Reputation is a fast paced, cut-throat game of politics and courtroom drama that will have you turning the pages to find out what really happened!

When you’re a politician, your reputation is everything! Every word and every move are scrutinized to the n-th degree. What happens when your teenage daughter makes a poor judgment call that threatens your political career and everything you stand for? What happens when the tabloids jump on the opportunity to slander your name in the press? What happens when the very person who was threatening your reputation is found dead?

Reputation comes out July 5th, 2022.

Thank you to Atria books for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A moving and engrossing story of a female politician whose personal live takes center stage when a dead body is found in her house. Emma knew she wanted to get into politics but thought she’d have to run several times before being elected. Now, four years later, she’s lost her husband and her 14 year old daughter is drifting away.
Told from alternating POVs, mainly Emma and her daughter Flora, my heart ached for Flora. She’s scared to death. And possibly for good reason. Her mom is the recipient of numerous threats - letters, tweets, emails. They’ve sealed up the cat door and attached an anti-explosive bag to their letter box. Also, her mom barely has time for her. “But she was so fired up with her work that it sometimes felt there was no room left: that Flora’s fears had to be squished around the margins, squeezed into the tiniest slivers of time.”
I loved the twists the story takes, the topics it covers - bullying, porn revenge, internet trolling, how far a journalist will go for a story, what a parent will do to protect a child. Vaughan skillfully uses the story to make some interesting points about the interactions between the press and politicians. How if you’re a public figure, your whole life is fair game. “I didn’t feed the media beast, and so it has become more ravenous, and now it has turned.” I loved that it made me question the slippery slope of how far the press should be allowed to go.
This has been described as a psychological thriller, which I feel is a misnomer. There’s no unreliable narrator, no red herrings thrown in. It’s an extremely believable story. While I could question certain decisions Emma made in the heat of the moment, I could also understand. There are two twists at the end, one of which which was easily foreseen and didn’t impact my appreciation of the story.
My thanks to netgalley and Atria Books for an advance copy of this book.

This is my first book by this author...surprisingly and I was impressed! This book was well written with a well developed plot and excellent characters! The pace of the novel kept me turning the pages quickly. The plot and messaging of this book was also unique which I appreciated. It added an additional element other than pure reading for entertainment. this is a must read!

Reputation is a novel by Sarah Vaughan which follows her very successful novel Anatomy of a Scandal. Reputation follows a female British MP who has been experiencing social media attacks, and the wrath of local constituents for her stand against revenge porn. Emma is divorced and the mother of a fourteen year old daughter Flora. Emma grows more and more anxious about the possibility of virtual and actual attacks. This anxiety culminates in a reporter's invading her home, where he is the victim of what Emma calls an accidental death. Adding another layer of angst for Emma is her daughter Flora's being accused of sending inappropriate images of a classmate to a male friend. Great read!

Reputation is a multiple POV story about just that—reputations. Mainly those of Emma, Flora. Leah, and slightly, Amy. It was well-written and fascinating to dive into the complicated nuance that is a woman’s reputation. The twist with the photos both shook me and enraged me for the character. I also really enjoyed the surprise character that was revealed to have helped out in the end.

I wouldn’t totally categorize this as a murder mystery or thriller, despite the opening of the book, but more of a drama or even a political fiction, given the topic.. Precisely like Vaughan’s other popular book, Anatomy of a Scandal. Sarah Vaughan, once again, takes a heavy and loaded topic and writes a story that causes the reader to contemplate the topic deeply. I will be thinking about Reputation for weeks to come, I’m sure.

Amazing. Sarah Vaughan has written another suspenseful courtroom drama - with twists and turns right up until the very end. I love unpredictability and this book certainly fit the bill. Great depth of character, excellent dialogue, superb storyline. Loved it!

