That Nicola Sturgeon was working on a memoir has been rumoured ever since she left office earlier this year. Indeed, as a reading evangelist who often hinted at a desire to try her hand at writing, it would have been astonishing if she hadn’t wanted to provide a personal account of her extraordinary years at the forefront of Scottish politics.

Less predictable, to me at least, was that the forthcoming book would be announced at a time when the police investigation into SNP finances was ongoing. The prospect of legal action is usually enough to send publishers running to the hills.

Then again, with so little known about what is going on - and leaks about luxury pens and garden hoses clouding rather than clarifying the picture - any insight she can provide will be explosive and lucrative. If you snooze, you lose. And so, despite Sturgeon’s arrest, her work-in-progress was subject to a nine-way auction - the kind of bidding war that makes established writers rail against the injustices of the literary world - with Pan Macmillan emerging victorious.

Political opponents have quipped that whatever deal has been struck will likely cover the cost of a convoy of motorhomes. The title “Mein Campervan” has been mockingly mooted. But it’s safe to assume Sturgeon’s motives are not purely, or even primarily, financial. Given the events of the last few months, she is most likely being driven by the urge to shore up her tarnished reputation.

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Seldom has a leader’s image toxified so quickly. Sturgeon went from feminist icon to political pariah in less time than it took to elect her successor (and for Humza Yousaf to transform himself from the “continuity candidate” to the new broom).

For the last few months, she’s been adrift in a sea of speculation as her critics mentally convict her of charges which have not been - and may well never be - brought. Of course, she wants to reclaim the narrative, to put her side of the story: a process that began on Thursday when she was interviewed by Iain Dale at the Edinburgh Festival. Restating her innocence, the former First Minister told Dale she wanted her voice out there, rather than always reading other people’s words.

That’s the purpose of most leaders’ autobiographies, isn’t it? To cast yourself in a positive light; to ensure your version of the story is the one that prevails. This must be doubly so when your legacy is beset on all sides by those who question not just individual decisions, but your probity, your integrity, the morality that underpinned your time at the helm. More even than most, Sturgeon’s government was one which prided itself on its “goodness”, to the extent that those who bought into its elevated vision of itself have been left with a sense of betrayal.

Announcing the book, Mike Harpley, Pan’s non-fiction publishing director, said the extracts Sturgeon has already written “are notable for their wit, honesty and excellent writing”.

I do not doubt the wit; I look forward to judging the quality of the writing for myself. But for someone like me, who believes the truth always lies in the marshy ground between hero and villain, it is the “honesty” part of the triptych that will determine the worthiness of the enterprise.

In the past, I found Sturgeon to be an odd blend of sincerity and disingenuousness, adept at giving the impression she had searched her soul, even as she was side-stepping reporters’ questions.

We know she presided over a government which eschewed transparency and treated freedom of information requests like a battle of wills. So, to what extent will her memoir be self-serving? Will it function only as a rebuttal of criticism? Or will she interrogate her own motives, character and decisions, too?

Critiquing yourself is much harder than critiquing others: it leaves you exposed, makes you vulnerable, opens you up to self-doubt. But such an exercise would produce a more meaningful project than your bog standard here’s-why-I-was-right-about-everything piece of personal propaganda.

The Herald: Readers will be interested in her rise to power Readers will be interested in her rise to power (Image: Getty)

Sturgeon’s book will fly off the shelves regardless. There is so much about her story that is innately gripping. It is replete with dramatic arcs and internal ironies. The working class girl who joined a fringe party then helped propel it to the mainstream. The woman who soared on an IndyRef thermal, only to sink on the inability to deliver a reprise. The protégé who brought down her mentor. The #MeToo feminist now castigated, by some, as a traitor to the sisterhood.

The taglines write themselves. Her time at the top took in some of the most fraught events of modern times: Brexit, the pandemic, the Trump and Johnson eras, the Culture War, the beginnings of a savage cost of living crisis. She has met other world leaders; been “in the room” when high-stake decisions were made. There will be gossip a-plenty; sufficient revelations to keep political journalists frisky for months.

She will, too, have plenty to say on the perils of being a woman in power: the misogyny she faced from the “Never Mind Brexit, who Won Legs-it!” Daily Mail headline to the emphasis on nail polish and heel protectors in recent stories about items bought by civil servants on a Scottish government credit card.

All that will be gripping. But what I will be interested in is whether or not she confronts her own weaknesses: her control freakery, her lack of a succession plan, her failure to foresee or pre-empt the fall-out from the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

In particular, I will be skipping ahead to check if she addresses the elephant in the room: the way her husband Peter Murrell’s decision to stay on as the party’s chief executive after she became leader created an unhealthy concentration of power and conflict of interest.

Such self-reflection is challenging, especially where it involves a marriage; but the failure to take tough decisions about their respective roles is at the centre of much of what is playing out now, and has lessons for future leaders.

READ MORE: Throwing light on the corridors of power: the art of political memoirs

There will be other tricky moments, no doubt. She will have to scrutinise judgements made during the internal inquiry into the initial harassment allegations against Alex Salmond and throughout the pandemic, and to assess whatever lack of fiscal oversight (or worse) is exposed by the current police inquiry. Perhaps she will give us some insight into divided loyalties and what it felt like to sack her friend Shona Robison as health secretary.

I have never seen anything to suggest Sturgeon is immune to the guilt caused by bad calls with devastating consequences or the pain of picking at old wounds, so none of this will be easy. Then there is the public response. The former First Minister needs no-one to warn her of the burden of social media; she is well used to abuse and pile-ons.

Nor is this the first time she has shared personal details. A few years ago, when she spoke out about her miscarriage, her revelations met with a mix of sympathy and hostility. As memoirist Terri White recently pointed out, there is something uniquely distressing about setting out your life in print only to find it subject to other people’s opinions and take-downs. Sturgeon is a politician elected and paid to govern, not a woman excavating years of personal trauma. But she has promised to be frank about her regrets and the franker she is, the harder it will be to cope with any backlash.

So far, she has described the experience as “therapeutic.” But if there’s one thing I have learned - both from my own experience and from those I have interviewed - is that writing about yourself is rarely as cathartic as you imagine. It can extract a heavy emotional toll. Then again, it could be argued: if it doesn’t cost you, it isn’t worth doing.