Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughn

 Slow burner of a psychological and domestic thriller

Dame Eleanor Kingman has meticulously crafted her life story, transforming her journey from poverty to a multimillion dollar franchise as a children’s author. Her books, based somewhat on her youngest daughter, have made her rich and… now she finds that she’s a target. 

She’s preparing to celebrate her 70th birthday at a lavish party on her newly purchased Cornish cliff side estate. Suddenly, the carefully curated facade beings to crack. While a journalist and his crew prepare to film a documentary about her life and rise to fame, Eleanor starts to receive threatening emails. Someone wants to expose her and out the lies she’s hidden for almost fifty years. 

All of the tension is not just Eleanor’s as her three adult daughters, Gilly, Rachel, and Delia, are also having some intense issues and are hiding some serious secrets of their own. 

This is a slow burning family drama that focuses on identity, truth, and betrayal. The setting on the isolated, windswept cliff at Cornwall creates a mood as well. This was not a bad novel, it just took so long to get to the point and it seemed eons until it got there while also being quite predictable and contained all the typical tropes of the genre. 

The narrative shifted in points of view with some time jumps as well. Granted, the family is dysfunctional and the characters are not really likable. The theme reflecting the nature and cost of maintaining a public persona especially rings true when the main character is threatened with revelation of those long buried secrets.

I was able to listen to the audiobook while also following along in the e-book ARC, both provided by the publishers. The narrator, Juliet Stevenson, had a huge job trying to differentiate all the female characters to make them unique. Since so many were female, this story would have been better served in this format to have a larger cast. All those female voices blended together and it was hard to distinguish between the characters if I had not been reading along at the same time. She did a decent job, but some of those accents and tones were a bit much. As always, however, I always enjoy the immersive experience of a simultaneous read while listening. 

3.5 stars

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Genre and tags: psychological and domestic drama, thriller, mystery, author, murder, assault, secrets and lies, adultery, Cornwall