This had some interesting characters and I liked the premise of being asked a favour from someone from your past. However after that I was struggling to find more good points it wasn’t very thrilling and main character made some questionable decisions and I was left mostly asking Why!?
Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

The writing duo behind Nicci French have never managed to write a bad book in my opinion, but over the years there have been varying degrees of success as to how well the suspense and the plot of each thriller is conveyed. I enjoyed most aspects of ‘The Favour’ - it’s very readable, the main protagonist Jude comes across as someone you want to root for. However there are times when the plot turns a little too fantastical or characters have dialogue that sounds unwieldy or a little off-kilter. It’s an intriguing premise for a book though.

Glad nicki French is back to stand alone intrigue ! I was very engrossed but half way through I felt a difference and it may have been one of the writers switching
I found the funeral scene went on and on and her trying to leave funeral and I got a bit bored
However over all I was finding I turned pages as wanted to know why on Earth he set that up and what the end game was

Nicci French has never disappointed this reader, and The Favour was one of the most original books I've read in this genre for a long time.

Jude is a doctor, shortly to be married to Ned. One day on leaving work she comes face to face with a boyfriend from her late teens. He wants her to do him a favour, and due to their shared past, she agrees. What comes next is at times bizarre, but a fantastic illustration of how far, and how fast, lives can unravel.

The pacing, the suspense and the characters were all perfect even though many of the characters were quite unlikeable, they were just on the right side of believable.

Huge thanks to the partnership of Nicci French for providing me with a book that I longed to get back to..

The favour depicts ordinary life. When Liam turns up asking Jude for a favour after all theses years, she can not say no. I was left wanting to know what the Favour was and got me gripped.
The favour leads to the police contacting Jude and she is under investigation for murder as Liam is found dead.
The plot is a little slow in parts but does have some surprising twists which made me eager to find out what’s next.
Overall a good read

Let me start by saying that I’ve been a fan of this husband and wife writing duo for some 20 years. I like their nice, easy writing style, and that they’re pretty much a dead cert for a suspenseful, twisty plot.

Sadly, not on this occasion, however. I quite enjoyed The Favor, but it just didn’t have the same sharpness about it that I’ve come to expect from Nicci and Sean.

The book kicks off with a promising premise. Geriatric doctor, Jude, leaves work one day to find an old flame from her teens waiting for her. Liam has an odd, but seemingly harmless, favour to ask. He wants her to take his phone and his car and drive to a country cottage, where he will later meet her. Jude hasn’t had any contact with Liam for over ten years, but she owes him, so agrees. Only it’s not Liam who turns up at the cottage but the police. Liam has been stabbed to death, and Jude is the prime suspect.

To read any further, you pretty much have to suspend disbelief. As a convincing protagonist, Jude doesn’t quite cut the mustard. She’s smart enough to be a doctor but a complete airhead when it comes to making decisions. She’s quickly eliminated from the enquiry and could easily walk away but instead chooses to get involved with Liam’s angry partner and son and the motley bunch of people they share a house with. It’s the kind of situation any normal person would run a mile from, but not Jude, who inexplicably digs herself in deeper and deeper.

If you were being generous, you could look at Jude as an interesting character study. One whose past comes back to bite her, throwing her life into a tailspin and making rational decision-making impossible. I was persuaded to buy into this idea at first but bailed when Jude’s actions descended into the ridiculous.

For me, this questionable characterisation cast such a pall over the whole book that not even the strong premise and sound plotting could fully rescue it. Disappointing from this duo, but I guess even writers are allowed a bad day at the office. I shall still look forward to their next book.

I was so disappointed by this novel. I have read all of the Nicci French novels and have enjoyed them. So I feel let down by this offering.. The plot and characters are far fetched and therefore I could not believe in what I was reading. I was so ready for a good, thrilling read but it as not to be. You will of course make up your own minds but for me this was a complete let down.

I quite enjoyed this book. There was real intrigue throughout which kept me reading. It is a page turner as you want to find out what Liam wanted her to do as a favour.

This book started off strong with the first few chapters getting to the point and outlining a dramatic foundation.

I feel after Liam’s death the story line plateaued a bit - with Jude having the same/similar conversations with many of the characters. As a doctor Jude would be perceived as intelligent, however, throughout the plot she does make questionable decisions which could be deemed as intriguing by some readers or frustrating for others.

With a few shocks along the way I did enjoy the book particularly Jude’s last encounter with Liam’s friend casting a new element of mystery that I had not thought about.

