Meet Jude, a doctor, who has found love and is planning her wedding. In fact you could say her life is pretty damn perfect.

That's until her ex and first love Liam shows up after an 11-year absence wanting a big favour.

But it's a strange favour to say the least, and Jude knows she should say no.

And she soon wishes she had.

As on the day of the favour after lying to her fiancée. Liam ends up dead and Jude finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation. That could shatter her perfect world in two.

And as introductions to authors go. This was an enjoyable one. As The Favour was a tension filled psychological drama that easily had me turning the pages, and I'd certainly look out for more from this writing duo in the future.

Once you get past the rather absurd (author's word) trip to Norfolk then the book becomes really good and readable to a twisty, slightly obvious, end.

The main character, Dr Jude Winter is a successful doctor, and she is planning her wedding to Nat.

From nowhere her first love, Liam, turns up asking her to do him a favour and this involves the above mentioned trip. Apart from revealing that Liam turns up dead I am not keen to spoil the book any longer !

The other characters are in a sort of commune, and Ms French could have developed some of these a little more. As for Jude, she appears to be weak and lacking in common sense. Maybe, that is what the author was trying to get across. I'm not sure.

Lots of good stuff and I actually enjoyed it despite all the misgivings. I will now try other books from Ms French.

Thanks to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster UK for the chance to read and review.

Absolutely superb read. Another gem for the collection. I have loved everything bout this one. This is unpredictable and completely addictive.

Jude hasn't seen Liam for 10 years but he was her first love. Then a car crash changed everything and they split up.
She is now a doctor , looking forward to her wedding.
Liam turns up asking a favour and she agrees but he is then found dead and she is drawn into the murder investigation and everything she has worked for looks as though it will be thrown away.

The whole story revolves around a favor being asked by someone who the lead character was in love with 3 years ago and the preposterous outcome of undertaking this stupid favor.
I felt that the characters were all unlikeable and improbable. I guessed who did it about two thirds of the way through the book but the police didn’t!
A totally forgettable book which I could not recommend, unlike so many thrillers that I have read.

A really great story hooking you in whilst trying to work out what is going on. There is so much potential and so much unsaid that you always have doubt....

As a newcomer to the books of Nicci French I read this book with an open mind and did find it satisfying, but with a few caveats. The premise on which the book is based was a little far fetched, but once it has been accepted, the book proceeded with a pacy story, well drawn characters and settings, and a readable style.
Dr Jude Winter had just finished a shift in the Geriatric department of her hospital when a boyfriend from her past approached her and asked her to do something pretty suspicious for him. You may well ask why she would agree, but the answer becomes clear as the book progresses, and the reader meets a large cast of characters, ranging from the very conventional to the very weird, and pretty much everything in between. Of course the action involves murder and mayhem, but as a whole this is a satisfying, well written story, and one which will steer this reviewer back to these writers in future.

A well-written and clever story with great (although not really likeable) characters. This book had me gripped from the first page.

I am grateful to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Having read Nicci French before, I looked forward to reading The Favour. However, as the book unfolded I found myself sadly disappointed.

The story rambles, backwards and forwards too many times. The central character trying to do the favour, Jude, comes across as weak and insipid, traits compounded by an equally uninspiring police lead. The same questions are asked of every character in the book, over and over, and progression is painfully slow.

I found way too much verbiage, and ended up skipping sections to try to find the next solid development, at times a fruitless search. What might have been an excellent, dastardly plot - Liam [the one who seeks the favour] planning to bump off Jude in a nefarious plan to escape justice - vaguely emerges towards the end of the book.

And, to cap it all, the book finished with a whimper, as though Nicci had run out of ideas.

Maybe life is like that, but when you chose to read a thriller, you expect to be entertained and, dare I say it, thrilled. I was not, and I would recommend potential readers, who have not read Nicci French before, to start elsewhere in her collection.

I am a long term fan of Nicci French books but this one missed the mark for me somewhat. From the outset it was fairly obvious the hold Liam had over Jude and the reasons she would do him a favour without even knowing what.
Although the parts of the story looking back on Jude and Liam's teenage love affair and the accident that changed the course of their lives were excellent the present day story was muddied and confused in places and failed to flow with the usual page turning tension.

Thank you Simon & Schuster and Net Galley for this book.

I just love this couple's way of writing, and this was another great book from them. As usual, great storyline, great characters, full of twists and turns and well paced.

Next one please !!

Thanks to @netgalley for the advance copy.

I’ve been a fan of the writing team of Nicci French from their very first books, more years ago than I care to remember! In my view they are always interesting, very readable and you don’t want to put them down until they’re finished - and this one is no exception.

I did find the premise difficult to believe - I guessed the reason why Jude was willing to give a no questions asked positive response to a clearly very odd request from her long ago first serious boyfriend, Liam. Nonetheless, I thought it was unlikely that over 10 years later she agreed without asking more questions! Putting that aside, the tale that plays out is intriguing and draws you in. Liam dies and has clearly been murdered and Jude is at a place he chose with some of his belongings including his phone,

There is a cats of unlikeable characters as Jude gets drawn more and more into Liam’s life, his partner and child, the unconventional household with an underlying sense of menace. You get the sense that Jude is increasing danger and in the background her personal life which was previously happy, is falling apart. No one is willing to believe that Jude didn’t have some sort of current relationship with Liam or why would she have agreed to his request? The police are also sceptical, to say the least.

