February 1, 2022
Emma has made enormous sacrifices for her political career, hurting her relationship with school-age daughter Flora, which is further complicated by bullied Flora's advocacy of a law protecting women and girls from online abuse. But things get really bad when one of Emma's political enemies is found dead in her house. From former political journalist Vaughan, whose Anatomy of a Scandal is being readied for a Netflix series; with a 150,000-copy first printing.
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April 11, 2022
British writer Vaughan (Anatomy of a Scandal) considers the corrosive impact of social media on the lives of girls and women in this timely, twisty story. Divorced English parliament member Emma Webster divides her time between the house she shares in London with fellow politicos and her home in Portsmouth, where she lives with her 14-year-old daughter, Flora. After she does an interview with a London paper complete with a photo shoot that makes her look “more like an Oscar-nominated actress than a Labour politician,” she’s swarmed by trolls on social media. Meanwhile, Flora endures an equally intense online campaign directed against her by her former best friend, until she finally snaps, with consequences that lead to trouble for both her and her mother. But there’s a more pressing problem: the dead body found at the foot of the stairs in Emma’s London home. Just who the person was, and what Emma did or didn’t have to do with its appearance, are the questions Vaughan explores with nail-biting suspense. While the focus is more on hot topics than character development, Vaughan delivers plenty of insights into how a person’s reputation can slip, and the ways violence can spring out of the pressures of being in the spotlight. This is as thoughtful as it is surprising. Agent: Lizzy Kremer, David Higham Assoc.
Starred review from March 15, 2022
A passionate advocate for women's issues, London MP Emma Webster dismisses the mounds of hate mail and vicious online trolls as part of the job. At least, until her high-visibility collaboration with journalist Mike Stokes in support of legislation defending revenge-porn-victims rights draws out a stalker and heralds a cascade of devastating missteps. Emma and Mike cap off the celebration of their legislative win with a misguided tryst. Ever mindful of optics, Emma leaves Mike with a callously preoccupied rejection as she struggles to process scores of desperate voicemails announcing that her teenage daughter, Flora, is facing charges for sharing a naked photo of a classmate. Hounded online, menaced by a stalker, and facing threats to her political reputation, Emma is operating on pure adrenaline when she threatens Stokes about reporting Flora's case. Then Stokes is found gravely wounded in Emma's home, and her fate hinges on convincing a jury that her actions were driven by fear rather than a cynical effort to guard her reputation. Vaughan, who previously explored political ethics to great effect in Anatomy of a Scandal (2018), offers a cast of strong characters that aren't necessarily likable but are sharply realistic and consummately human. A complex, slow-burning examination of double standards, misogyny, and public image that shares strong appeal with Scott Turow's literary legal thrillers.
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