Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir Frankly has hit the shelves, featuring Scotland’s former first minister’s candid musings on the ups and downs of her time in office and her personal life.
The book has gone on sale in some branches of Waterstones, despite its publication date listed as being later this week.
Ms Sturgeon began working on the book in 2023, when publisher Pan Macmillan picked up the UK rights of the “deeply personal and revealing” memoir in a “hotly contested” auction.
The book spans everything from miscarriage to menopause to political scandals. Here’s what you can expect:
The independence referendum
A key part of the book is Ms Sturgeon’s reflections on the challenges of the independence referendum.
On September 18, Scotland voted on whether to become an independent nation. 55.3 per cent voted no and 44.7 per cent voted yes.
Ms Sturgeon described the campaign as “trying to push a boulder up hill”.
She said she felt plunged into "utter despair" and "overcome by a feeling of sheer impossibility".
"I ended up on the floor of my home office, crying and struggling to breathe. It was some kind of panic attack," she writes.
Operation Branchform
Ms Surgeon vividly describes the traumatic day in April 2023 when her Glasgow home was raided and her husband and former Scottish National Party chief executive, Peter Murrell, was arrested due to misuse of party finances.
"With police tents all around it, it looked more like a murder scene than the place of safety it had always been for me. I was devastated, mortified, confused and terrified."
Ms Surgeon described the subsequent investigation as “like a form of mental torture”, feeling as if she "had fallen into the plot of a dystopian novel".
She was arrested two months later as part of the Operation Blanchform investigation, which she describes as "the worst day" of her life.
Ms Surgeon was exonerated from all wrongdoing but Murrell was charged with embezzlement.
Sexism and homophobia
Misogyny and sexism are common themes in the book. On the very first page, Ms Sturgeon says: "Like all women, since the dawn of time, I have faced misogyny and sexism so endemic that I didn't always recognize it as such,"
One story includes a male MSP from a rival party calling her “gnasher”, spreading a false rumour that she injured a boyfriend during sex.
"On the day I found out about the story, I cried in one of the toilets in the Parliament office complex," she writes.
Ms Sturgeon said it wasn’t until after #MeToo, that she realised the bullying was “designed to humiliate and intimidate, to cut a young woman down to size and put her in her place".
The book also addresses other rumours, such as Ms Sturgeon having a lesbian affair with a French diplomat.
She said that the rumours were “rooted in homophobia”.
She writes: "Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than thirty years of my life, but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters."
Alex Salmond
Alex Salmond, Ms Sturgeon’s mentor and predecessor as first minister, features regularly in the book.
Mr Salmond was accused of sexual harassment but was cleared of all 13 charges in 2020. But Ms Sturgeon said that there was no clear reason why the women who made the allegations would have made them up.
"He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all.” she wrote.
Mr Salmond died of a heart attack last year.
The pandemic
Ms Sturgeon reflects on the challenges of leading Scotland through the pandemic, describing it as "almost indescribably" hard.
The former Scottish minister opens up about the impact it had on her physical and mental health, admitting that she is still plagued by the idea that starting lockdown earlier could have saved lives.
She said that in 2024, she "came perilously close to a breakdown".
"For the first time in my life, I sought professional help. It took several counselling sessions before I was able to pull myself back from the brink," she writes.
Her miscarriage
Ms Sturgeon recounts the “excruciating pain” of her miscarriage aged 40 in 2010.
She explained that she never yearned to be a mother, but her husband wanted children.
"Later, what I would feel most guilty about were the days I had wished I wasn't pregnant," she says.
Transgender identities
On the topic of legal gender changes, Ms Sturgeon says she wonders whether she should have "hit the pause button" to find consensus.
While she agrees with gender-based self-identification, Ms Sturgeon implies she should have taken a clearer stance on the double rapist Adam Graham, who identifies as a woman named Isla Bryson.
"When confronted with the question 'Is Isla Bryson a woman?' I was like a rabbit caught in the headlights," she writes.
"Because I failed to answer 'yes', plain and simple... I seemed weak and evasive. Worst of all, I sounded like I didn't have the courage to stand behind the logical conclusion of the self-identification system we had just legislated for.”
Still, Ms Sturgeon criticises JK Rowling, who is known for offending the transgender community with her views about gender. The Harry Potter author even posted a picture of herself with a T-shirt that read: "Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women's rights".
In Frankly, Sturgeon describes how the abuse she faced made her “feel less safe and more at risk of possible physical harm," she writes.”
“It was deeply ironic that those who subjected me to this level of hatred and misogynistic abuse often claimed to be doing so in the interests of women's safety,” she wrote.
What the future holds
As well as looking back over her time in office, Ms Surgeon looks ahead to the “next phase” of her life, humourously describing it as “delayed adolescence”.
She says that she’s considering living outside Scotland and has hinted on the BBC’s Newscast podcast that she’s considering moving to London.
“I'm spending a reasonable amount of time in London at the moment, so yeah. Maybe a bit of time down here and who knows,” she said.
"Suffocating is maybe putting it too strongly, but I feel sometimes I can't breathe freely in Scotland.”
She also said she’s considering writing a novel.
