Whips by Cleo Watson

THE WOMAN WAS TOO STUNNED TO SPEAK

I’m a politics nerd ok. When I heard that an ex senior aide to then PM Boris Johnson had written a salacious novel dripping with political intrigue & hijinks, I got in touch with the publishers immediately.

There are a lot of spicy scenes which at times felt farcical and far fetched but lord was this a hysterical, satirical, easy read that had all the ingredients to keep me completely hooked.

At the heart of this story is a friendship between three women, Jess is on a mission to stop mental health units closing, Bobby the journalist dealing with her boss’s misogyny & Eva, the daughter of an ex PM working in N10 who is fighting to prove herself from the cries of nepotism. We watch a PM fall & the usual drama that ensues, with leaks, deals & surprises.

This is a book to read with copious amounts of wine. It’s West Wing/Veep/In The Thick of It meets SATC, there are themes touched upon such as power disparity, exploitation, betrayal, privilege & classism but it is pure entertainment.

The one thing I cannot for the life of me get over is how much of this is based on reality given the experience of the author. I mean if even a scintilla of this is based on fact which I’m sure it is… To quote a viral tik tok sound – WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Hence the third pic.

Also please can we normalise wearing glasses when we don’t need them. Because I swear if I wore them I would have whipped them of (see what I did there) repeatedly C

Thank you to Barry for (without agreeing to) the use of your glasses & to @littlebrownbookgroup_uk for the review copy.