Reputation
A Novel
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3.8 • 25 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Astonishingly timely and clever, it’s also utterly gripping.” —Lucy Foley, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Sarah Vaughan has done it again. Superb.” —Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author
The bestselling author of Anatomy of a Scandal—now a hit Netflix series—returns with a new psychological thriller about a politician whose less-than-perfect personal life is thrust into the spotlight when a body is discovered in her home.
As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career—including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora.
A former teacher, the glare of the spotlight is unnerving for Emma, particularly when it leads to countless insults, threats, and trolling as she tries to work in the public eye. As a woman, she knows her reputation is worth its weight in gold but as a politician, she discovers it only takes one slip-up to destroy it completely.
Fourteen-year-old Flora is learning the same hard lessons at school as she encounters heartless bullying. When another teenager takes her own life, Emma lobbies for a new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online bullying and abuse. Now, Emma and Flora find their personal lives uncomfortably intersected…but then the unthinkable happens.
A man is found dead in Emma’s home. A man she had every reason to be afraid of and to want gone. Fighting to protect her reputation and determined to protect her family at all costs, Emma is pushed to the limits as the worst happens and her life is torn apart.
Another breathless and twisty novel from an absolute “master of suspense” (CrimeReads), Reputation brilliantly illustrates that it isn’t who you are that matters…it’s who people think you are.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A crusading politician must balance family, career, and a murder charge in this taut and timely psychological thriller. British MP Emma Webster has worked tirelessly to avoid any scandal that could hurt her political career, sacrificing her marriage and alienating her 14-year-old daughter, Flora, in the process. But when an inquisitive journalist gets too close, Emma finds herself facing a murder charge that could cost her everything. Weaving together multiple viewpoints, author Sarah Vaughan makes us feel the pressure cooker of political life. As the tightly wound Emma begins to unravel, we get an up-close look at the double standards that elected women face. Reading Reputation is like watching someone walk a tightrope—where one wrong move can lead to ruin.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British writer Vaughan (Anatomy of a Scandal) considers the corrosive impact of social media on the lives of girls and women in this timely, twisty story. Divorced English parliament member Emma Webster divides her time between the house she shares in London with fellow politicos and her home in Portsmouth, where she lives with her 14-year-old daughter, Flora. After she does an interview with a London paper complete with a photo shoot that makes her look "more like an Oscar-nominated actress than a Labour politician," she's swarmed by trolls on social media. Meanwhile, Flora endures an equally intense online campaign directed against her by her former best friend, until she finally snaps, with consequences that lead to trouble for both her and her mother. But there's a more pressing problem: the dead body found at the foot of the stairs in Emma's London home. Just who the person was, and what Emma did or didn't have to do with its appearance, are the questions Vaughan explores with nail-biting suspense. While the focus is more on hot topics than character development, Vaughan delivers plenty of insights into how a person's reputation can slip, and the ways violence can spring out of the pressures of being in the spotlight. This is as thoughtful as it is surprising.
Customer Reviews
Lacks character depth
While this was an engaging story, it was not one of my favorite psychological thrillers. I felt the court case drug on a bit too long, which lost my attention from time to time, so I had to go back & re-read parts to stay on track. I thought the plot twist with Flora at the end was good. I just felt as if the characters lacked depth, even while being integral to the story - namely Caroline & both of Emma's roommates. Worth picking up if you like crime/courtroom dramas.