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A Simple Favour

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A Simple Favour

By: Darcey Bell
Narrated by: Andi Arndt, Xe Sands, Matthew Waterson
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About this listen

A Simple Favour is a twisting free-fall ride filled with betrayal, reversal, secrets and revelations, love and loyalty. Darcey Bell ratchets up the tension in a taut, unsettling and completely absorbing thriller that holds you in its grip until the final minute.

It starts with a simple favour - an ordinary kindness mothers do for one another.

When her best friend, Emily, asks Stephanie to pick up her son from school, she happily says yes.

Their children are classmates and best friends. And five-year-olds love being together - just like she and Emily. As a widow and stay-at-home blogger mum living in suburban Connecticut, Stephanie was lonely until she met Emily, a glamorous and successful PR executive.

The trouble is that Emily doesn't come back. No matter what the police say, Stephanie knows that she would never leave her son. Terrified, she reaches out to her fellow mummy bloggers.

And she also reaches out to Emily's husband - just to offer her support.

What Stephanie hasn't shared are the secrets buried in a murky past.

©2017 HarperCollins Publishers US (P)2017 Macmillan Audio Amateur Sleuths Domestic Thrillers Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Mystery Psychological Suspense Thriller & Suspense Tie-in Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Detective

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Critic reviews

"A psychological thriller that is as hip and relevant as it is gripping.... I couldn't stop reading about these two truly terrifying moms!" (Plum Sykes, author of Bergdorf Blondes)

"Riveting and brilliantly structured, A Simple Favor is an edge-of-your seat domestic thriller about a missing wife and mother that relies on a rotating cast of unreliable narrators to ingeniously examine the cost of competitive mom-friends, the toll of ordinary marital discontent and the fallacy of the picture-perfect, suburban family." (Kimberly McCreight, author of international bestseller Reconstructing Amelia)
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Cleverly written with great twists along the way that keep you guessing. A page turner!

Not such a simple favour it would seem...

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What started out as a story with such great potential, ended up having a terribly boring anti-climax of a plot twist.
Not a bad book all in all but the suspense didn't really go anywhere.

Disappointing ending

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Although I enjoy US TV and Movies, I do sometimes find US narrated audio books off putting for some reason and find myself drawn in and engaged more by classic UK or Irish actors as narrators so this was a challenge for me as I really wanted to read this book ....... and I did get into it quite easily and found the Stephanie and Sean characters' narration excellent though I did not feel Emily's narrator was similarly well cast, as did not conjure up for me the glamorous. youthful character as described.
For anyone, like me who has a similar bias, I would encourage you to give it a go as I so enjoyed it and saw the movie when I had still a few chapters to go as I had heard the ending was very different. I did enjoy the movie though it was more or less a comedy cartoon version of the much darker and more subtle book.
I loved the linear storytelling and the three characters slightly overlapping on their version of events and thought that this and the plot were very well crafted and I very much enjoyed how the characters were revealed by the other characters' insight and opinions of them which allowed the reader to see beyond the way they present themselves to us in their chapters.
I loved the way the characters also confided the truth of events to the reader despite conflicting versions given to other characters which really kept the story twisting and turning. Indeed despite having seen the movie and having been gripped and enthralled by the story I simply had no idea how it would all end - and I much prefer the book's ending to the movie, though it was nice to have read/heard/seen both.
I highly recommend this clever, carefully crafted and intriguing character driven book. I read it right on the heels of Lethal White (which I loved also) by Robert Galbreith and although they are very different books I found them both absorbing, substantial and so well thought out - top quality reads that you can really get your teeth into and rattle along making one want to equally go slow to savour the journey while itching to unravel the next mystery and find out what the next unexpected roller coaster reveal will be.
There are so many sloppy and poorly written thrillers published these days, with plot holes you could ride an elephant though, ones with interesting premises which hook you in only to lose momentum or just have silly anticlimactic rip off reveals often that people were just off their meds and imagined a lot it . It really does make you wonder if Editors still exist in publishing as there is often so much repetition, glaring errors and simply terrible talentless writing. Similarly there are so many dreary kitchen sink drama murder mysteries with such drab characters leading such mundane and depressing lives that it is a real grind to follow their progress, but in complete contrast, this intelligently written story really sparkles and delights with uplifting glamour and panache like a flawless gem. Such a lovely treat after being disappointed so many times by the aforementioned grim genre.
I am so looking forward to reading/listening to the next Darcey Bell book and also will be exploring more of Patricia Highsmith's work as it is featured and I am guessing the author was inspired by her. Another positive thing is that I am now more open to try another US narrated audio book on the strength of this excellent mystery thriller.

BRILLIANT BOOK - SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE MOVIE

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The narrator's are perfect and the story line keeps you guessing right until the end... Don't bother watching the film though!

Excellent

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I enjoyed the 3 narrators of this book and the many twists and turns within it. very well performed

well performed mystery

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Personally, I hated the narrators so much it made me dislike a perfectly good story.
if you can't do accents then don't.

narrator just awful.

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Really good performance and good story, not a fan of the ending though, I was expecting something more spectacular! but great overall.

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I found the characters in this novel fascinating. I read this prior to seeing the movie and I am really glad that I did. The book is darker and more complex than the film and I enjoyed it much more. There is an element of suspense and fear that is not possible to translate into a film script.

Deeply Dark.....

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Great multiple narrators.

The plot thickens and the protagonist becomes the antagonist.

Well worth the perspectives and what comes out of the woodwork.

Great book where aIhate the main characters.

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What starts out as an exciting story becomes totally unbelievable midway through. None of the characters are likeable either. The ending leaves you hanging.. but its certainly a "page turner"

Plot twists a bit ridiculous

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