship’ with these people to oil the wheels along her chosen route?

From this point I really wasn’t sure where the story was going to go. There’s some interesting byplay between the characters: some achieve stellar success and others drift away somewhat and there’s a degree of sniping too. But it all comes together in a tense finale where the story is truly stood on its head. This is a well written, if somewhat artsy, tale that held my interest throughout and produced what for me was a truly surprising, indeed shocking, ending. It’s the first adult novel from this author who has previously written a number of books for children. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more of her literary mysteries, which put me in mind of Emily St. John Mandel and Donna Tartt.

"This is not my place, these are not my people".

Quite a catchy mantra to illustrate the core of this wonderful book: how far would you go to fit in?

Ada is obsessed. Adopted as a baby by the great writer Anthony Howell, she is desperate to belong to his world, to be "one of them". After his death when she was 13, she'd had to endure the disappointing ordinary life her mother wanted for her.

However, a chance to reclaim her rightful destiny presents itself when her godmother offers to pay for her to embark on a trip throughout Italy: "The Dilettantes' Discoveries". 8 weeks amongst the elite society following a tradition established since the 17th century, to "delight" in arts and intellectual discovery and enjoy "la Bella Vita".

Ada has one goal: to become essential to those entitled and privileged people that are part of the voyage, to be part of their inner circle and appear indispensable. When tragedy strikes, the perfect opportunity to enmesh becomes reality, but at what cost?

Laura Vaughan's writing is brilliant. I adored her exquisite depiction of Italy, its art and monuments, its streets and treasures. It made me travel right there and then to those places I have been to before and where I desperately long to go back to. She successfully made me feel the air and the heat on my skin, smell the scents, taste the food, bask in the beauty of this country.

The characters are so full, complex and deep, you are compelled to try and enter their thoughts, only to be proven wrong about what you thought you knew.

Such a gripping mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end with exciting twists and turns. This book is a true delight. An successful immersion experience that I highly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and W.F.Howes Ltd for giving me the opportunity to listen to the audiobook.