The Favour: 'Absorbing, intelligent and atmospheric ... a razor-sharp twist. Genius' Elizabeth Haynes

By Laura Vaughan

'Absorbing, intelligent and atmospheric... Genius' Elizabeth Haynes
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Fortune favours the fraud...

When she was thirteen years old, Ada Howell lost not just her father, but the life she felt she was destined to lead. Now, at eighteen, Ada is given a second chance when her wealthy godmother gifts her with an extravagant art history trip to Italy.

In the palazzos of Venice, the cathedrals of Florence and the villas of Rome, she finally finds herself among the kind of people she aspires to be: sophisticated, cultured, privileged. Ada does everything in her power to prove she is one of them. And when a member of the group dies in suspicious circumstances, she seizes the opportunity to permanently bind herself to this gilded set.

But everything hidden must eventually surface, and when it does, Ada discovers she's been keeping a far darker secret than she could ever have imagined...

'Intelligent, elegant and immersive' Claire Kendal

'A compulsive story, written with steely intelligence and wicked prose' Elizabeth Buchan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Corvus
• Release date: Feb 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838952037

Laura Vaughan

Laura Vaughan is Professor of Urban Form and Society at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. In addition to her research into social cartography, she has written on many other critical aspects of urbanism today, including her previous book for UCL Press, Suburban Urbanities: Suburbs and the Life of the High Street.

Reviews for The Favour

[vanessacw · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ada Howell is desperate to fit in with the ‘in’ crowd, the dilettantes. When her godmother offers her the money to go on an art history excursion to Italy, she jumps at the chance. As Ada’s aspirations and predilections mount, one of the group dies in suspicious circumstances and she finds herself embroiled in a peculiar turn of events of her own making.I really enjoyed the style of writing, it’s beautifully and eloquently scripted. The story itself, however, is a slow burner and quite unusual. I loved the beginning, it really drew me in and then I started to find it a tad tedious. It could be that it was a little too arty for me. The characters were well drawn but so shallow, I didn’t take to any of them. I loved the descriptions of Italy, especially Venice as it took me back to when I visited there some years ago now. It does have vibes of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which I absolutely loved, but ultimately The Favour didn’t quite hit the spot for me.