Everything about this book is perfection - the title, the cover, the writing, the plot, the character development - five stars! I love a book with an ambitious, complex female main character and this one hits it out of the park. Fast paced, relevant, and with an ending I didn't see coming, I'll be recommending this one far and wide.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. I read Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan and enjoyed it so I was thrilled when I received this ARC. Reputation does not disappoint. I admit - scandalous, salacious reads are my guilty pleasure. Emma is a politician in the U.K. A single mother to a teen aged daughter, she gave up a lot to achieve what she has. The media follows her, disgruntled constituents verbally abuse her and threaten her but she is very much about doing what is right. Her daughter gets into trouble at school and a journalist decides he needs to report on it. The situation escalates and results in a death. Ms. Vaughan's writing is tense and fast-paced. I read the book in a matter of a few days because I was anxious to get to the outcome and I wasn't disappointed - there were many twists and turns along the way. I look forward to reading more of Sarah Vaughan books.

The author is most known for her book Anatomy of a scandal, which is a Netflix show now, but I first discovered her thru her book Little Disasters which I absolutely loved. Make sure to check that one out! This one is a really high wire tension political courtroom thriller so if that’s your jam, you will lobe this.

I will admit i was a little wary because it started off a bit slow but by a few chapters later it really grabbed my attention and picked up the pace. Emma is a politician who is intent on keeping her life in line for the public and she’s doing a pretty good job until she finds a dead man in her house. This leads to her arrest for a crime that she didn’t do and leaves her daughter unmoored and alone when she needs her most. Flora is struggling with bullying. As the plot follows getting to know previous happenings and Emma’s work on revenge porn laws, it flashes into courtroom scenes which really break down how problematic social media bullying and the news cycle van be. Mixing in these timely topics really makes the book come together very nice..

This one is definitely worth a read.

REPUTATION reads like it was written as a TV mini-series. Considering the success of her last book, it’s understandable that Vaughan would want to go there again. That’s not necessarily a bad choice because she gives us yet another timely and thought-provoking story about politics, law and media from a woman’s perspective. As its title suggests, this time her focus is on reputation, its importance in politics and life, what can threaten it, and the lengths people will go to preserve it. In this case, the villains are muckraking journalists and social media trolls. The damsels in distress are Emma Webster and her daughter, Flora.

Emma is a fully realized protagonist. She evokes both sympathy and admiration, alongside some truly unfortunate character flaws. On the plus side, she is a former teacher who has taken on a political career ostensibly to do good, unlike many of her colleagues today who seem to view politics as a way to do well. Emma’s reputation is on the rise in Parliament because of authoring “Amy’s Law.” Amy was a teenage constituent who committed suicide as a result of online bullying. The law is not well described in the novel but seems to be aimed at preventing such tragedies. It is not surprising, however, that criticism, hate, and threats accompany Emma’s heightened profile. On the minus side, Emma is a workaholic with impossibly high standards. Her career has laid waste to her marriage and is jeopardizing a close relationship with her teenage daughter. When threatened, Emma also impulsively lies and fabricates to protect her reputation. Her unreliability as a narrator does, however, add to the mystery that Vaughan creates. In the final analysis, Vaughan has not given us a whodunit, but a didshedoit.

The novel is set in London’s high stakes political world rife with spin and moral ambiguity. Social media and tabloid journalism play prominent roles in evoking a mood of menace. Vaughan characterizes the latter with some truly unsettling imagery. We have water handy at news conferences to treat acid attacks; chairs strategically placed to ward off attackers; bags checked for guns and knives; and chilling bicycle commutes through darkened city streets. Layered on this background are treats to Emma’s reputation caused by rumors of a drunken one-night stand with a tabloid journalist and her daughter texting nude photos of a bullying classmate.

All of this tension explodes when Mike, the journalist in question, is found dead by Emma in her London flat. Was it an accident or foul play? What was he doing there in the first place? Was he threatening to expose Flora’s childish indiscretion? Emma’s initial impulse is to protect her reputation with a coverup. This proves to be an unfortunate mistake. Once again, the truism—it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup—seems to hold. As inconsistencies in her story soon arise, Emma finds herself charged with murder.

Vaughan’s narrative is realistic and well-researched. Her choice to portray Emma’s trial from her perspective is particularly effective. Tension and suspense mount as the evidence for and against her is slowly revealed. To Vaughan’s credit, the reader is left until the final pages to wonder about her guilt and whether or not she will get off. Emma’s naïve view of the tactics the two attorneys employ to spin their cases is particularly clever as are her conjectures about how individual jurors are reacting to what they hear. It seems strange, however, that Emma’s otherwise competent attorney puts her on the stand. Most good lawyers would advise against that tactic since it can only harm the defense, as Emma so aptly demonstrates.

Emma is a subtle and believable creation. Her fearful, angry and paranoid responses are entirely reasonable. Unfortunately, the excessive cast of minor characters seems to work less well. David, Emma’s ex-husband and his second wife, Caroline, come across as a bit too modern and sweet to be believed. Given her pivotal role in the plot, Flora also seems to melt into the scenery more than she should. Our understanding of these key people suffers at the expense too many other less well-developed characters. Emma’s two female MP roommates are superficially treated. They come across as just yin and yang. Although young, clever and committed, Emma’s office colleagues never really leap off the page. If real life examples weren’t so common, one might furthermore perceive the social media trolls as over the top. Emma’s constituents are represented by one particularly menacing dad who seems cartoonish. All of that aside, on balance, Vaughan does succeed once again in telling a really good story well.

This book seemed like it had the potential to be interesting at first, but instead was the most repetitive book I have ever read. Chapter after chapter of the court case is different accounts the exact same scene over and over and over and over. The ending was rushed and not a twist worth waiting for.

I just finished listening to the audiobook Anatomy of a Scandal from Sarah Vaughan when I got the chance to review Reputation, her forthcoming novel. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the copy of this book.

Ms Vaughan has a talent for highlighting the underbelly of not just political lives but of many adult lives. Ms. Vaughan also again shows strengths in highlighting why we must have awareness of women's lives as seen in the public lens and how the media, and general public, is often attached to one narrative, one that lacks nuance and does not offer room for explanation, insight, or flexibility (this is seen when the Emma, main character, a new MP, is thrust into a media frenzy when a dead body is found in her house.

I love that this book has strong women and blurry/morally grey areas; I am all in for women being able to pursue positions of power and leadership and to make their experiences their complicated, messy, and filled with questionable experiences and decisions. It was hard, but real and relatable, to see a character with confidence, and to earn a position of leadership and power, become less than confident, to be hurt and impugned by media attacks and online trolls.

This is a book filled with strong suspense as well and well executed twists and turns. The execution of this plot is well done, I was really engaged not just in Emma's story but also in how it was shared and revealed; the narrative was for me compelling and well paced. I like the balance of plot driven narrative with strong character development, I felt as though I had a strong grounding in Emma as a character but also in how Emma was treated and how we got to a satisfying resolution.

This is a book with a lot of payoff and also a lot of discussion potential. I am definitely a fan of Ms. Vaughan's work and her storytelling!

My second read by Sarah Vaughan and it was great! Thrilling and chilling, you can not put this book down!

This was a solid 3.5 star read. We learn about a career politician whose career is in trouble. We explore the effects of that backlash and the influential role that social media plays in all of this. We see how far one would go to protect their reputation. There's also a second line story involving her daughter, dealing with bullying, and the affects when something happens to a fellow classmate. This was a twisty story showing the effects of social media to one's reputation. Becuase it's a twisty sneaky story, its very hard for details without spoiling the story. This was my first read by Ms. Vaughan and will not be my last.

#NETGALLEY #REPUTATION

I finished reading this book ten minutes ago, and I'm already reviewing it. It's simply that brilliant.

