Job: - Author
Website: - https://www.sarahvaughanauthor.com
Instagram: - @svaughanauthor
Facebook: - @Sarah Vaughan Author
Introduction: -
Sarah Vaughan is a former journalist
turned author. Her first two novels are women’s
fiction. Her first political thriller Anatomy of a Scandal was published
in 2018 and was a Sunday Times bestseller and is now a global Netflix limited series.
Her second crime book Little Disasters was published in 2020 and was
shown in May 2025 on Paramount Plus. Reputation has been optioned by the
team behind Anatomy of a Scandal. Her most recent book is entitled Based
on a True Story.
Current
book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or
both)
I’ve
just read Sabine Durrant’s superb Dead Heat which features an unreliable
narrator anti-hero and has really Ripley and Gatsby vibes. As with her Lie With Me, she is excellent at
capturing the precariousness of being an outsider and the oppressiveness of
Greek heat.
Why do you think anti-heroes are
so interesting to readers?
I think we love a psychological
puzzle. No one wants to read about an anodyne character: we want to know what
motivates deeply flawed, even villainous, characters. And when they’re extreme
– and criminal – they make us feel better about ourselves.
Which
two anti-heroes or enemies would you invite to dinner and why?
Tom
Ripley and Iago. Think of their waspishness. Thankfully I don’t smoke, so I
don’t possess an ash tray.
How
do you relax?
A
bit of a cliché but “getting out in nature”. In an ideal world, that means
walking on a Cornish cliff. Day to day, it’s walking my dog Olive in the fields
near my home. Sitting at a desk all day is terrible for one’s posture and I
feel scratchy if I don’t get out first thing. Swimming – which I don’t do enough
of; holidays; meals with family and friends; reading in bed. Having said that,
I’m currently finishing a book so feel a constant low thrum of anxiety.
Which
anti-hero would you like to be on your side in a difficult situation.
The
one with the least scruples.
If
you were to write a book involving an anti-hero, where would you set it and
why?
I
love London and think it lends itself brilliantly to anti-heroes: think of the
potential for deception, for getting deliberately lost, and to reinvention. But
my son’s about to go off to university in the north-east and I’m looking
forward to exploring Northumberland (I can’t keep setting books in north
Cornwall.) It feels remote and beautiful.
How
would you describe your latest published book?
Based
on a True Story is a feminised King Lear about power lies and family narratives
which starts with a body found on a storm-lashed north Cornwall beach. Famed
children’s author Dame Eleanor Kingman has gathered family and friends to
celebrate her 70th birthday and her latest number one bestseller.
But someone’s been sending emails threatening to expose a secret she’s kept for
half a century. With a TV documentary crew arriving to film a retrospective,
can she unearth her nemesis and maintain the fiction on which her multi-million-pound
career depends?
With
Bad Apples: crime fiction’s enemies and anti-hero’s theme at St Hilda's
this year, who are you three favourite anti-heroes?
At
the risk of being horribly unoriginal: Ripley, Iago, Moriarty.
Which 3 films or television series
featuring anti-heroes would you rewatch and why?
I adore Succession. How many
anti-heroes does it have? Not just Logan Roy and his kids but the like of Lukas
Matsson (played by Alexander Skarsgard) who sends frozen bricks of his blood to
an employee with whom he’d been involved.
I’ve just watched The Beast in Me.
Matthew Rhys’ Nile Jarvis is not so much an anti-hero as a psychopath and is
horribly compelling.
Talking of Alexander Skarsgard, he also
excelled at being charming and then toxic in Big Little Lies (where he is not
so much anti-hero as outright villain.)
What
are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?
Writing’s
such a solitary job and I thrived best, career-wise, when I worked in a cramped
lobby room: I miss the banter of fellow journalists, so I’m giddy about
being with other writers for a weekend. And, having spent three gorgeous years
at Oxford, I’m looking forward to pretending I live there again. I used to plod
round Christ Church meadow so might even manage that.
Based
on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan (Simon & Schuster Ltd)
All families have secrets. But
it's the lies that can kill. A lavish 70th 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 based on a mother fox and her cubs. But the
night before the party, Eleanor receives an email: an email that
threatens to expose the lie she’s kept up 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 nanny she fired all those
years ago, who always did have a knack for storytelling?
Or is it one of her three daughters, all of
whom have a stake in the publishing empire she has built...
With a TV crew arriving to film a documentary of
her life, Eleanor needs to find out who sent the email – and preserve her
multimillion-pound career. But when push comes to shove, and it's
time to tell the truth - will anyone actually believe her?
More information about St Hilda's and how to purchase online tickets can be found here.
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