The depth, the depth, the depth. A book that dives ever deeper and you just have to follow it, you can't turn away even though you know whats coming. This book will be a huge hit.

You can see why this is being tipped as the next "Thriller of the Year". It's a genuine page turner and has a real hint of Gone Girl and Girl on a Train elements to it.

The story is set between present day and 25 years earlier and is told from 4 different character point of views. This works well and it's not an issue switching between different years/perspectives.

There's a good pace to the book and plenty of twists along the way. Although I did predict some it didn't ruin the enjoyment as you still want to know how things unravel.

There's some real cold hard themes in the book particularly relevant to the current news cycle. The release of this cannot come soon enough!

Wow! This book is going to be massive when it comes out! I love reading a book where the author clearly knows the subject and it shows in this one, A fascinating story and a book I very much enjoyed and learnt something from. Highly recommended.

Wow! Not just a book but a life experience! So much content & so much to think about. Incredibly well written and with the distinct flavour of reality - especially in the current climate of political scandal! The twist in the plot is a masterstroke.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this in return for an honest review - this is so good it's a keeper, one I will return to time & again

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan is a story of adultery, rape and lies. A Tory MP is accused of rape by his former mistress. His wife does not believe this accusation and stands by him. I found this book shocking and hard to read in parts because of the way that women were treated. This book will appeal to fans of Apple Tree Yard. I would like to thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I kept hearing about this book, so just had to read it myself to see if it lived up to all the hype. Always dangerous of course. It's a good thriller, but loses its way towards the end. The story follows James, an MP and junior minister, his wife Sophie, and barrister Kate. James is a high flying political figure and close friend of the Prime Minister - they went to Oxford together, having already been friends since childhood. However, a scandal is soon to upset James' and Sophie's world when he is accused of a heinous crime. Kate is the barrister who is trying to prove him guilty, but James is adamant he is innocent. With flashbacks to their Oxford days (Sophie was James' girlfriend back then), we are built a picture of characters and relationships, and realise that everyone has secrets to hide and skeletons they'd much rather were left in the cupboard.

The story runs at a good pace, and you don't get confused with the alternating of time periods and character's viewpoints. There is a twist in the story which is obvious from early on, and I got a little bored with Sophie's character as the 'dutiful wife'. It was interesting that Kate's story is told in the first person, but everyone else is in the third. Is that showing importance of the character?

A good courtroom political drama.

This is a cracking read, and so spookily relevant right now. I've enjoyed both of Vaughan's previous books, but this goes to another level. Beautiful writing, and a perfectly judged plot. So deserves the attention it's getting! I'm already looking forward to the film. Or should it be a TV series..? One quibble was maybe that we lost sight of Olivia a little too much, but I appreciate there was a balance to be struck. Overall, a well-deserved five stars. Thanks so much for the opportunity to read :)

This story revolves around a court case where Sophie's husband is accused of rape. But there's a lot more to the story than that and there's a lovely twist in the middle. At it's heart, it's an interesting tale however, the reading experience is marred by an over-abundance of description, which slows the pace down to a standstill in places, while we admire the architecture of a made-up college in Oxford. Whole chapters could be axed and it would do nothing to detract from the story. Sentences are over-flowing with semi-colons and dashes, which makes the reader have to read them several times to wheedle out the meaning. Some sentences are even blessed with a couple of colons to go with the semi-colons and a hyphen or two. With all this description, I never really got close to any of the characters and just got frustrated with the whole thing.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for an ARC copy in return for an honest review.

I was fascinated at the timing of this novel: the news is currently full of similar scandals both in the UK and the US.
Essentially a typical story of lust and betrayal, but with an interesting twist. Told from multiple viewpoints, the story leads us back and forth in time, leaving clues while leaving us guessing. Recommended.

D.N.F. Really didn't like this book. Hated the characters from the beginning. Not my type of book!

I started reading this book just as the sexual harassment cases were coming to light in the UK and a more relevant novel would be hard to find. The story centres around James a high flying member of the cabinet, his chum from Oxford days, who happens to be the PM and a prosecuting barrister, Kate.
James has been accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a member of his staff leading to a charge of rape. Kate is prosecuting him but this is complicated by events in her past.
James' wife, Sophie, who has known him since they were at Oxford stands by him despite knowing something that happened there. He was a member of the a dinner club called The Libertines which is a thinly disguised copy of the notorious Bullingdon Club renowned for its rowdy and sometimes thuggish behaviour beloved by certain upper class types.
What happened all that time ago,? Will James' charisma and charm get him through? All this and great writing kept me wanting to read on.
This is a great read, topical, with plenty of twists and turns to keep you turning the pages.

Fascinating thriller combining an insight into parliamentary intrigue and the legal system. Thoroughly enjoyable and hard to put down.

First of all I want to say that this is an amazing debut novel, it is so well written. The story dips between present and past, and centres around Oxford and the elite of society at work and play. Oh how the past can come back to haunt you, those fingerprints in the sand never really disappear. This is about a court case, an alleged rape, and involves a prominent, rising politician, his wife, and someone from his past who really knows what happened. There is a delightful twist about half way through, which I had started to suspect. This story has a bit of everything from scandal, lies, half truths, moral dilemmas, betrayal, revenge and so much more. Very readable, I loved it!

