Sarah Pinborough

Sarah Pinborough is an English author and screenwriter who has written YA and adult thriller, fantasy and cross-genre novels. She has had more than 20 novels published by several companies and in several countries. They have also been translated into a number of languages.

Leisure Books
Her work has been published within the horror books section of Leisure Books.
 * The Hidden (2004, Leisure Books) ISBN 978-0843954807 — amnesia is the start of a new life with hidden horrors
 * The Reckoning (2005, Leisure Books) ISBN 978-0843955507 — horrors from teenage years come back to a group of adult friends
 * Breeding Ground (2006, Leisure Books) ISBN 978-0843957419 — end-of-the world novel where most of the population is wiped out by giant spiders born of human women
 * The Taken (2007, Leisure Books) ISBN 978-0843958966 — ghostly revenge novel
 * Tower Hill (2008, Leisure Books) ISBN 978-0-8439-6052-5 — about a small town in America in supernatural peril of Biblical proportions
 * Feeding Ground (2009, Leisure Books) ISBN 0843962933 — sequel to Breeding Ground; Pinborough's original proposal for this sequel would have been called The Brethren but this was rejected by the publisher as being too much like science fiction for their list. The book as written is intended to be like a "creature feature" movie.

Torchwood
Torchwood is a spin-off series from the BBC series Doctor Who. These are TV tie-in novels and short stories in that shared world. Pinborough has also written short stories for the Torchwood Magazine. These are:
 * Into the Silence (Torchwood) (2009, Random House) ISBN 978-1846077531
 * The story Kaleidoscope in Consequences (Torchwood) (2009, Random House) ISBN 978-1846077845
 * Torchwood: Long Time Dead (2011, Random House) ISBN 978-1849902847
 * Happy New Year Issue 20
 * Mend Me Issue 23

The Dog-Faced Gods series
Published as the Forgotten Gods Trilogy in the US by Ace Books.

"The 'Dog Faced Gods' series is set in an alternative world. The Britain of this world isn't a dystopia but it is merely a little crappier and harsher than ours." Jim Steel


 * 1) A Matter of Blood (2010, Gollancz Books) (2013 Ace Books) ISBN 978-0425258460
 * 2) The Shadow of the Soul (2011, Gollancz Books) (2013 Ace Books) ISBN 978-0425258484
 * 3) The Chosen Seed (2012, Gollancz Books) (2013 Ace Books) ISBN 978-0425258507



The Fairy Tale Series
Subversive retellings of fairy stories published by Gollancz Books.
 * Poison (April 2013 Gollancz Books) ISBN 978-0575092976 — a Snow White story
 * Charm (July 2013 Gollancz Books) ISBN 978-0575093010 — a Cinderella story
 * Beauty (October 2013 Gollancz Books) ISBN 978-0575093058 — a Sleeping Beauty story

Other novels

 * The Language of Dying (2009, PS Publishing) (2013, Jo Fletcher Books) ISBN 978-1782067542 — a dysfunctional family is revealed around the father's death-bed
 * Mayhem (2013, Jo Fletcher Books) ISBN 978-1780871288 — a supernatural murder mystery set in Victorian London and based around the events of the Thames Torso Murders.
 * Murder (2013, Jo Fletcher Books) ISBN 978-1780872346 — a sequel to Mayhem
 * The Death House (2015, Gollancz) ISBN 978-0575096875 — bleak lives of children with a 'Defective gene'
 * 13 Minutes (2016, Flatiron Books) ISBN 1250123879 — 'young adult' thriller following a girl being rescued from an icy river
 * Behind Her Eyes (2017, HarperCollins) ISBN 978-0008131968 — an idyllic life suddenly changes and who can be trusted?
 * Cross Her Heart (2018, William Morrow & Co) ISBN 9780062856791 — psychological thriller about a liar and truth
 * Dead To Her (2020, HarperCollins) ISBN 978-0062856821 — crime thriller involving an outsider marrying into elite society
 * Insomnia (2022, William Morrow & Co) ISBN 978-0062856845 — psychological thriller about a successful lawyer approaching her 40th birthday

As Sarah Silverwood
Sarah Pinborough first published The Nowhere Chronicles, a YA urban fantasy trilogy set across multiple parallel world versions of London, under the pseudonym Sarah Silverwood. The series has since been reissued under the name Sarah Pinborough.

