The Accidental Favorite

From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace Adams comes a wryly resonant and deeply moving family dramedy investigating the question so many of us have asked ourselves: do my parents have a favorite?

Vivienne and Patrick Fisher have done an excellent job raising their three daughters, Alex, Nancy, and Eva. They're well-adjusted women with impressive careers, caring partners, exciting hobbies, and sweet children. So it's with great anticipation that three generations of Fishers gather at a beautiful glass house in the English countryside for a weeklong celebration of Vivienne's seventieth birthday. But when Patrick's reaction to a freak accident on the first day of the trip inadvertently reveals that he has a favorite daughter, no one is prepared for the shockwaves it sends through the family.

Decades-old unresolved sibling rivalries are suddenly unmasked. And be it newly uncovered smoking habits, ancient crushes, or private doubts about life decisions both big and small, no one's secrets are safe. Still-tender wounds are reopened amid an audience of friends, husbands, grandchildren, and even coworkers, and as the family's past is re-written, they find themselves suddenly unmoored.

In a lively, poignant examination of memory, sisterhood, and family ties, Fran Littlewood reminds us just why it is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Author: Fran Littlewood
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Published: 06/24/2025
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.08lbs
Size: 9.42h x 6.44w x 1.11d
ISBN: 9781250857118


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 04/25/2025 pg. 1
Publishers Weekly 04/07/2025
Booklist 05/01/2025 pg. 24
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2025
BookPage 07/01/2025

About the Author
Fran Littlewood is the author of Amazing Grace Adams, which was an instant New York Times bestseller and a #ReadWithJenna book club pick. She has an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. Before her MA, she worked as a journalist, including a stint at the Times. She lives in London with her husband and their three daughters.