[Review] Reputation - Sarah Vaughan

Summary: As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career—including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora.

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 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. (Pub Date: Jul 05 2022)

 

This was a chilling story of mother and daughter about what you can imagine, reputation. The mother, Emma, was a teacher and now she's a politician, defending the big matters. But her daughter might be the first to pay for the change in the system she proposes. Their reputation is even more at risk when a reporter dies in her house. 

This book just wasn't real enough because I'm very far from having a reputation the main character's size, but aside from how high the stakes become, it made me sweat cold. I loved the development, I loved how the pieces fit as you go. I read this almost in a daze, because it pulled me into the dilemmas popping in every corner. 

Maybe Emma will be a character hard to identify, even if the situations she goes through are intense enough we still feel for her. To be honest, I didn't fall in love with any of the characters, which is maybe the book's major flaw, or its intention so we don't trust anyone.

I recommend this especially to women. Of course, a male reader could understand it, but it resonated so much even though, as I said, I'm no public person to be under the same scrutiny.

Sarah Vaughan is a name I'll watch out for.

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 4 out of 5.