An entertaining legal drama and an unsettling cautionary tale for any woman considering entering politics – 5 stars.

This book was incredible and so hard to put down!

There’s so many dimensions to this book.
It goes between a few different point of views and pay attention to the dates.

Emma is a fierce character who wants to protect her daughter and her reputation. The ending is great! Sarah Vaughan doesn’t disappoint

*Thank you to NetGalley and especially to Simon and Schuster for allowing me to read the arc in return for an honest review.

Emma has excelled to make her passion for social causes and helping people become a reality. As an elected MP, she has the opportunity to make a difference by enacting laws that will benefit those less empowered.

However, Emma’s life begins spiraling out of control after a seemingly isolated incident involving an attendee at an open meeting for the public. Then a man is found at the bottom of her stairs and an investigation begins.

She knew the drawbacks to losing autonomy when she ran for office, but didn’t expect the escalating vitriol from hidden readers of online platforms. As a public figure, she’s battered with the opinions of others and her reputation and self-assurance falter.

I think this is a first for me to read about a female politician and I found Emma’s perspective enormously intriguing. She’s an empathetic character and I appreciated her confidence. It was difficult to witness her self worth take repeated hits.

From the beginning, this is a taut complicated story immersed in social issues. Bullying both at the adolescent and adult level are centered around the mystery.

I highly recommend this If you like:

~Intelligent and unapologetically strong women characters.

~Current issues include gender inequality, cyber-bullying, ethical boundaries (and lack of) by the media, among others.

This was my second by the author having enjoyed Anatomy of a Scandal previously. I loved this one even more! I was riveted even though it wasn’t easily read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sarah Vaughan, and Atria & Emily Bestler Books for my electronic copy in advance of July 5, 2022 publication.

Lots to like, including (but not limited to) the somewhat thought provoking central issue. The final few court scenes were notable for thier poignancy. Yet...there were a couple of things in the wrap up that felt unnecessary as well as the occasional superfluous character perspective. The narrative could have been tighter, is what I'm saying.

Interesting plot about a female MPs life. How a photo shoot and article can change the public's perception of a person. How social media can have such a devastating impact on a person's life. Revenge porn and social media threats play a big role in this book as does the role of the media. Sarah Vaughan has her usual court room drama. Good pace, good page-turner with a few twists.

nteresting but not really my cup of tea. Well written I just personally couldn’t get into the story. Predictable and honestly it was a struggle to keep my interest. A politician mom puts her life and her relationships on display and rush going into such a high profile role and of course there will always be people attempting to make it the worst. Way too long. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

An intense political and legal thriller, I was thoroughly engrossed in the character of Emma who is a successful MP rising through the ranks and gaining publicity. She is facing trial for the murder of journalist Mike, who she had a professional relationship with but more recently they had spent a night together. The story is told from different characters' perspectives and builds up to the alleged crime, and then details the court case. Completely riveting!

I did not finish this title. I was not drawn from the beginning of the book, and struggled to keep reading further. This may be a better title for another reader.

Genre: thriller
Pub date: 7/5/22
In one sentence: MP Emma and her daughter Flora have good reputations - but a dead body in the house will change everything.

I loved Anatomy of a Scandal and Little Disasters, so I was really excited to read this book. The plot centers on bullying and revenge porn, and I appreciated the dissection of how this issue related to Emma and Flora. The courtroom scenes were dramatic, and I was turning pages quickly to see what would happen. When the ending was finally revealed, Vaughan had one last twist up her sleeve that I did not see coming. That surprise brought this one up to a 4 star thriller for me, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Vaughan writes next.

If you like thrillers with political and legal elements, I think you'll enjoy this one.

Thank you to Atria/Emily Bestler Books for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely brilliant! An incredible profile of Anna Webster, a feminist politician, and her female friends, her teenage daughter, her exes’ new wife, her admirers and sometimes her detractors all think they know her and most are wrong. She is everything and more. A treatise on double standards, sexism, politics and the press is tightly wrapped up in a scandalous murder and everything is on trial. Can’t wait for the next Netflix mini series. Best book of the year list is already getting full with this one rising to the top five.

Reputation by Sarah Vaughan is the second book I've read by this author, the first being Anatomy of a Scandal. I enjoyed that book and I enjoyed this one just as much, and maybe even more. It's easy to see Ms. Vaughan's former career as a news and political journalist shining through her stories. But the deeply entrenched humanity to her characters shines just as brightly. This book tackles hot-button themes in a powerful way. Highly recommend!

