100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Fast overnight NZ delivery πŸš€ Don't forget Father's Day is next weekend πŸ“…

The Favour

3.8 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 10,993 ratings, 1,748 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Favour follows Leah Dawson and McKenna Hawkins, two smart, professional women living parallel lives in a sunny, prosperous neighbourhood. Though strangers, both are trapped in marriages dictated by the need to be the "perfect wife," enduring their own personal hells crafted by their husbands. Their paths cross, revealing shared secrets and pain. Neither narrator is unreliable; their truth is raw, dark, and compelling. This tense thriller explores the lengths to which women will go when pushed to the edge.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2799
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers of psychological thrillers and domestic noir who appreciate dark, character-driven crime stories exploring complex relationships and the consequences of secrets and deception.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

The Favour is a dark domestic-suspense debut from Nora Murphy – for those who enjoyed Harriet Tyce’s Blood Orange, Louise Candlish and B. A. Paris’s Behind Closed Doors.

Leaving would be dangerous. Staying could be worse.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

'Taut, compelling and deliciously dark' - B. A. Paris

Leah Dawson and McKenna Hawkins had a lot in common, but they had never met.

They are smart, professional women living in the same sunny, prosperous neighbourhood in lovely houses with picket fences and beautiful gardens. And they were both married to successful, good-looking men who both seem bent on having the perfect wife.

They don't ever find themselves in the same train carriage or meet accidentally at the gym or in the coffee shop. And they don't ever discuss their problems and find common ground.

But they do cross paths. And they see something each recognises in the other.

That they are living in hell.

Neither narrator is unreliable. They always tell us the truth. And their truth hurts. A lot. Because these two attractive, intelligent professional women are living in a hell of their husband's making. And there is no way to get out of hell. Is there?

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Praise for The Favour: "Taut, compelling and deliciously dark" – B. A. Paris, bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors. "Dark, unsettling, brave and compassionate" – Victoria Selman. "A beautifully written yet chilling glimpse behind the curtain of relationships gone badly wrong" – Fiona Cummins. "A page-turning debut that will have you questioning the lengths you’d go to save someone else" – Sandie Jones. "A thrilling debut I couldn’t put down" – Shari Lapena. "A brilliant, gripping, dark and superbly written debut" – Gilly Macmillan.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529068832

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 08 December 2022

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Pan Books

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 33.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 294g

Pages: 416

About the Author

Nora Murphy attended law school in Washington, D.C., where she was an editor of Law Review and participated in two clinics, through which she studied the legal issues facing, and represented survivors of, intimate partner violence. She also studied 'professional' perpetrators of domestic abuse - those with high-profile careers or respected positions in society, and the unique challenges faced by their victims. Nora currently practices family law. A voracious reader, avid writer, sometimes sanctimonious vegetarian and devoted animal lover, Nora resides in Maryland with her husband, young son, three cats and two dogs.

Also by Nora Murphy

View all
  • Ours Is a Tale of Murder
    First, it was a tale of love. Then, it was a tale of murder. "A shocking collision made all the more satisfying by Murphy's brilliant twists...Clear your scheduleβ€”you won't be putting this down until that last, mesmerizing page." - Carter Wilson, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of Tell Me What You Did One quiet neighbourhoodThree different familiesBound by...
    Paperback
    $3800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The New Mother
    Sleepless nights were just the beginning . . . Natalie already loves her newborn son, Oliver, with everything she has. From the moment he was born, she knew that she was meant to be his mother. But when Oliver refuses to sleep, and her husband Tyler returns to work, Nat is left alone in a new neighbourhood, the task of...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The New Mother
    It wasn't the sort of neighbourhood for murder. Natalie Fanning already loves her newborn son, Oliver, with everything she has. From the moment he was born she knew that she was meant to be his mother, even though she didn't want that to be all she was. When Oliver refuses to sleep, and her husband Tyler returns to work, Nat...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Country House Living
    Following her success with Nora Murphy’s Country House Style, Murphy celebrates a selection of homes and their homeowners, each exemplifying a different style. For Nora Murphy, a country house isn’t so much a place as it is a state of mind. A country house is warm, welcomingβ€”at once down to earth, yet elegant. A country house has genuine character, tells...
    Hardback
    Sold Out

More from Crime & Thriller

View all
  • New Release
    Dying Days
    Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating. In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite. May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Country Road Murders
    Buy to Win
    New Release
    The Country Road Murders
    From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding thriller about justice, vengeance and the roads that lead us home. No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades β€” LEE CHILD Cross Rivers is the kind of small town where everyone knows your name – and your secrets. Silas Tucker...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Every Lake
    Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Nautilus
    New Release
    Nautilus
    The follow-up to the bestselling novel The Turing Protocol. Nautilus is a machine with the astonishing power to send messages eight weeks back in time. Its users must follow a set of protocols established by its inventor, Alan Turing, including that it can only be used by a descendant of his family, and only to avert global disasters. But what...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Cold River
    New Release
    Cold River
    The sensational new novel from the author of the bestselling thriller, The Creeper, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly... Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria's high country. But there's something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Buy to Win
    New Release
    It Could Have Been Her
    PREPARE TO BE HOOKED: The no. 1Β Sunday TimesΒ and MULTI-million-copy bestselling author is back with a brand-new spine tingling thriller. It was the night she almost died. Jane Trevally, newly divorced and feeling a little lost, agrees to accompany a man she doesn't know to his house in the darkest corner of Hampstead Heath. She's offered a drink, goes in, and...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Buy to Win
    26 Beauties
    The twenty-sixth thrilling novel in the globally bestselling Women's Murder Club series. Beautiful young women are disappearing by the dozen. A celebration is cut short when a concerned father crashes Detective Inspector Lindsay Boxer's party. His daughter is missing - and she's not the only one. DI Lindsay Boxer has been tracking a chilling pattern: a Jane Doe washed ashore,...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Secrets We Hide
    The stunning new North Falls thriller by the bestselling author ofΒ We Are All Guilty Here 'Quite simply, Karin Slaughter is the best of us' Dervla McTiernan Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets. The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery...
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Buy to Win
    The Parkwood Murders
    They came for an escape, but can they escape a killer? Detective Nicola Bridge returns in another gripping and immersive mystery For its loyal guests, Parkwood Holiday Village in west Dorset is a haven- woodland walks, a tranquil lake, service around the clock. Until, just after midsummer, a body is found floating in the swimming pool. Detective Nicola Bridge, exhausted...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    Backorder
    Ships mid September
  • On Sale
    13% off
    Hope Rises
    'BALDACCI IS STILL PEERLESS' - THE SUNDAY TIMES REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD . . . Walter Nash, working under the alias of Dillon Hope, is on the road to revenge after becoming an informant for the FBI against a global criminal operation headed up by Victoria Steers. Steers has ripped everything Nash held dear away from him....
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Slash
    A year after a brutal shootout left her lover dead, ex-police sergeant Honey Chalmers is a hot mess, drinking too much and eating too little, working casual gigs for a shady firm of private investigators β€” while holding conversations with a ghost. A desperate father asks her to investigate his missing son β€” a double-murder suspect last seen during the...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • A River Red With Blood
    The players call it the Game, and its aim is simple: to abduct and kill a stranger without getting caught. They're very good at it. They've been playing it for a long time. And they can keep playing as long as everyone sticks to the rules: No Killing Close to Home and No Killing Outside the Game. But those rules...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.