Another cracking page turner from Sarah Vaughan that taps into the zeitgeist. It's a very-of-the-moment account of life as a female MP and the dangers of life with the Internet.

I raced through this on a rainy Sunday. I always feel bad when I read a novel in a day, but I also think it means it's a great book. "Unputdownable" as they say.

Having read and loved Anatomy of a Scandal, when I saw this on Netgalley I just knew it was a must-read for me and Sarah did not disappoint at all! What a cracking read, I think it had a lot of similarities to Anatomy of a Scandal and I feel like it was referenced a few times - Sarah has a very unique style of writing and she makes it work!

A great write from Sarah. thank you to Sarah and Netgalley for allowing me this ARC!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily.
I have not read any other books by this author but have just watched 'Anatomy of a scandal' on tv and was thrilled to discover I had this book ready to start reading. Anatomy of a scandal is set around a politician and the court case forms the centre of the story; this book has those points in common but I found it completely different and just as enthralling. I think billing it as a 'courtroom drama' is a mistake because the buildup to the court case is very important, involving current themes of social media, trolling and bullying. I didn't find the outcome of the court case predictable, and the final twists in the story brought major surprises.
I've enjoyed this book so much I'm signing up to follow the author.

A great introductory chapter! Engaging and sympathetic, I already want to know what happened to Emma and how she ends up on trial. I have bought the finished copy and cannot wait to finish it.

A story of our days- Emma is a backbencher labour MP, who is willing to speak up about the tough and controversial issues, such as porn revenge. She has lost her husband to her really good friend after being elected and she is very protective of her 14 year daughter..

Everything changes when a political journalist, who she has been working with to push a new law, is out to get revenge following a night together.

This will terminate with his death- but is she guilty of killing him?

So many layers to this book, but first and foremost how women (and even more successful women) are perceived by the society and how men feel the right to throw verbal abuse at them.

Emma is an MP and single mum , juggling her time between the two and making a pretty good job of it all .
But tragedy is just around the corner and slowly Emma's life becomes unravelled and she finds herself on trial for murder .
Brilliant writing from Sarah Vaughn but the characters were so unlikeable -I didn't really care what happened to them

Thankyou NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review

A well written and very well researched book which covers some dark issues so not just an easy read. I’m probably a bit out of the loop in that whilst I do use social media I never seem to enjoy stories that feature quotes from it. Just a personal thing though.

Emma is an MP and has a promising career ahead of her. But then a scandal with her daughter followed by the dead man in her house. Can the truth be found out without losing her reputation in the process.

I'm not usually a big fan of political stories but this one interested me. It wasn;t quite as good as Id hoped and I wanted a different reasoning for the events but I liked the twist with her daughter and step mother. The plot is quite a steady flow throughout the story. The ending was good and I liked how everything was tied together especially the section with Rebecca. A good read but not quite for me.

I have to admit I have a copy of Anatomy of a Scandal sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read ... I will definitely be reading it sooner rather than later after reading this title!
Emma Webster is an MP whose personal life has suffered as she has entered the political world - she has lost her husband and does not have as close a relationship with her daughter, Flora, as she would wish. As an MP she is considered fair game by online trolls - she has her supporters, but of course she has her detractors and she feels under constant threat of attack. Her friends and family consider her to be faultlessly honest
This is a psychological thriller and a court case - the plot is fast moving and there are twists and turns - a compulsive read.
The subject is very topical.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Sarah Vaughan/Simon & Schuster for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

This book had me hooked from the start - I flew through it. A really fascinating read dealing with a very topical issue

All hail to my new court-room crime fiction writer; none other than the brilliant Sarah Vaughan. I do not know why I did not read any of her books before, and I feel lucky enough to be included in a Tandem Collective readalong for two of her books - one being 'Reputation'. And what a treat this one was.

First of all, even though I thought the plot was going one way, it went a totally different way. But I did not mind one bit. Because by the end, I found this a brilliant well tied-up thriller, that it was definitely worth my time. I have started to love a good suspensful court-room crime novel, and this was went into so deep and the author did such a thorough research on everything that went on in court, that it felt super intense at points. I honestly did not know how things would turn out for the main character.