Absolutely awful! The worst Nicci French I’ve ever read. The plot and characters didn’t even make sense. Did not finish

"The Favour" by Nicci French has an exciting storyline that initially hooks the reader. I was intrigued by the favour Liam wanted from Jude after such a long time. As soon as he was insistent on giving her his credit card, it was obvious what he wanted from her. Jude, despite being a doctor, was very bright. She was very slow to come to conclusions and realise things going on around her. She was a very passive character who got swept along in things that she should have just left alone.
Due to this behavioural trait, her actions were frustrating and may leave readers feeling exasperated. For example, the party after the funeral was hard to read due to Jude going around in circles trying to leave. Plus, why did she keep drinking!?!? This drove me mad, and I wanted to throw the book or Jude, for that matter, across the room.
After such an intriguing start, the book goes quite slow and becomes repetitive, with the protagonist, Jude, constantly repeating herself. This made it hard to keep an interest in the story when she was telling the 100th person the same story. So I felt like I plodded through most of the book and was hoping for an explosive ending.
I wasn’t disappointed; the ending was action-packed and satisfying. It made up for the slower pace of the middle of the book and left me thinking long after finishing it.
Overall, "The Favour" may not be the best thriller novel for readers looking for fast-paced action and an engaging plot. However, those who are more patient and enjoy character-driven stories might appreciate the book.

I’d like to thank Simon & Schuster UK and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Favour’ written by Nicci French in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Jude hasn’t seen her ex-boyfriend Liam since they were eighteen and is surprised when he tracks her down at the hospital where she’s a geriatric doctor. When he asks her to do him a favour by driving his car to a rented Airbnb house in Norfolk she immediately agrees as there’s always been unfinished business between them. Liam doesn’t turn up but the police do telling Jude that he’s been found dead in East London, and she finds herself unwillingly drawn into his murder investigation.

‘The Favour’ is a superbly written twisted psychological mystery featuring Jude, the reliable doctor and friend, who gets involved with a complicated household that has no rules or boundaries. The characters are perfectly sculpted and consist of Liam’s partner Danny and their young son Alfie, the motley crew of hangers-on who all live together in the semi-derelict house, his parents and brother Dermot. I wanted Jude to keep her distance from them but for whatever reason she kept returning as she became further hooked into their unsavoury lifestyle until her very existence was at risk. So when I eventually reached the final chapters I breathed a sign of relief that Jude had come out of it unscathed, and the addictively dramatic story proved without a doubt the talent of this amazing duo of Nicci French.

A fantastic read!

Nicci French never disappoints! I’ve been reading and loving their books for the last 20 years. This fantastic writing duo have the ability to create stories that are fascinating and suspenseful and they are always highly original.

This book had me hooked from the start, engrossed throughout and left me wanting more at the end!

Jude has a great life! She works hard as a doctor, has a lovely boyfriend Nat and is currently planning their wedding. So, when Jude’s first love from her teenage years rocks up and asks her to do him a big favour, you’ll all be screaming ‘No’ at the book as much as I was!

By agreeing to the favour Jude’s life is soon turned upside down and she’s drawn into a strange world with some very unsavoury people! This book is full of secrets, lies and a murder investigation! What more could you want from a psychological thriller?

As always, Nicci and Sean have created some fantastic characters. They always love to give us a strong, stubborn woman who rarely follows police advice and Jude is exactly that! 😂

I love how quirky and bizarre some of the characters are. I didn’t trust anyone apart from Jude and desperately wanted her to get away from these people she’d found herself involved with. Danny made me nervous and Vin made my skin crawl, whilst many of the others didn’t sit right with me either. It’s an incredible talent to create such characters.

The story is well-written and perfectly paced. Don’t get me wrong some parts are a tad unrealistic, but who cares! It’s fiction and if it makes the story great I don’t mind if there are some unlikely scenarios.

A gripping read that has a dark and chilling element to it! I highly recommend this to any fans of psychological suspense!

Thank you to Nicci French, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for my copy of this book.

Loved, loved loved this book! Jude meets her childhood love Liam, and agrees to do him a favour, what could go wrong? When the police turn up instead of Liam and she is found with a bag of his belongings, how is she going to explain that she is innocent? The shocking realisation that one spur of the moment decision could change the rest of her life kept me on the edge of my seat and turning pages with speed. Highly recommend!

