Little Disasters, based on my psychological thriller about the darkest reaches of motherhood, drops on Paramount+ today and I could not be more thrilled.

Starring Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds, Troy) as Jess, and Jo Joyner (The Wives, Stay Close, Shakespeare & Hathaway) as Liz, it feels true to my 2020 novel and yet distinct from it. A storyline set in the Eighties has been stripped away and each of the four mothers has a more fully realised narrative. And as for the ending? Well, you’ll just have to watch to see…

One of the reasons I feel so proud of it is because, like Anatomy of a Scandal, Little Disasters feels so personal: based on a novel inspired by my own experience after having my second baby, although obviously exaggerated massively since I needed to ratchet up the jeopardy. It’s a very female-led show, with four very different women divided by the moral dilemma at its heart. A six-part series about motherhood and judgment, and more specifically maternal mental health, shouldn’t feel extraordinary – and yet, in an environment in which the pandemic and writers’ strikes have had a massive impact on the number of TV shows being made, it very much does. 

Little Disasters focuses on a decades-long friendship between Jess, Liz, Mel and Charlotte: four mothers who meet at an antenatal class and remain in one another’s lives, despite having little in common but their due dates. But when seemingly perfect Jess turns up at an A&E department on Friday night with a baby with a bang to the back of her head and a story that doesn’t add up, those friendships are strained. Liz is the paediatric registrar on call and her decision to bring in social services and the police sets in motion a chain of events that fractures and nearly destroys not just Jess’s family but the entire friendship group.

I’m so grateful to the independent production company Roughcut TV for championing this psychological drama with a mystery at its heart, not least the women driving it, producers Marianna Abbotts and Myf Hopkins and director Eva Sigurdardottir; the screenwriters, Ruth Fowler and Amanda Duke; and the actors, Diane Kruger, Jo Joyner, Emily Taaffe (War and Peace), who plays Mel, and Shelley Conn, Charlotte (Alex Rider, Bridgerton). And then there are the husbands: JJ Feild (Ed), Ben Bailey-Smith (Nick), Stephen Campbell Moore (Rob), and Patrick Baladi (Andrew), not to mention the various Betseys (a newborn, a two-week old, and a ten-month-old), and seven other children. Special mention must go to eight-year-old Frankie (Jax James.)

As I write this, the day before transmission, I’m excited and just a little nervous. The screening of the first episode, at the Charlotte St hotel last week, was met with a superb response: both laughter at moments of black humour and gasps at the suspense, including from my editor, who knows the story but was still taken by surprise. The previews in the weekend’s press have been excellent, with the Times praising Kruger’s performance as “superb”, and the Telegraph saying the same of Joyner in this “thorny six-part drama” that’s being compared to Made Up Stories’ superb Big Little Lies, and variously described as “addictive”, “intriguing”, and something that “grips”.

“This is a powerhouse cast,” declaimed the Sunday Times. “Pulls you in with the tensions of the opening then keeps you there with the promise of secrets to be revealed,” added the Daily Mail, which chose it as its streamer pick of the week. “Addictive,” said the Mail on Sunday”. “An intriguing premise with a great cast”, according to Heat, which dubbed it “unmissable”; “Gripping from the off with great performances and revelations that will keep you guessing”, TV Times; “well-structured and acted”, Radio Times. Pick of the Day for the Observer, and a pick for the i.

There’s been extensive press, including a cover for Diane Kruger and 10-page fashion feature in Grazia; appearances on BBC 1’s The One Show and ITV’s Good Morning Britain; the Sunday Times culture, and coming up, a piece I’ve written for The Times.

And the stars have engaged with it, too, not only bonding on set in Budapest (it was shot there for seven weeks and a further eight back in south-west London) but bringing their own experience of parenting to their roles. 

As Diane Kruger has said, while promoting it, “Women put a lot of pressure on themselves and can be their own harshest critics. Whether it's breastfeeding – how long do you do it for? What if you can’? is it affecting my kids? – or the judgement from other mothers on how you are raising your children, it can all be very intense. So, I think the more we tell stories that show the struggles people go through, the better.

“When this script was presented to me, I felt very strongly I had to do it,” Jo Joyner added. “These topics are particularly important, and I really feel we’ve done them justice.”

The anticipation for the release of Anatomy of a Scandal has just intensified with the Netflix release of the trailer for the show.

To the dark strains of an Elephant Music mixed Heads May Roll, it builds to a startling climax of James Whitehouse (Rupert Friend) screaming his denial of rape, and features hints of Oxford debauchery as well as political posturing and the painful implosion of a marriage.

I think it’s utterly brilliant - and, three days in, it’s already had almost half a million views.

Privilege is about to be put on trial, it proclaims - while the poster for the show puns: “Not everyone is entitled to the truth.”

The theme of entitlement - which I, and the director SJ Clarkson, have been adamant is at the heart of the story - was flagged up by Sienna Miller at a Netflix event to showcase the streamer’s forthcoming highlights.