3.5 rounded up
Political thriller, good characters and story
Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Sarah Vaughan once again delivers a thriller ripe with her signature gifts for characterization, suspense, and ripped-from-the-headlines premises. Breathlessly paced and richly peopled--proving that Vaughan is in the forefront of today's master suspense writers. Highly recommended.

Sarah Vaughn is back at it with another incredible thriller!! Multiple points of view and tons of twists and turns - a must read for all domestic suspense fans.

This book took me a bit to really get invested in this book, however I am glad that I stuck it out. I felt that this book was extremely valid to our current times and represents something that occurs, but is one of those things seldom discussed. The public eye is always a thorny one, especially when, you rise beyond the tide and try to stand for beliefs that are not supported by the majority. In this book, Emma Webster is an MP that has a split life between being a divorced mom on the weekends and in the public eye all through the week. This book was definitely heavy on the drama and created a well written story relating to politics, journalism, and the unequal treatment of women in society. I liked how it kept me guessing as to what was underneath the actual event that occurred that brought it all to a head. I felt that this book was well balanced and provided well developed characters and a great story. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

This book was a wild ride! I loved the suspense and I loved Emma's character. The online bullying with Flora is sadly very common with our current society and it was a good storyline to put in for Emma to have to deal with among her own issues.

Reputation by Sarah Vaughan


Who: Emma Watson, British Member of Parliament and mother of 14-year-old Flora.

What: A spine-tingling thriller that weaves in elements of voyeurism, public policy, privacy rights, and feminism

When: Modern-day -- 2021

Where: London

How: A divorced, four-year Member of Parliament, Emma Watson lives in a house with three other female MPs during the workweek. She has received increasing numbers of threatening messages, letters, and other ominous violent overtures since championing legislation to protect victims of revenge porn. When a man is killed in Watson’s London home, she is charged with murder.

What I Thought:

This book was jaw-droppingly good. From the very beginning, I understood Emma Watson—she regrets appearing, somehow, too attractive and/or powerful in photos accompanying a newspaper profile. She does not want to trouble higher authority figures with the death threats anonymous bullies lob casually in her direction.

There are timeline and narration jumps in Reputation, and they’re handled with aplomb by Sarah Vaughan. Too many narrators or timeline jumps can become overwhelming, but they are effective at stoking tension in this narrative.

The plot is built slowly and effectively, as at first you wonder who the dead man is and then how & why he ended up at the bottom of the stairs.

The introduction of Emma and her modern family is also handled skillfully, as we meet her ex-husband and his new, younger wife, a woman with whom Emma once had a friendship. Their daughter, Flora, is struggling in school after experiencing a friend breakup, and the attention garnered by her mom’s heightened profile in Parliament is quite unwelcome.

One of the parts of the book I found most fascinating was the introduction to British Parliament and the court system in Great Britain. Prosecutors refer to themselves and their office as “The Crown,” much like district attorneys represent the state in the United States.

Emma commutes on a bike, which sounds lovely, but can cause trepidation when she finds herself being followed on her way home from work.

The author does an incredible job of bringing several pertinent issues together in this story: how the levers of power and networking are two-sided, and the ways in which not all victims of crimes are protected (and defended) equally. The ways in which public figures are targeted, and have zero expectation of privacy, are at the forefront of Emma Watson’s narrative, culminating in the trial at the end and highlighted most effectively in the testimony of the female newspaper reporter.

The only part of the book I wasn’t fond of was the way texting / messaging between and amongst the teens was depicted, and that may be because of the e-book format. The text was significantly smaller, emojis are hard to decode, and I don’t speak adolescent, so the acronyms were kind of tough to figure out. These issues might be fixed in the final e-book version, and other readers might not face the same struggles.

Overall, I highly recommend this book and I’m going to look out for Vaughan’s previous books—I’ve already requested one from the library.
My thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for an advance copy of Reputation.

Sarah Vaughn has delivered another amazing thriller!! Starting with a flash forward, then going back to show how the events happened, I was fully invested right away! I enjoyed the multiple POV, to get a well rounded sense of what was going on. This is a great procedural thriller, with a few twists that were well timed and executed perfectly!

Utter perfection. I was immediately drawn into to the story of Emma, a MP in England fighting for the rights of women. Soe.unexpected turns with her daughter and her lover makes this a twisty wonderful novel of suspense. Loved it!

This was an okay political thriller. It had a strong female characters which is always great to see in a book. The promise of the story was really good. What knocked it down to three stars for me was the book was very slow and monotonous at times, especially the courtroom sections. Overall the book was well written, and as stated before if it picked up the pace just a little bit more it would have definitely been a four or five star book. If you're looking for a political thriller with a bit of feminism and don't mind a slower paced book this one may be for you. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this Arc and exchange for an honest review.