Vaughn won me over with Anatomy of a Scandal, and this book continues what she did so well there: examine the pressure on women in the public eye and the unfair gender bias that follows women even today, post #metoo. I don't want to rob you of the pleasure I had reading this book, so no spoilers. But enough to say the twists and turns are deeply satisfying, the end is the best ending I've read in ages, and the takeaway here (insert praise hands) is that women can support each other.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy of this book. Go ahead and add it to your TBR now--you'll thank me later.

Reputations are easy to ruin and so very difficult to rebuild. This book gave me high school days PTSD but, really was entertaining from page 1. It never hits a slow burn period and the book just keeps on throwing you little twists and turns until the very end.

I actually liked this book even more than The Anatomy of a Scandal! PS…. This would make a great Netflix series too!!

This is an absolutely good read. As suggested by the title this book centres around the importance of Reputation and how easily it can be lost and how hard it can be to get it back.

MP Emma Webster agrees to an interview focusing on her views which are of course feminist views with a particular focus on revenge porn. What follows is threats on social media by keyboard warriors and the disgusting comments.

This book is told from multiply points of view, something I love and it works seamlessly in this book. It adds to the tension of novel.

Good book to read! Thank you for the opportunity!

Special thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this digital ARCH of Reputation.

I have not read Anatomy of a Scandal but after reading this book by Sarah Vaughan it will be a must! Reputation is a serious page turner! It feels like a real life story of women fighting for equal rights. The MC Emma campaigns for women's rights, she is a divorces and a mom of a teenage - she becomes a target of so many trolls only which leads to stalking. It takes a turn when she is arrested for murder after finding a body in her house. We watch Emma defend herself in this legal/political thriller. This is a must read this year

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Sarah Vaughan for the advanced copy of Reputation in exchange for my honest review.

I think this one gets 3.5 stars rounded up.

This book was utterly frustrating at times, but only because of the way women are treated and ignored and harrassed, etc. I thought Sarah Vaughan did a great job of conveying how terribly female politicians are targeted compared to their male counterparts.

I also really enjoyed that this was told from almost all of the major players in the book, and through alternating timelines.

As for the big mystery, I did figure out a part of it relatively quickly, but it was still highly entertaining from beginning to end. This is my first book by Vaughan but after the smashing success of Netflix's Anatomy of a Scandal, I'll definitely be working my way through her backlog.

Reputation will be on bookshelves in the US July 5 (my birthday!)

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Reputation.

I read Anatomy of a Scandal so I was pleased to be able to read Reputation.

Similar to Anatomy of a Scandal, Reputation deals with politics, misogyny, the cons of social media, and the hate and vitriol spewed against women of all ages.

When Emma Webster, former teacher turned Labor MP, is accused of murdering a tabloid journalist she had a one night stand with, Emma's personal and private life is turned upside down and inside out for the public to mock and chew on.

The first half of the book deals with the turmoil and hate Emma deals with on a regular basis; as a female politician, she is rarely taken seriously, and the filth she receives in mail and via social media is enough to make anyone wonder why social media is a good idea in any form.

At the same time, Emma's teenage daughter, Flora, has her own hands full dealing with incessant bullying from a former BFF, and when the taunts drastically compel her to do something she shouldn't do, both her and her mother's reputation come under fire.

The second half of the book deals with Emma's court case, which is where the author truly excels in.

There's courtroom drama and great writing; the prosecution and defense make their case, and it's a compelling one.

The mystery over who killed the tabloid journalist isn't all that mysterious.

Reputation is exactly what the book is about; a woman's reputation, how precious and fragile it is and what some women would do to protect it.

I didn't really like or dislike Emma; I respected her for what she was doing as a Labor MP; it's not easy being a woman, but she's also a single parent, a working mother, a politician with ambitions to change the world.

I did like the ending; it was appropriate and a stark reminder of how the world does work sometimes.

You scratch my back; I protect your secrets.