Little Disasters: the compelling and thought-provoking new novel from the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Anatomy of a Scandal

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A true psychological thriller shows us, as all the best ones do, that the scariest place is not the dark alleyway but inside the pathways of our own minds. In a culture that fetishises motherhood, Sarah Vaughan’s novel is an invaluable corrective, a warning about the terrible effects parenting can have on mental health.

I have to hand it to Sarah Vaughan, I was so fixated on a certain vein of the storyline that I was thinking this was pretty much a 3 star. You are given everything you need, right when you need them…what you decide to do with them is entirely your choice.

My instant international bestseller, Anatomy of a Scandal, heralded a shift in genre: part courtroom drama, part portrait of a marriage, part psychological thriller, it draws on my experience as a political correspondent, court reporter, and student at Oxford to explore power, privilege, and consent.

I would try to get an hour or two of sleep if, and if is the operative word, he went down during the day. This tale of mothers and parenting will resonate with many mothers who have experienced the long and often lonely hours of dealing with an unsettled baby who won't stop crying and hardly sleeps. The book begins with Liz, a pediatrician, who is suddenly faced with an ethical and personally difficult decision when her good friend, Jess, comes into the emergency room with her 10 month old daughter, Betsey. Moms need support, from other women and, ideally, their husband, and not all women should become mothers.

The narrative is powerful and sharp, and it flows through every page – nothing slows, you read chapter after chapter needing to know why. Seeing the characters of one novel – Anatomy of a Scandal – develop in a TV series has been incredible. But underneath, Jess is an overwhelmed and sleep-deprived mother, trying to do everything perfectly and hold it together. Even Jess, who is suspected of abusing her daughter, still has her charming and endearing qualities.

She and her physician husband bought a house in Cambridge, where he had taken a new job, and she did it up. Up until that point it felt like fictional story with substance but then it veered into messy territory.Her friend, Jess, is a stay-at-home mom of three children, who, on the surface, seems to be a loving, caring mother. Sarah’s novels feature women who are navigating their roles as wives, mothers, and daughters, but who often also have other great responsibilities—lawmakers, doctors, politicians,” says Lizzy Kremer, Vaughan’s literary agent. They just estranged a little bit because of Liz’s over demanding profession, kids, husband and other activities fills her life and Jess also didn’t make any effort to connect with her either.

She appears suspicious and evasive when questioned and says she was never aware of the injury from the fall six hours earlier. The twist itself was somewhat out of left field, but managed to work anyway, even though I think I would have preferred the ending without it. The book is told through the POV of both Liz and Jess, but it jumps around from the present, where there are different perspectives given from multiple secondary characters, to the past when the women met in a childbirth class, but then also way back to when Liz's childhood. She shows us that these ordinary women are achieving extraordinary things, sometimes against the odds, and that it is up to each of us to draw the line between the public and the personal, between right and wrong, between revenge and forgiveness. We learn that of late the friendship has suffered, which is down to the very busy lives both women lead.She took excellent care of her children; kept an immaculate home; prepared delicious meals; and kept up her appearance.