It gives me enormous pleasure to participate in the blog tour for Sarah Vaughan’s latest book, Reputation. My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part.

Published by Simon and Schuster on 3rd March 2022, Reputation is available for purchase through the links here.

Reputation

Emma Webster is a respectable MP.

Emma Webster is a devoted mother.

Emma Webster is innocent of the murder of a tabloid journalist.

Emma Webster is a liar.

#Reputation: The story you tell about yourself. And the lies others choose to believe…

My Review of Reputation

Emma Webster’s political career is on the rise.

My goodness me. Reputation is a stunner of a book. Sarah Vaughan’s scalpel sharp, taut prose, doesn’t miss a beat throughout so that reading Reputation is an affecting, almost contaminating read. That is by no means a criticism, but rather the author plunges the reader into a world of intrigue, social media and duplicity that is so authentic it’s hard not to believe every word of this narrative is true and not simply a story.

Sarah Vaughan presents such a plausible scenario, as Emma Webster fights for her daughter and her reputation, that the narrative compels the reader to confront the reality of rarefied life in public office, alongside the more knowable experience of toxic female relationship in schools, in a perfectly balanced, utterly convincing and frankly, morally terrifying manner. I was unsettled and horrified, shocked and entertained in equal measure. There’s a diamond glitter of menace that runs throughout Reputation that I found breath-taking. It’s impossible to say too much about the plot for fear of spoiling the story for others, but Reputation is a book that is both modern and timeless in its exploration of relationships, power and, of course, reputation. I confess to feeling somewhat shell-shocked by the end.

Emma’s voice is so realistic that she became utterly real to me. She’s both flawed and admirable, illustrating to perfection how we justify our actions and showing how easy it is to slip from the paths we want to tread. The parliamentary setting serves to heighten the sense of authenticity of Emma’s situation and decisions. Reputation is a book that plays with the reader’s mind and moral compass as Emma deserves both our admiration and possibly our contempt at different points of the story.

Reputation is an intelligent, razor sharp exploration of the lies we tell ourselves and others, of the menace of social media, and of the terrifying consequences of the smallest wrong decisions. I thought it was absolutely superb.

About Sarah Vaughan

Brought up in Devon, Sarah Vaughan read English at Oxford and went on to become a journalist. After training at the Press Association, she spent eleven years at the Guardian as a news reporter, political correspondent and health correspondent, before leaving to freelance and write fiction. Anatomy of a Scandal, her third novel was an instant international bestseller and translated into 22 languages, long-listed for the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year 2018 and short-listed for the Audible Sounds of Crime Award, GoodReads Jury’s Out award, French Elle’s Prix des Lectrices and Richard & Judy’s ‘Best of the Decade.’ Anatomy of a Scandal has been adapted for screen and will air on Netflix as a six-part series in Spring 2022. Little Disasters, her fourth novel, was selected as a Waterstones Thriller of the Month in 2021, has been sold to the US, France, Portugal, Sweden and Spain, and optioned for TV. Reputation is her fifth novel.

You can find Sarah Vaughan on Facebook, visit her website and follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

There’s more with these other bloggers too: