An incredibly powerful and affecting novel that I'll be thinking about for a long time. So well written I was invested in Tessa's character from the offset. The novel deals really well with the inequality in sexual assualt cases seen from both sides of the legal system. Adapted from the award winning stage production the novel is just as powerful and absorbing. I found myself moved to tears and anger as the novel delves into the class system that seems determined to put Tessa, a rising star pupil barrister, in her place. Tessa's unwavering belief that the rule of law will prevail and determine that justice is served highlights just how flawed the system itself is. Rape victims are treated in the witness box like they have committed a crime and the statistics around rape and sexual assualt cases is sobering. An important read that I can't recommend enough.

Prima Facia is Latin for on the face of it. Law is our system for justice.. or is it?
When the tables are turned and the system is challenged by an experienced barrister it gives an insight into how the law works.
We follow Tessa as she cuts herself a career in law as a barrister, from a humble background she works hard to make it her career, dealing with high society colleagues and alpha male interference she battles her way with her job.
She has the skills and the mindset and is in a stressful position of making ends meet by being a good barrister and winning her cases.
Fantastic read, loved it, and was one of those that went everywhere with me, if you are interested in procedural law then this is one for you, the inside of how a barrister works from chambers is eyeopening

For me its five stars

Fantastic read! Thank you for the ARC. The memory of Jodie Comers performance still slightly overshadowed the brilliance of this book for me but the message is so important, it was we written and if you are interested in court room dramas or ways the patriarchy continues to use to keep women oppressed this is a must read!

Prima Facie is a powerful story that highlights both the alarming number of women who have been sexually assaulted, and the abysmal rate of convictions for the very small number of those cases that make it to court.
Tessa Ensler is a top criminal defence barrister who is raped by a colleague. Determined to have her day in court, Tessa is forced to confront the stark reality that the law was not written for victims, and that she is really the one on trial. Although Tessa fights on, we see as she does, that her evidence is being manipulated to make her look like a liar. The very same ‘tricks’ and subtle manipulations she has happily used in the past to defend her clients are now being used against her. The message is clear – that if even someone who really understands the legal system can’t get justice, then what hope is there for other women?
Although the book is based on the author’s acclaimed play, I haven’t seen it on stage, so I came to the novel without any preconceptions and nothing to measure it against. As such I found it a compelling and unsettling read. There were some sections that felt a little preachy, like mini speeches, which may be the result of the reformatting into a novel. But overall this is definitely a book I would recommend, not just for the story, but for the clarity with which it brings to our attention the ongoing scandal of sexual violence against women, and the seeming inability of the legal system to deal with it fairly.
With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an ARC.

I think this was a harder read than I expected ,although I guess I shouldn't have been surprised given the subject matter .I wasn't fortunate to see the play with the wonderful Jodie Comer ,but I bet it was really powerful. The book is not an easy read, and I would recommend it, but be prepared ,it won't be a book that you will forget in a hurry.

This disturbing and chilling novel from Suzie Miller is developed from the award-winning play featuring Jodie Comer. Tessa Ensler comes from a single parent family and poverty stricken background, and against all the odds, wins a scholarship to Cambridge University, and then establishing a stellar career as a criminal defence barrister. Her faith in the law and the criminal justice system is unwavering, justice is delivered with the evidence being tested in the courtroom, Tessa is a determined, resilient, and confident woman, as she successfully defends and gets her clients acquitted, even where they might be guilty. What would it take for her to question her rock solid beliefs? The story begins with a slow burn glimpse of Tessa's life in some detail.

The narrative really kicks off in the second half when Tessa's world falls apart when she is sexually assaulted by a friend and professional colleague. This shocking experience places her on the other side of the class based legal system she has previously defended, the cracks in the practice of justice and law drawn up by powerful white and wealthy men to work in their favour becoming all too clear. On the other side of the fence, Tessa now finds herself an outsider in the drama of the trial that follows, feeling profoundly powerless, despite being a barrister, her evidence of being violated is skewed through a lens where it becomes questionable and unreliable. Shattered and forced into re-evaluating her sense of identity, Tessa comprehends how the law and certain attitudes comprehensively fail women.

This is an emotionally affecting, heartbreaking and a challenging read, a nightmare coming from a place in which one in three women are sexually assaulted and raped. Tessa is courageous in seeing her case through to courtroom trial, but in reality only one in ten women will report what happened to them to the police, and you can see why that is so, when only one in one hundred men end up being convicted. This cannot continue, change is desperately needed in the legal system and long overdue. A must read that I recommend to all readers. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Shocking. Gripping. Important. Suzie Miller’s portrait of a confident, happy woman at the top of her game whose life is traumatically affected and changed by sexual violence is compelling reading.
Having loved seeing Jodie Comer in the play, I wasn’t sure that I needed to read the book but I’m so glad I did. It isn’t an easy read in places but I highly recommend it.
The messages in it are so important- no means no and that needs to be respected. The court system is failing women.
I suggest this should be a compulsory book in English literature GCSE - bringing this important issue to light in such an accessible way could help shift attitudes and that needs to happen.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for an e-ARC.