Definitely will be reading the author's back log now, as she's made an impression on me and I very much looking forward to seeing her previous book being adapted for the TV series soon by Netlix.

Kindly thank you to the publisher for approving me for an early read of this in exchange for an honest review,

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A clever and well-written in vogue book. A recommended read.

Great first chapter but hadn't realised that was all there was. Difficult to review the whole book from that so middling 3*.

A brilliant and timely novel on the way the voice of a woman in the public sphere is distorted through the lens of societal mores, this novel spoke to me on so many levels. As a woman in her 40’s, it is too easy to understand exactly why Emma Webster decided to go with the magazine cover that really thrust her into the spotlight-she was seduced into feeling like a sexual being again, something she had not been since the dissolution of her marriage to Flora’s father, David.

Her feeling of invisibility as she orbits the hinterland between maiden and crone, is instantly relatable. She wants to use her unexpectedly premature promotion to local MP,-predicated on wanting to be able to create visible, tangible change-to elevate the voice of the underdog, whether they are home grown or foreign. Tackling the issue of revenge porn and demanding tougher sentencing for the lives which are, in many cases, irreparably ruined, she is making a stand for women’s rights, and causing no end of backlash in her wake.

So when the novel opens with the death of a man, potentially murdered, and lying unnamed on the floor, you want to know what led up to this point and, more importantly from the tone of the novel’s synopsis, whodunnit and why.

It is the age old story of the hens in the henhouse squawking for help and disturbing the farmer from his sleep, who decides that having put chicken wire around the coop, they should just be quiet and go to sleep. Unfortunately, he has imprisoned the fox in with the chickens, so when he finds blood everywhere in the morning, he blames the chickens for not being louder. And this is the case with the #MeToo movement, apparently women have ‘spoilt’ men’s fun in being able to ogle, harass, intimidate and otherwise persecute the women in their lives. Crimes are meaningless and forgettable as vigils and marches proclaim ‘Never again’. Until it happens again, in even more luridly reported headlines and op eds.

In the midst of this, we have a female MP who is in a position of power, someone who could raise these issues in Parliament. In order to get here, however, she has lost her husband, physically and metaphorically. The David 2.0 is a remodelled version, far fitter and happier than he was with her, therefore here is her failure as a wife. Her daughter, Flora, is being bullied via social media as well as in school, her step-mother, Caroline, is more aware of this than Emma, so there is strike 2, she fails as a parent. Shocking, and yet scarcely predictable scenes in her constituency clinics , when she comes face to face with the face of male vehemence. Her voters feel she has let her down, as she is fighting for women’s rights, against a sea of ‘whatabouttery‘ from the men. She is even, according to men on Twitter, ‘unrapeable‘ (btw, none of this surprises me, you do not have to dig very far at all to see the absolutely appalling language people seem to feel is acceptable to throw out from behind their keyboards on a daily basis. How sad is that?)

As Emma’s life seems an entirely thankless and powerless existence, you stop and wonder is it a pyrrhic victory, her MP-ship? Can effective change ever be more than aspirational?

But as you dig deeper into situations and relationships, you quickly become aware that misogyny on an epic scale means pretty much any ,man in her life could be the corpse. And if so, good riddance.

She is fighting battles on so many fronts that it would be easy to write her off as a victim, but this is a woman who has passion in her blood, and a promise to her father to keep. The MPILF, as she is known by male MPs is absolutely not going to sit down, be quiet and behave. However, in so doing, is she ignoring a woman who needs her, so much closer to home?

A political, social, and psychological thriller which could have been weighed down by its dark subjects, this is an incredibly engaging novel which examines just what you have to sacrifice in order to build a reputation worth fighting for. And, when you look in the reflection of it’s glow, do you even see your true self anymore?

When it is broken, will its shards turn and cut you,

Can it ever be rebuilt?

