After leaving Oxford, Sarah Gristwood began work as a journalist, writing at first about the theatre as well as general features on everything from gun control to Giorgio Armani. But increasingly she found herself specialising in film interviews - Johnny Depp and Robert De Niro; Martin Scorsese and Paul McCartney. She has appeared in most of the UK's leading newspapers - The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph (Daily and Sunday) - and magazines from Cosmopolitan to Country Living and Sight and Sound to The New Statesman.

Turning to history she wrote two bestselling Tudor biographies, Arbella: England’s Lost Queen and Elizabeth and Leicester; and the eighteenth century story Perdita: Royal Mistress, Writer, Romantic which was selected as Radio 4 Book of the Week. Presenting and contributing to several radio and tv documentaries, she has also recently published a book on iconic dresses, Fabulous Frocks (with Jane Eastoe); and a 50th anniversary companion to the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Her plans for 2011 include the publication in June of her first historical novel, The Girl in the Mirror (HarperCollins), and work on a new non-fiction book about the women who gave birth to the Tudor age. She has also collaborated with Tracy Borman, Alison Weir and Kate Williams on The Ring and the Crown (Hutchinson), a book on the history of royal marriages. The 'History Girls', as they have been dubbed, also have events and media appearances together. Sarah and her husband, the film critic Derek Malcolm, live in London and Kent.