A well written book that gives a very interesting view on how differently men and women are treated when a rape case is presented to the court. It's description of how the law in the UK works was insightful. It raises many questions and I hope that these are being addresses in our legal system
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the advance copy of this book.

I was lucky enough to see Jodie Comer perform this on the West End and it drew the entire audience to tears. While the book didn't feel quite as impactful, I still felt the raw emotion and distress in the story and it still brings to attention how awful these situations can be.

A novelisation of an award winning play, taking: AGWIE awards for its debut in Australia; Laurence Olivier awards for Best New Play and Best Actress (as well as Evening Standard award for Best Actress) for its subsequent West End production; a Tony award for Best Actress for its subsequent Broadway run).

The play itself was a one-woman play, with Jodie Comer playing the main part of Tessa Enzler, and here we have instead an intense first person novel.

Tessa is a working class (her single Mum a cleaner in Luton) Cambridge educated lawyer, who partly motivated by the various convictions of her brother in a court system skewed towards the police, becomes a Defense Barrister, who (within the confines of the Cab Rank system – one which we may expect to hear quite a bit off in the upcoming General Election as the Conservatives seek to weaponise some of the cases that Keir Starmer defended) has an increasing specialisation in defending sexual assault cases.

The narrative arc of the book is simple but powerful in its effectiveness – Tessa who struggles with the priviliges of sex and (particularly) class that many other Barristers have in a legal system in with tradition, precedent and connections are hardwired, finds her polar opposite Julian (a confident, upper-class male from a family tradition of barristers) attracted to her. The two sleep together in her chambers and then at her flat; but on that second night when Tessa passes out after drinking too much, she is raped by Julian.

She decides to press charges and the last part of the book is the dramatisation of the court case.

I think it is fair to say that as a novel this is a slow burner – rather than transfer the tightness of a play to the medium of a novel it feels like the author has gone a little to the opposite extreme and taken advantage of the lack of constraints to write rather too extensive a back story (including what at least for me – unless Law is very different to Maths – was not a particularly authentic portrayal of a working class experience at Cambridge).

Had I have not read of the play’s reputation I may have not continued with the novel – but I am glad I did as the novel really takes off in its closing scene with Tessa’s speech – yes it’s a little didactic but that is the point and the injustice at the heart of our legal system are simply indefensible (unlike tragically male perpetuators of sexual assault): I can imagine that works incredibly well in a theatre but I have to say I felt it lifted off the page in novel form also and made me glad that I read this ultimately powerful and important novel.

My thanks to Random House UK, Hutchinson Heinemann for an ARC via NetGalley

I thought this was very well written and a very interesting insight into how justice is handled in our legal system. I felt it was flagging towards the middle, then of course it picked up and I found the second half compelling. It does raise questions, which I hope will we heard.

An interesting book, written from a very successful one woman play. The story of Tessa, a criminal barrister, who pursues a charge of rape against her colleague Julian is simple but the insights into Tessa's thinking are fascinating, especially in the final part of the book where as the only witness in the trial she experiences the dissonance of looking at the proceedings from her professional perspective as well as the perspective of a victim. Her speech at the end must be very impressive in a play but on the page I thought it fell rather flat.

I found the characters apart from Tessa often stereotypical and briefly sketched in. The contrast between her background and Julian's was heavily emphasised to demonstrate the power imbalance between them and I found the two dimensional presentation of Julian limited the book to being no more than a polemic about rape. His privileged background seemed to be the only reason for his behaviour and a more nuanced examination of his character could have provided a more credible explanation. But the author may have believed that this would engender some sympathy for him which would not have suited the polemical purpose.

Brilliant, now desperate to see the play!

In Prima Facie we are in the head of brilliant defense barrister Tessa Ensler, who lives and works in London. Ensler has worked incredibly hard to get to where she is - she doesn't come from a family of lawyers or have family wealth to fall back on. She believes in the law and to the right to good defense.

The novel follows Tessa across a few different stages of her life, flashbacks to growing up and university, 'before' the incident and 'after' the incident.

Prima Facie was completely engrossing and utterly compelling. It has been a while since I've read such a well paced, compassionate, and intelligent crime novel. I absolutely hoovered it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for an eARC in exchange for my honest review - I will be recommending.

