Every edit has one argument in it, and it is almost always about the same picture: the one you love most and the one that fits least.
Why it usually goes
A favourite is usually favourite for a reason outside the book. It was a good day, the light was extraordinary, someone said something kind. None of that is visible to a client, who sees only whether it agrees with the pages around it.
The test we use
Cover it with your hand and read the sequence without it. If nothing is lost, it was decoration. If the book suddenly says less, it stays and something else goes instead. This takes about a minute and settles most disagreements.
Cutting a good photograph is not a judgement on the photograph. It is a judgement on the sequence.
Where it lives instead
Social, your own site, the wall. A book has one job and eleven pages to do it in. Everything else you have shot still exists, it just is not doing that job.
Build the book
The full build: audit, styled studio day, ruthless edit, printed comp cards.