This is a book with few good people and a lot with their own agenda. Liams family, particularly his mother and brother are also drawing Jude back into their circle, even though as a teenager she really wasn’t involved with them at all. Inexplicably, Liam has made her executor of his will, but is there anything to leave his dependants?

I enjoyed this book but I don’t necessarily think it’s the strongest they have produced. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable read and I wanted to know how it was going to all tie together and end. There are some surprises and some more dangerous situations to navigate, keeping you turning the page until the end!

Jude is a doctor just coming off nightshift when an old boyfriend she hasn’t seen since she was 18 turns up at her hospital asking to see her. She agrees to go for a coffee with him as he has a favour to ask her.
Jude is engaged but decides not to tell her boyfriend about the meeting or that she has agreed to help him. She makes an excuse about going to see her elderly grandmother.
We later find out the reason Jude agrees to do this for Liam is because he once did a very big favour for Jude when they were 18.
The story then becomes very complicated and I think it went on too long before reaching the conclusion with lots of characters you couldn’t warm to.
I loved the Niki French series featuring Frieda Klein but, unfortunately, this book was not as good in my opinion.

I've read several Nicci French novels and enjoyed this one just as much. Jysr, the main character is a doctor engaged to be married. When she is approached out of the blue by her ex she foolishly agrees to it and starts a chain reaction of events which sees her life unravel. She is a really flawed character- who seems unable to make a sensible or concrete decision- despite being a caring doctor for the elderly.
I thought the twists were good, loved the descriptions of the bohemian housemates and thought she tackled grief very realistically.

I've read and enjoyed other Nicci French books, and loved the premise for this one, so I was excited to read it, but unfortunately this one fell so flat for me.

Jude hasn't seen former boyfriend Liam in years, not since the car accident that would set them on different life paths. Jude, now a successful doctor and engaged to be married, is therefore shocked when Liam turns up at the hospital where she works to ask her a favour: he needs her to drive to a country cottage with his things, and then pick him up from the train station the following day. Jude agrees - she owes Liam, after all. But when Liam doesn't turn up at the station, and then the police arrive to inform her that they've found his body, Jude is suspect number one. She knows she didn't kill Liam - but then who did?

Again, I loved the premise, but it was so dubiously executed - the characters were 2D at best, and made ludicrous decisions that were clearly just to further the plot as easily as possible. They were also, across the board, completely unlikeable. I also guessed every plot twist way before it happened as the signposting was clunky throughout, and I was frequently willing myself to get through scenes full of tedious characters that just went on and on, seemingly just to up the word count.

I would still read future books from this author as I've enjoyed previous novels, but this one was such a departure that it felt as though it had been written by someone else,

Thank you to NetGalley, and to the publisher, who granted me a free ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley

Having read all the Freida klein novels I was eager to read this new book by the authors. It was good in parts. The character of Dermot was strong. The younger brother belittled by his mother as second best. Liam the favourite could do no wrong but was sometimes impulsive and often manipulative. I thought that Jude was wishy-washy, I get that she was grieving but she drifted along getting involved with the people in the house instead of sorting her life out, not what I would have expected from an educated doctor. So all in all I was a bit disappointed.

This is the first book I have read by this author, and I'm not sure I'll be reading more..
Judes life is going well, she is a successful doctor, and she is planning her wedding to a man she loves. Out of the blue, her first love, Liam, turns up asking her to do him a favour. Despite the fact she hasn't seen or heard from him for years, she agrees, and ends up a suspect in a murder case, putting at risk her career, her wedding, and possibly her life.
I found the ending disappointing, I had little or no liking or sympathy for any of the characters in the book, even the main character, Jude, who, to say she is a doctor, appears to be lacking in common sense.

At the beginning I was gripped and thought I was really going to enjoy this book. I reached 25% before my interest started to wane and it became a bit slow and boring. Jude quickly began to get on my nerves with the unbelievably stupid decisions she made. How many times was she going to leave that wretched ‘party’? Then look where it got her! I didn’t like any of the characters and the plot just didn’t work for me. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc.

Dr Jude Winter cares for geriatric patients in a busy London hospital. She is engaged to Nat and their wedding is looming on the horizon. A surprise visitor after a shift is a blast from her past which starts a catalogue of events that Jude could never have imagined.

This is my first book by this duo, and it started really well. The first quarter of the book was interesting and I was hooked. However, such a lot of repetition, plus Jude is possibly the most annoying and gullible character I have read for a long time. Careering from one naive action to the next, Jude’s actions are unbelievable and at times cringeworthy. She is supposed to be an intelligent doctor, well respected and likeable, but ends up being a nightmare! After a good start it became predictable and boring.

The premise of this book was good, but Jude’s characterisation spoilt it for me.


Thank you NetGalley.

I must confess that this novel was not what I imagined it might be. It was a weirdly compelling read for me. I say weirdly as it's more of a mystery novel than a thriller. and I generally prefer the latter. Everything in the plot seemed plausible other than the unusually hedonistic wake and Jude's sexual dalliance (I am given to understand that there is an urge for procreation following a death) but that didn't quite sit with Jude's character. However, the wake was littered with clues pertinent to the plot. I liked the way that Jude's madness to accept the 'favour' was revealed and given credibility later on in the novel. The parting remarks from Vin left the novel with an apt but shattering conclusion. All in all, a cleverly crafted plot and immensely entertaining.