The Nowhere Chronicles

 * 1) The Double-edged Sword (2010, Gollancz) ISBN 978-1780620596
 * 2) The Traitor's Gate (2011, Gollancz) ISBN 978-1780620657
 * 3) The London Stone (2012, Gollancz) ISBN 978-1780620671

Short stories

 * Waiting For October (2007, Dark Arts Books) – a book of the combined short stories of Sarah Pinborough, Adam Pepper, Jeff Strand and Jeffrey Thomas (writer) ISBN 978-0977968619
 * Hellbound Hearts (2009, Pocket Books) edited by Paul Kane (writer) and Marie O'Regan – Pinborough contributed "The Confessor's Tale" ISBN 978-1439140901
 * Zombie Apocalypse! edited by Stephen Jones (author) (2010, Running Press) – Pinborough contributed "Diary Entry #1", "Diary Entry #2" and "Diary Entry #3" ISBN 978-0762440016
 * The Compartments of Hell written with Paul Meloy in Black Static. A post apocalypse story where the only survivors are those who are high on opiates.
 * The Room Upstairs in House of Fear, an anthology of Haunted House stories edited by Jonathan Oliver (publishing), (2011 Solaris Books) ISBN 978-1-907992-06-3

Adaptations
Several of her novels have been optioned or adapted for TV or film. This includes:


 * In 2012, it was announced that director Peter Medak had been attached to direct Cracked, a screenplay based on Pinborough's first novel The Hidden but it has not been aired.
 * The Forgotten Gods/Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy was optioned for a television series in 2014 but has not been aired.
 * Her teenage thriller, 13 Minutes was bought by Netflix in 2016, with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage writing the adaptation.
 * Netflix developed a limited series based on Pinborough's psychological thriller novel Behind Her Eyes. The series premiered on 17 February 2021.

Screenwriting
Pinborough has written for the BBC and several other television companies. In 2012, Pinborough wrote Old School Ties, the second episode of the ninth series of the BBC TV crime drama New Tricks. On Dec 4, 2023, it was announced that Pinborough will adapt her Dog Faced Gods novels to television for Red Planet Pictures. In 2024, Paramount+ will release Insomnia, starring Vicky McClure.

Other projects in various stages of development include: <!--
 * M (2013) World Productions/ITV Global Returnable Drama Series.
 * Fallow Ground (2012) World Productions Original 3-part drama.
 * Red Summer (2012) Blind Monkey Pictures Feature screenplay. Under option.

Critical reception
The Death House
 * “I loved 'The Death House. It's moving and totally involving. Pinborough writes with vividness and emotional resonance. I couldn't put it down.” – Stephen King
 * “Sarah Pinborough has an enviable, almost Gaiman-esque ability to switch between styles, genres and tones with her books, and her latest, The Death House is her best yet.”- The Independent
 * ''“Shocking and gripping, albeit ultimately hopeful and utterly moving, and it's Sarah Pinborough's finest novel to date” Sci-Fi Now

Behind Her Eyes
 * “Sarah Pinborough is a literary chameleon of astonishing power and grace, carving out whole continents of fiction as her own: she's funny and perceptive, she writes real characters who live and die and she might even break your heart.” - Neil Gaiman, author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane
 * "Behind Her Eyes is a cunning puzzle-box of a novel, a masterfully engineered thriller that brings to mind Hitchcock at his most uncanny, and Rendell at her most relentless. Lean and mean, dark and disturbing, this is the kind of novel that takes over your life. Sarah Pinborough slays."- Joe Hill, author of Horns
 * "Behind Her Eyes is a dark, electrifying page-turner with a corker of an ending. Sarah Pinborough is about to become your new obsession." - Harlan Coben
 * ''‘British author Pinborough effectively shifts perspectives between two complex characters in this twisty psychological thriller set in North London... Pinborough will keep even veteran genre readers guessing about which members of the trio, if any, are providing trustworthy accounts of their pasts and presents.’ -Publishers’ Weekly

