The latest project in development for Made Up Stories is Darling Girls by author Sally Hepworth (pictured).
The winner of the 2024 Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction, the thriller explores sisterhood, secrets and murder. The novel was an instant national bestseller in the US and Australia’s #1 fiction title upon release.
Darling Girls will be adapted for television by Irish screenwriter and producer Orlagh Collins, who also serves as executive producer / showrunner.
Made Up Stories said, “We love making compelling thrillers at Made Up Stories with complex women at the centre. Sally’s brilliant book has four of them and, paired with Orlagh Collins’ adaptation, we’ve been left breathless.”
Sally Hepworth said, “I’m thrilled to be working with Bruna, Steve and Made Up Stories to adapt DARLING GIRLS for series. I’ve long admired their dynamic filmmaking and their passion for telling women’s stories, so I feel unbelievably lucky to partner with them to bring this particular story to life—one that examines three uniquely complex women at the centre of a murder investigation and the team of detectives who grossly underestimate their unbreakable bond of sisterhood.”
Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky and Katie Amos will produce for Made Up Stories. Hepworth and Rob Weisbach will serve as executive producers.
Last week Made Up Stories announced it had optioned Zoë Foster Blake’s new novel Things Will Calm Down as a US-set TV series.
In Darling Girls, Jessica, Norah and Alicia return to the idyllic farming estate where they were raised by a loving foster mother when a body is discovered under the house. Rescued from family tragedies, the foster sisters were always told how lucky they were to be given an elusive second chance of a happy family life. But, forced to return to Wild Meadows, it becomes clear their childhood wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thought it was, and the sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses — or prime suspects.
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