Based on a True Story: A Novel

by Sarah Vaughan

“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, New York Times bestselling author of The Club and The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby

“Cements her place as one of our finest thriller writers.”—The Daily Mail

All families have secrets. But it’s the lies that can kill.

A lavish seventieth birthday party. A body found on a storm-lashed beach. And a secret that someone is dying to tell. . . .

Famed children’s author Dame Eleanor Kingman has summoned her family and friends to her exquisite manor house on the cliffs. They’re celebrating her birthday—and her latest number one bestseller in her series of books about a child detective. But the night before the party, Eleanor receives an email that threatens to expose the lie she’s kept for over half a century.

Someone knows her secret. Is it her estranged literary agent? Is it her ex-husband, to whom she no longer speaks? Is it the au pair, who always did have a knack for storytelling, that Eleanor fired all those years ago? Or is it one of her three daughters, all of whom have a stake in the publishing empire she has built . . . ?

With a television crew arriving to film a documentary of her life, Eleanor needs to find out who sent the email—and preserve her legacy and multi-million-pound career.

But when push comes to shove, and it’s time to tell the truth, will anyone actually believe her?

352 pages, Paperback

Expected publication June 8, 2027

About the author

Sarah Vaughan read English at Oxford and went on to be a journalist. After training with the Press Association, she worked for The Guardian for 11 years as a news reporter, health correspondent and political correspondent before leaving to freelance and write fiction. Her 3rd novel, Anatomy of a Scandal, was an instant international bestseller, a Sunday Times top five bestseller, a kindle number 1 bestseller, a Richard & Judy pick, and was longlisted for the Theakson's Old Peculier Crime Novel and shortlisted for awards in France, Sweden and the UK. It has been translated into 22 languages and is being adapted for TV. Her 4th novel, Little Disasters, will be published in France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, the UK on April 2 and the US on August 18. She lives in Cambridge with her husband and two young children.