A Simple Favour - Darcey Bell

[goodreads]

Title: A Simple Favour
Author: Darcey Bell
Genre: Suspense
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 371
Date read: May 2020

She’s your best friend.
She knows all your secrets.
That’s why she’s so dangerous.

It starts with a simple favor—an ordinary kindness mothers do for one another. When her best friend, Emily, asks Stephanie to pick up her son Nicky after school, she happily says yes. Nicky and her son, Miles, are classmates and best friends, and the five-year-olds love being together—just like she and Emily. A widow and stay-at-home mommy blogger living in woodsy suburban Connecticut, Stephanie was lonely until she met Emily, a sophisticated PR executive whose job in Manhattan demands so much of her time.

But Emily doesn’t come back. She doesn’t answer calls or return texts. Stephanie knows something is terribly wrong—Emily would never leave Nicky, no matter what the police say. Terrified, she reaches out to her blog readers for help. She also reaches out to Emily’s husband, the handsome, reticent Sean, offering emotional support. It’s the least she can do for her best friend. Then, she and Sean receive shocking news. Emily is dead. The nightmare of her disappearance is over.

Or is it? Because soon, Stephanie will begin to see that nothing—not friendship, love, or even an ordinary favor—is as simple as it seems.


I saw the movie of the same name not knowing it was based on a book, so when I read that in the credits, I knew I had to read the book as well.

It was ridiculously readable, as I knew it would be, and the main complaints I saw in other reviews didn't really bother me, as they were all things that occurred in the movie as well, so I knew they'd be there. But at the end of the day - I enjoyed the movie more. The book didn't have the charm that Anna Kendrick brought to the movie, and they had changed the ending quite a bit for the movie... and for once, I actually preferred that ending to the original (possibly because I encountered that one first? Very possible).

All in all - while I might watch the movie again, I doubt I'll read the book again.