I was completely hooked at the start wondering what exactly was 'the favour' and why Jude? But sadly towards the middle it seemed to lose its way and things got distinctly weird with the introduction of Liam's housemates. Then for the ending I guess I was expecting something more in terms of the reason for 'the favour' - more complex, more unique, more of a twist or just simply more. Also I get that Jude felt guilty but even so it was still extremely hard to believe a supposedly intelligent doctor would behave so erratically and unravel so quickly. So, a great start but a disappointing overall.

The husband-and-wife writing team behind Nicci French has been hugely successful over the years and seeing their name in print is all it needs for me to pick up the corresponding book, as I know I’m going to be in for a roaring read. This books starts with an unusual premise: night nurse Jude agrees to do a favour for Liam, the man who was her boyfriend when they were both teenagers. She agrees to travel to a remote cottage to meet Liam, and to hear his plan, but when he is murdered before he can get there, Jude becomes a suspect in the eyes of the police and is plunged into a nightmare beyond her bravest dreams.

At multiples instances in this novel, Jude appears so guileless and gullible that it is hard to believe she is a grown woman who makes her own way in life, but then this is escapist fiction: Jude’s meetings with Liam’s housemates are perhaps the strongest example, and it takes a bit of readerly will not to abandon this hapless character, but to plough on with the novel. Overall, however, this is a great read from the Nicci French stable and I thoroughly recommend it. Thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley for the free ARC I was granted in exchange for this honest and unbiased book review.

Another great book from the fantastic team that is Nicci French.
I’ve read and loved all of their books and although for me this wasn’t a 5* it’s an excellent twisty story where I felt I was living Jude’s life as it took her down a dark and disturbing path.
Well worth a read

This is a great read which is full of secrets and lies.
When Jude is told there’s a visitor for her at work she has no idea who to expect. But when she sees it’s an old boyfriend from 11 years ago, she’s very confused.
Liam is there to ask her for a favour and Jude feels obliged to agree.
This means she’s in a cottage hundreds of miles away from home waiting for Liam to arrive, when she receives a call from the Police.
I’ll let you discover what happens next but brace yourself for lots of twists and turns.
I felt for Jude throughout this book as she tries to help people but nearly always ends up making the situation worse for herself.
This is a great read that I really enjoyed.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
Jude is a doctor, her patients are the geriatric, she is engaged to Nat and planning their wedding,
Out of the blue Liam Birch turns up at the hospital asking for her, he was her boyfriend when she was 18, she was infatuated by him then, she hasn’t seen or had any contact with him for 11 years.
What could Liam want? He simply wants a favour, he wants her to drive his car to a remote cottage in Norfolk he instructs her to use his card to buy fuel, he tells her he will meet her there. Jude agrees to this, she tells her fiancé Nat lies and sets off on her journey. She follows his specific instructions, she waits and waits at the cottage but Liam doesn’t arrive, she brings in his bag which contains both his wallet and phone, but still no Liam.
When DI Leila Fox comes on the scene, informing Jude that Liam wont be arriving, he Is dead , Jude finds that her explanation doesn’t satisfy the Detective and she is under suspicion.
Jude’s life begins to unravel at an alarming rate once the press discover her involvement in this mysterious crime, was Liam’s death a mugging gone wrong or did someone murder him
Jude decides to investigate herself and before long is in the middle of what was Liam’s rather bohemian lifestyle, the strange house and housemates he, his partner Danny and their son Alfie shared. Jude is mysteriously drawn to this strange group of people. Her relationship with Nat is over.
There are many layers to unravel, some very strange characters, bizarre relationships and a twist in true Nicci French style.
I found it dragged on a little towards the end, a few of the characters were irritating and unlikeable and I wanted to shake Jude a few times.
Overall a good 4 star read.

The doctor, Jude, gets asked to carry out a favour for an ex-lover, not knowing what the favour is. She agrees, which is odd, but later we find out why. Meanwhile, her ex is murdered and while the police thought she might be in on the murder plan, they gradually begin to believe her. The problems begin when she installs herself into the family and commune of the dead ex and they don’t believe her stories and explanations, until suddenly she finds out she’s an executor of the will and takes on the task. She should have refused, but the book would have been short.
I enjoyed most of the story, but got caught in several chapters all within one party, the wake, and I wasn’t sure how silly this woman must be to keep getting in deeper and deeper until all is lost.
She talks to the police a lot and this probably saves her life along the way.
Most of the story is about someone consistently making the wrong choices, which gives us the conflict, but you wonder why she didn’t choose differently. What happened in the past clearly defines what happens today in this story. The writers make the reader compelled to shout out to Jude to walk away, but she can’t.