If this is the standard of novel that we are to expect in 2018 then it’s going to be an amazing year! I tried to put this one off until much nearer to the publication date but it just proved to be too tempting especially in light of recent turns of events!

There’s probably no better time to immerse yourself in the scandalous affairs of the self righteous, formidable figures in positions of authority who think that they are unimpeachable. This is a relevant read in the current political atmosphere, which is thick with accusations and allegations of sexual harassment and assaults at the heart of our countries parliament. Sarah Vaughan handles her fictional account of this sensational legal case with an exceptional insight which made me wonder what sort of insider knowledge she actually had as this book cuts very close to the bone at times!

One of the first things that struck me about the way the narrative developed was that it was told from three different points of view. Nothing new about that you may say. But I personally would have expected the third POV, after those of James and his wife Sophie, to have been that of his accuser. But in a cleverly crafted convolution the third viewpoint is that of Kate, the barrister brought in to prosecute James and bring him to justice for the rape she is convinced he is guilty of. This element added an extra dimension to their characterisation allowing us to gradually peel back the layers of mistrust. The narrative flowed with an indecently compelling pace peppered with some rather shocking revelations along the way!

I don’t know why but I felt more uncomfortable and voyeuristic watching the relationship between husband and wife than any interactions between James and his accuser. It felt very raw, packed full of those very personal conversations that only exist between two people who think they know the other person almost as well as they know themselves. Sophie was determined to stand by her husband without hesitation but how well do we really know that person, the one who lays beside us, open and laid bare night after night?

Once started this book will prove impossible to put down. I found it to be a compelling and intuitive portrayal of a marriage in crisis, beautifully written and emotionally hard hitting. It was a brilliantly executed must read for fans of books such as Appletree Yard (a personal favourite of mine and Anatomy of a Scandal compares very favourably indeed!!) so be prepared to be gripped by the book that EVERYONE is going to be talking about in 2018!

Highly recommended by me!

This story failed to draw me in. I completed reading it, but found it overly reminiscent of an episode of legal drama TV and not really anything beyond that. I was disappointed because from the title I thought there would be a forensic science aspect but this was not the case - I hoped for a clever plot with subtle clues but it was much more focused on the effect of the case on various people. If you want an insight into the emotional aspects of a legal case on family members then this would be the book for you. There were a few too many coincidences for me and I wasn't excited by this story.

The novel is written in point of view chapters. We are introduced to a successful, single, very thin and driven female barrister who specialises in prosecuting sexual assault cases (in England). She loses a nasty case in the opening chapter but is given a case she has waited a lifetime for by her clerk. We meet further players in the drama. A high ranking politician with a beautiful, blonde wife and children who discovers her husband has been having an affair but the girl he has scorned is now claiming he raped her.The chapters weave back and forwards through time from when the main protagonists were at university. The accused a member of a thinly disguised Bullingdon Club and best friend with the now prime minister. The case is complex and could have far reaching effects for each of the P.O.V.

The narrative rolls along quite nicely although some information is repeated and the main characters are kind of 2D charicatures. There is a twist (that was easy to guess early on but which I hoped would not happen) about a third of the way through that I really disliked and found unbelievable (even within the parameters of the narrative) which led me to lose any credulity I still possessed. I finished the book in an afternoon but it lost any sparkle for me after this reveal.

Think of living a perfectly lovely married life when suddenly your husband is accused of a heinous crime. Set in Oxford moving through from college days up until ministerial work. Sophie and James have been married 12 years but with James past before marriage an affair is inevitable. Olivia the other woman is in love with him but when he breaks it off she is devastated, one last time in a lift in the house of commons sees Olivia crying rape and James brought to trial. Kate the prosecutor knows James because of a previous encounter at uni and knows he's guilty but can she prove it?
I liked the way this was told from the characters point of view jumping from one to the other and building the suspense. A really good read.
Thanks to netgalley and the author for a preview of this book.

An excellent, highly entertaining debut for Vaughan.
The characters are multilayered and well developed, and the plot uses a past/present, back-and-forth style to create tension and suspense as it unravels the personalities, motivations, and histories of all those within it.
Would definitely recommend.

I thought this book was brilliant and couldn't put it down! James Whitehouse, an MP and close personal friend of the Prime Minister, is being tried for rape. The story is told mainly from the perspective of James' wife, Sophie, James himself, and the prosecuting barrister, Kate. James and Sophie met at Oxford, and descriptions of that time form an important part of the plot. Consent, entitlement and revenge are at the heart of the story. I really recommend this as an excellent read. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.

Wow - I really enjoyed this book - it was a very satisfying read and bang up to date with current scandals in the news. I had a lot of sympathy for both the main female characters in the book and the way they dealt with events, but found James's belief in his entitlement to anything he wanted to be well portrayed and believable. Highly recommended read.