Who wants to destroy Emma, and why?

Is it what she represents, or her actual self who is a target?

There wasn’t anything I did not like about the way Sarah writes, from several, principally female, perspectives. She creates a highly readable insight into Parliamentary processes, the work of MPs ,and just who you can-or cannot-trust. It deals with subjects which many might feel disturbing, however, whilst she is not unflinching in the depiction of the consequences of certain individuals actions, she is never exploitative in discussing suicide, murder, and revenge porn.

Reputation is such a brilliantly written thriller and so timely! Sarah's such a skilled writer at giving the reader many layers of story and emotion to propel the book along. The themes of how women are treated at work and at home resonated loudly and is definitely one I've already been recommending and will continue to do so! A proper page turner; loved it!

I loved this fast paced thriller. I couldn’t put it down, I read it in one sitting. Highly recommended. Five stars ⭐️

Many thanks to netgalley and Sarah Vaughan for the advanced copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

I wanted to give ‘Reputation’ 5 stars but something held me back. It’s an engrossing read and its fast pace style keeps you on the edge of your seat, however my expectations were perhaps set a little too high as I had so enjoyed ‘Anatomy of a Scandal’. Maybe it’s not Sarah Vaughan’s fault per se as there has been so much media coverage in the last couple of years of political scandals and social media shaming that to read about yet another, albeit a fictional account, of such an issue felt a bit too much like overkill.

This book saw me hooked from the very first chapters, instantly wanting to know more. Emma Webster is a divorced former A-Level history teacher in her mid-40s and an MP in the Portsmouth area, with 4 years of experience, campaigning for laws on revenge porn to change. She finds a dead body at the bottom of her stairs. She has recently appeared in a newspaper article for Guardian Weekend which has prompted some individuals to send her nasty and threatening messages on social media. Reputation is stylishly written and I enjoyed the courtroom scenes in the novel. The author has artfully created the multi-layered, pull-no-punches narrative to keep the reader in a mind-changing flummox about what has actually occurred. Very highly recommended.

A special thank you to Simon & Schuster UK, Sarah Vaughan, NetGalley and Pigeonhole for the opportunity to read. This review is my unbiased opinion.

I had some time today to sit down and read and I soared through this book in one sitting - I couldn't put it down. I absolutely loved the scandal of this book. It is filled with politics and drama, highlighting the issues that women in politics continue to face even today. It shows that although we have progressed so much, in terms of feminism, women who dare to speak up still face abuse and mistreatment. The sad thing is, I found this book to be quite realistic (for the most part), as we've seen from the treatment of female MPs such as Stella Creasey, Naomi Long etc, that women will face abuse if they choose to support other women and the feminist agenda in Westminster.

I thought this book was brilliantly thought-provoking whilst remaining entertaining. I would recommend to a friend.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

Sarah Vaughan is a fantastic author who definitely deserves to be a bestseller.

“𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗿𝘀. 𝗔𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗱𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 𝗔 𝗷𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆. 𝗛𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗲𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝘂𝗽, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝘆 𝗶𝗣𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗵. 𝗜 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲: 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗳 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗶𝗺. “

This is a book that has pulled me in from the very first lines. As a reader you instantly want to know more and delve into what has happened to lead to these events.

Emma Webster is an interesting character, MP campaigning for laws on revenge porn to change. Only as a reader, we see her personally affected by this after her daughter retaliates. I love how Vaughan has dealt with these themes.

Reputation is a compelling read that keeps you turning page after page. Vaughan has included drama, suspense with an element of misogyny present as well. We see Webster talked about and described in a way that some still feel appropriate.

I have devoured this, page after page. I was definitely kept up late by this one and I can safely say that I have no regrets. I have been completely enthralled and unable to predict where this was going to go.

I love the mix of characters present, I love that we get the alternative perspective. This gives us insight from different angles to what is taking place.

This is an outstanding read. Sarah Vaughan is a brilliant author and I can safely say, this is quite possibly my favourite book of hers yet.

I cannot say anything negative about this book. It is definitely one for the TBR.