Bestselling author Sarah Vaughan joins me for the latest episode in my Bloody Scotland 2026 series to talk about her new psychological thriller, Based on a True Story.
Sarah tells me why she wanted to make Based on a True Story a glossier, more playful departure from novels including Anatomy of a Scandal, Little Disasters and Reputation, and why the Cornish setting was so important to her.
We talk about the novel’s surprising influences, from Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier to King Lear, Macbeth and Succession, and why Sarah decided to put a powerful matriarch and her three very different daughters at the centre of the story.
We also discuss the complicated relationship between parents and children when a child becomes part of a parent’s work, the real-life experiences of Christopher Robin Milne that helped inspire the novel, influencer culture and the ethics of parents sharing their children online.
Sarah also talks about what happens when a writer’s novels start being adapted for television, and how working as an executive producer on adaptations of her books has changed the way she thinks about pacing, chapter endings, point of view and setting when she writes.
Plus, we look ahead to Bloody Scotland and Sarah shares the events she’s hoping to catch while she’s in Stirling.
Sarah Vaughan will appear alongside Evelyn Clarke and Sarah Lotz on Writes and Wrongs at 12 noon on Friday 18 September at the Golden Lion Hotel.
Sarah’s Bloody Scotland picks include Denise Mina Presents Lucy Foley at 3pm, where Lucy will discuss her new Miss Marple novel Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel; The Kill Switch: Robert Peston at 5pm; Twists and Turns with Gilly Macmillan, Dorothy Koomson and Claire Douglas at 6.45pm; and Richard Osman with Mark Billingham at 8.15pm.
