Based on a True Story

Sarah Vaughan read English at Oxford and went on to become a journalist. After training at the Press Association, she spent eleven years at the Guardian as a news reporter and political correspondent before leaving to freelance and write fiction. Her first two novels, The Art of Baking Blind and The Farm at the Edge of the World, were followed by her first psychological thriller, Anatomy of a Scandal: a Sunday Times bestseller, and Richard & Judy pick of the decade, developed as a Netflix series starring Rupert Friend, Michelle Dockery and Sienna Miller. Her fourth novel, Little Disasters, a Waterstone's thriller of the month, was published in 2020. Reputation is her fifth novel.

‘A flawlessly constructed thriller, perfectly paced and filled with smart reveals. This is a read-in-one-sitting delight of a novel!’ LUCY CLARKE, The Castaways ‘There’s a dangerous sense of reckoning in the air as the eminent Kingman family gather at their Cornish clifftop house to celebrate matriarch Eleanor's success – and just possibly to kill each other in the process. A rich, intoxicating brew, I loved it’ LOUISE CANDLISH, Our House ‘Sarah’s elegant prose, stunning descriptions and nuanced characters are all wrapped up in a cracking plot with a ticking clock – the ultimate literary thriller! Secrets, lies, subterfuge, scandal and sibling rivalry – the perfect recipe for a page-turner. I devoured it!’ VERONICA HENRY, The Beach Hut ‘Glorious Cornish clifftops, a glittering party and a swirling vortex of family secrets . . . Sarah Vaughan lobs an explosive cocktail into Golden Age Crime to create something wholly new and deeply satisfying. I drank it up’ SARAH HILARY   ‘Sarah Vaughan is one of my go-to writers and a modern, female re-telling of King Lear is exactly the sort of brilliance I have come to expect from her. This is a compelling story, with deep roots, which asks us to think about the stories we tell not just publicly, but also privately, to make up a life. It manages that rare trick of being both addictive and thoughtful’ ARAMINTA HALL   ‘Three sisters gather to celebrate with their narcissistic mother. I could literally feel the tension and frustration simmering between the lines. Wonderful storytelling’ EMMA CURTIS  ‘Vaughan sets in motion the final, tragic act of a decades-long family drama. She writes beautifully and incisively; her evocative prose is spiked with sharp observations and insights that spare nobody. Sibling rivalries are stretched to breaking point, secrets leak, and loyalties quiver. When lucrative fame is a member of the family and storytelling is part of your DNA, nothing is predictable. A stunning novel’ GILLY MACMILLAN  ‘A real pressure cooker of a novel – tense, immersive, and brilliantly told. I genuinely couldn't put it down. And the Cornish clifftop setting leapt from the page, with all of its drama and dangerous beauty’ EMYLIA HALL   ‘A rollicking, thrilling read, Based on a True Story snares from the first page with its deliciously dysfunctional, glamorous family, bristling with characters to love or loathe, and a seductive Cornish setting. Another Sarah Vaughan cracker. I loved it’ EVE CHASE, The Midnight Hour  ‘What's not to love? A matriarch with buried secrets, an explosive party at a clifftop house and a family rapidly unravelling – a deliciously twisty page-turner that also packs a real emotional punch. Vaughan is simply a genius at immersing you in simmering tensions and turning up the heat’ ELLERY LLOYD, The Club ‘Utterly addictive, surprising and full of characters you’ll love to hate’ LOUISE BEECH   'This is certainly one party no one will forget. With a cast of characters I loved to hate and secrets galore, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Smart, propulsive and so much fun . . . I loved it’ NIKKI SMITH  ‘Are there better words than ‘there's a new Sarah Vaughan coming out?’ Vaughan's books race along so thrillingly – you can never put them down. I zoomed through Based on a True Story, but the characters have really stayed with me. Vaughan had created a delightfully suspicious group of party-goers, all with their own questionable ambitions and motives. I particularly adored the Cornish setting – Vaughan captures the light and magic of that coastline so beautifully’ HOLLY WATT   ‘What a delight to be back with Sarah Vaughan's writing, and in particular to back in Cornwall. A sparkling, clever and compelling tale of power, money, lies and the stories we tell ourselves to survive’ ANNA MAZZOLA 'An immersive, vivid, escapist story told from multiple perspectives by a fraught cast of characters, most of whom are nursing awful secrets – this is Sarah Vaughan at the height of her powers' LUCY ATKINS