A powerful heart wrenching book that pulls no punches with a rich emotional heart.

Tessa's story should be read by everyone of every gender and perhaps that could help advance change.

Written with astute observations the honesty of the prose is stunning. Tessa is brave, courageous and ambitious. She is making her way in the male dominated world until someone makes her feel unsafe Then her world crumbles around her. Distraught she is a shell of the person she was once was but that last statement she makes in the courtroom shows she cannot be silenced.

Highly thought provoking. Deeply Heartbreaking and a call to arms. What a stunning book.

I had obviously heard of the play, but never saw it and didn't really know the plot. And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this - albeit a very emotional topic and you feel unresolved by the end, but that is the point, to understand that the justice system is not fit to help rape victims.

The book that needs reading by all. Thought provoking ad emotional.

A woman's plight in a male dominated world where she triumphs the majority of time, until the worst thing possible happens to her personally. Can she still believe in the system that she works so hard in?

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read an advance copy.

I believe this is an adaptation of a play, and I think probably it works much better as a play. The message is powerful and I can see it working visually but on the page it’s flat; it doesn’t read like real people speaking. The speech at the end is like a very eloquent essay rather than the ad hoc, passionate words spoken by a woman at the end of her emotional rope. If it’s made into a movie, I can see it being very impactful though.

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller is a brilliant, tense and thrilling novel set in a barrister’s chambers in London. It begins as a privileged insight into a closed world, seen through the eyes of high-flying barrister, Tessa Ensler. She has many achievements, but still sees herself as a former scholarship student from Luton, and still considers herself to be an outsider. This imposter syndrome is very recognisable and many of us will have experienced it at some time. Tessa’s confidence isn’t helped when she remembers being told as a young law student that, statistically, one in three of them won’t make it.

The story is narrated by Tess in alternating chapters, “then” and “now”, which are respectively before and after a critical event. This device allows the author to gradually reveal Tessa’s past as the girl who fought her way from a single-parent home in Luton, to a scholarship place at Cambridge and a successful legal career. We see her fighting on behalf of her clients and the tactics she uses to cast doubt on the prosecution case. She intuitively interprets body language; she is skilled in finding weaknesses in witness statements and she pounces on mistakes in their evidence. We see her satisfaction when she wins and the defendants are freed. For Tessa and her colleagues this is “the game of law”, where right and wrong are almost peripheral to the outcome.

Tessa sees it as her mission to protect her clients – many of whom she sees as vulnerable – from the police and the prosecution lawyers, with their practised tactics. She draws on her inner strength, but she is unaware that she will need all that, and more, when the worst happens. The tables are turned and now Tessa is fighting for her future, to prosecute the most important case of her life. This is the ultimate irony, and a police officer mocks her, “You need us now, don’t you?”.

Suzie Miller is well-placed, as a scriptwriter and former practising lawyer, to be incisively accurate when writing about the worlds of acting and the law – and to pinpoint where the two worlds collide. Tessa says, “In both places (at work and at home) I must pretend.” Miller has adapted Tessa’s story from her award-winning play, performed at the National Theatre.

I recognise a good book by the way it makes me feel and this was a thrilling and anxiety-inducing read. It exposes the reader to the raw emotion and injustice that is momentous for Tessa, but that countless others face every day. The author ramps up the tension and hangs poor Tessa out to dry. It seems impossible that she can come through the ordeal without losing her most important case ever, as well as her mind and her hard-earned profession. Everything is at stake and she doesn’t know who she can trust. The book explores one woman’s absolute vulnerability and bravery. Again, many women will identify with her situation. When her situation reaches its crisis, she is unable to rely on her own skills and learning. Instead she has to trust to others and the law to bring justice, despite having little remaining faith in either. It leads her to question whether the legal system, and the profession she has worked so hard to be part of, is fit for purpose. A fabulous, unforgettable book.

Another amazing way for this compelling and important story to be told.

As someone who was lucky enought to see Jodie Comer on stage last year, this feels like the perfect tandem way to consume the story.

I am looking forward to listening to the audiobook version of this when it is released.

Regardless of whether you have seen this in person or not, I would recommend this to everyone

Powerful and unexpectedly moving, this is an excellent novel that deserves to be widely read.

Suzie Miller has done a superb job in transforming her play into a novel; it betrays no hint of its original beginnings and reads beautifully. While it is almost painful to read in parts (no spoilers here!), it nevertheless makes you want to read on and devour it in a singe sitting. Miller takes you inside Tessa's head and allows you to feel every slight, every shred of anger and betrayal.

Every single character is believable and oh-so-recognisable...

Prima Facie should be required reading in schools, especially for young men, highlighting as it does the treatment of women and the issues surrounding consent.

Highly recommended