13 Minutes
 * "…should be read by anyone who appreciates fast-paced, beautifully written, intricately plotted crime… Whichever form she takes her writing is engrossing as she bores into the heads of these riveting, terrifying teens" -The Times (Children’s Book of the Week)
 * ‘It is a dark and nasty tale of jealously and manipulation...the characters are intriguingly flawed, the narrative tension bow-twangingly tight and there's an absolute belter of a twist"- Independent on Sunday

The Language of Dying
 * "[A] beautiful novel, short, sharp and told with painful honesty, which I would say is the product of a writer at the very top of her game. The Language of Dying is essentially a monologue – though really it is a one-sided dialogue, if such a thing exists – between the narrator, the middle child of five, and the family’s father, who is slowly dying from the lung cancer which wracks his entire body."
 * ‘The Language of Dying will take your breath away, and send shivers up your spine… But only after it’s broken your heart’ – Tor.com
 * But anyone who comes to this book with their expectations wide open will find a beautiful novel, short, sharp and told with painful honesty, which I would say is the product of a writer at the very top of her game, were it not evident from the quality of her prodigious output that Sarah Pinborough still has a way to go before she comes anywhere close to peaking. – Review in The Independent: 18 December 2013 by David Barnett

The Taken
 * Wisely, Pinborough opts to build suspense subtly, rather than bludgeon readers with horrific imagery or buckets of gore, giving this nicely executed, surprisingly moving ghost story an old-fashioned feel in the best possible sense. – Review in Publishers Weekly

Tower Hill
 * There are a lot of familiar elements here – small town in danger, ancient artefacts of power, with scripture and biblical beings co-opted into the mix...Pinborough deftly stage manages all of these favourite things, putting her own spin on the material and weaving a convincing back story that knits together scripture and mythology. – Review in Black Static by Peter Tennant.

The Shadow of the Soul
 * There is plenty going on at street level. Troubled policeman, Cass, the core of the novel, is trying to solve a series of linked student suicides in what is a very good police procedural. What we have is a violent and dark novel that packs a wild set of ingredients between its covers. It wobbles occasionally (an omniscient violin playing tramp?) but it never falls. A remarkable achievement. – Review in the British Fantasy Society Journal by Jim Steel

Poison
 * It might have been subtitled "Fifty Shades of White". Or perhaps it could bear Mae West's classic line as a cover quote: "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted." It's a slim, undemanding read, but loads of fun and very saucy with it. – Review in The Independent : 4 April 2013 by David Barnett

Charm
 * "Charm" was a light and frothy concoction, entertaining and true to the source material but with a subtext dealing with how fairy stories distort our expectations of reality. – Review in Black Static by Peter Tennant.

Mayhem
 * In this chilling exploration of madness and evil, Pinborough excels at summoning up the bleak spirit of Victorian London’s mean streets and those forced to fight for survival there. – Review of in Publishers Weekly.

Murder
 * British author Pinborough manages to make this deeply disturbing sequel to 2013’s Mayhem even bleaker and more unsettling than its predecessor... The author’s ingenuity in weaving her macabre plot becomes fully evident by the powerful, jaw-dropping end, and she skilfully instils fear in the reader even with innocuous phrases. – Review in Publishers Weekly.

Awards and nominations
The Language of Dying: 2009 Shirley Jackson Award finalist and won the 2010 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.

"Our Man in the Sudan": 2009 World Fantasy Award finalist -->

Personal life
Pinborough was born in 1972 in Buckinghamshire, UK.

She is a patron of the Educational Wealth Fund.