In quotes picked up by the Daily Telegraph, she said: “It deals with privilege in a way that we are seeing unravel daily in our Government. It really is very close to the bone. It’s art imitating life. It’s exciting. We do live in a country that’s not really a meritocracy a lot of the time; where if you had access to education of a certain standard and calibre, and go through the motions, you have aspirations of being in government. And we’re seeing it - they [members of the Government] are all friends.

“I mean, make up your own minds. Watch it and then read the newspapers and see what you think.”

She also spoke about how compulsive she found the script, and alluded to her experience of extreme media attention when her then partner Jude Law admitted to having an affair with his children’s nanny. “I got sent the script and all six episodes came through, which can be really overwhelming. I read the first one, then I couldn’t stop reading all of them. It felt instantly like something I’d want to make and something that people would really want to watch.

“I was excited to play somebody who deals with not dissimilar things that I very publicly dealt with and who responds in different ways.

“What would a [person’s] response be to some terrible behaviour? It felt meta and weird and uncomfortable.”

As pre-publication plans go, getting covid less than a fortnight until a book comes out is far from ideal - so please excuse the brevity of this post, and the blurriness of the above picture, snatched from a belated book unboxing video. With three days to go, I am playing bad catch-up here…

But I wanted to list the various events - many online but some which will be happening in real life - to celebrate my fifth novel, and third thriller, Reputation.

First, though is a link to a Guardian feature I did on Reputation, Anatomy of a Scandal and the zeitgeisty nature of my thrillers. I took voluntary redundancy from that paper 13 years ago, so it felt wonderful to be back in its pages - even if I wasn’t writing the story. (And that was hard! Never interview a journalist seems to be the consensus, and I can see why.)

I’ve also chatted to Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar, to Radio Leeds, and - tonight - to Times Radio; to the Sunday Session in New Zealand, and the Australian Sisters in Crime podcast. (I’m assured I’m not incoherent in that one, but I’m bright red as I had a fever, so please excuse that!) I’ve just recorded a podcast for Blood Brothers, to come on pub day, and there are several further podcasts, including Book Off! and In Suspense Podcast lined up.

But here are the events, with links attached.

Reading Party Event on March 2, 7pm. A read along to celebrate publication eve of Reputation. Tickets from £2.

Griffin Books - digital launch of Reputation. I did an event for Anatomy of a Scandal 3 years ago at this Penarth bookshop and am delighted to be talking to Mel virtually here.

Suffolk Libraries on March 7, 7pm. Free to support Suffolk Libraries Day.

Leeds library on March 10, 6pm, as part of the British Library’s Breaking the News exhibition.

Warwickshire libraries event - Tuesday 22 March, 7.30pm. Free. I did an event with Costa novel winner Claire Fuller in December with these organisers and over 400 people attended online.

Crawley Wordfest: Bar at the Noir - Wednesday 23rd, 7pm. Free.

Heffers, Cambridge, with Kate Rhodes. £7 entry including soft drinks and fizz.

Plus various zoom events for the Women in Law bookclub, among others, and a super exciting real-life literary festival event I’ll be sharing as soon as I can. Hope to see some of you virtually, if not in person.

It’s just 3 weeks until Reputation, my political thriller/courtroom drama, is published and from having had too little news to share, I suddenly have rather a lot of it. Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement of the Anatomy of a Scandal release date and photos, comes the news that the dream team behind this adaptation hope to turn Reputation into a TV series, too.

Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories and Liza Chasin’s 3dot productions have “optioned” my fifth novel in what Deadline, the Hollywood news site, has described as our “reteaming.” Two Hollywood studios, Endeavor Content and Anonymous Content, are signed up and I’ll executive produce alongside Bruna and Liza and Made Up Stories’ Steve Hutensky and 3dot’s Margaret Chernin, too. An “option” doesn’t mean something will definitely be produced – the chances of that happening are always very slim – but, given the terrific job they’ve done with Anatomy, it’s hard not to be hugely optimistic and excited about this news.

Reputation is about a Labour MP who finds herself accused of murder when a tabloid journalist with whom she’s been entangled is found dead in her home. But it’s really about misogyny and the pressures women face – in person and on social media – as they navigate their way through public life. 

 I wrote it while giving notes on various drafts of the scripts for Anatomy of a Scandal, and feel the new thriller benefitted enormously as a result. So I’m completely thrilled that Bruna and Liza loved it, too. As they put it: “Sarah has crafted a gripping, addictive and timely political thriller that explores the pressure put on women in positions of power. We fell in love with the characters and world and are delighted to be teaming up again with Sarah to bring her masterful new book to life.”

Phew!

With news of a TV option, perhaps it’s fitting to share this terrific trailer, created by S&S, my publishers:

You can preorder signed copies from Waterstone’s via this link, or of course online or from your local independent bookshop, and I’d be incredibly grateful if you wanted to do so. Or – if you’re in the Whitley Bay area on Saturday – I will be talking about it, live, for the very first time. The first Bay Tales live show at the Whitley Bay playhouse has a few tickets left, here. It will be my first event for two years so I’m both a little anxious, and excited to be back, talking to readers about plots, twists and why I write.  If you’re in the area, I’ll be chatting with fellow S&S thriller writers Louise Candlish, Russ Thomas and newcomer Kate Ruby, and would love to see you.