[2] The existence of the work was first announced by publisher Knopf on April 23, 2007, with a scheduled publication date of June 19, 2007.

According to reviewers at The Washington Post, the Clinton campaign was "nervous" about new revelations from this or the Gerth-Van Natta book.

[9] The general consensus was that while Gerth-Van Natta's book was somewhat negative towards its subject, A Woman in Charge was rather positive, notwithstanding that both were mainstream works.

[6] As The Washington Post wrote, "Unlike many harsh books about Clinton written by ideological enemies, the two new volumes come from long-established writers backed by major publishing houses and could be harder to dismiss.

"[10] He concluded that the Bernstein work was more neutral than the more negatively framed Gerth-Van Natta account.

[7] The Rocky Mountain News wrote that "Carl Bernstein's much-hyped unauthorized biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, A Woman in Charge, is neither a bomb nor a bombshell ... he disappoints [in] devoting about 20 pages to her years in the U.S. Senate and a scant three pages to her decision to run for president.

Even as he chronicles one fabulous misstep after another, he describes the former First Lady as 'well-intentioned' and 'principled,' motivated by deep religious faith and a passionate sense of caring.

[3] Despite considerable publicity, initial sales of A Woman in Charge were modest, with Nielsen BookScan reporting 25,000 copies sold in its first 13 days (about three times what the Gerth-Van Natta book was selling but far less than Clinton's 2003 autobiography Living History).

[13] Its sales fell far short of the initial printing and may have been impacted by the simultaneous release of Gerth-Van Natta's biography of Clinton.