cover238896-mediumFrom Goodreads: “As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career—including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora.
A former teacher, 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.”

My Review

Wow this book was so tense, a real page turner that I didn’t want to put down!

I’m not going to say much about the plot in fear of spoilers, plus everything you need to know is in the above synopsis. What I will tell you is how it made me feel.

Sarah Vaughan’s writing gripped me from the first page and didn’t let go. I was immersed in Emma and Flora’s worlds. I was horrified by what they were both going through, with online abuse and school bullying and could understand how the circumstances changed so quickly.

I really liked Flora and empathised with Emma, but I can’t say I particularly liked her although I did warm to her later on in the book.

This book made me even more aware of violence towards women, online and physically, and it really did horrify me. It’s definitely a book that sadly needed to be written and I hope will be read by everyone far and wide because it really does need to stop!

Highly recommended if you enjoy contemporary fiction. 

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK Fiction for my digital copy.