EXCLUSIVE: Bestselling British author Adele Parks is having her novels turned into a TV series for the first time.
Parks has struck a deal with Studiocanal-backed Strong Film & Television for a domestic thriller based on the interconnected characters who appear across Our Beautiful Mess, Playing Away, Lies Lies Lies and Young Wives’ Tales, which have been published across her 25-year career.
Our Beautiful Mess, which came out last year, sits at the heart of the adaptation, which isn’t yet attached to a network. That book tells of a mother who can’t wait for her kids to return from holiday but discovers one is pregnant once she gets back with her troubling boyfriend, setting off a spiral of secrets and threats.
Strong Film & Television founder James Strong, the director behind Mr Bates vs the Post Office and Vigil, will direct the new series with Bafta-winning EP Loretta Preece. A screenwriter and cast will be announced in due course.
Parks is one of the UK’s top-selling authors. She has written 25 novels since the turn of the millennium. Her work has previously been adapted into movies like 2024’s The Image of You and last year’s The Stranger in My Home.
The deal was brokered by producer Jim Parks, whose recent credits include The Image of You along with Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers.
Strong called Park’s novels “a director’s dream… blistering page‑turners that beg to be brought to the screen.”
Parks added: “From the moment I met James and the team at Strong Film & Television, I knew I’d found the perfect partners. Their energy, creativity and dynamism are astonishing. I’m confident we’ll deliver what my fans have been demanding – emotive, entertaining, must‑see TV.”
Strong Film & Television launched in 2023 and is making an ITV drama series about a young Elizabeth I with a trio of former Grey’s Anatomy showrunners. It just landed the rights to Robin Stevens’ Murder Most Unladylike.