It has been announced that there is a TV adaptation of Emily Perkins’ Lioness in the works.

Made Up Stories adapted Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, as well as the soon-to-be-released The Last Anniversary.

Simon Baker will direct all episodes.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

You know how we say we devoured a story, and also that we were consumed by it? Eating and being eaten. It was like that with Claire, for me.

From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband’s latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, and Therese begins to look at her privileged and insular world with new eyes.
In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she’s discovered the secret to living with freedom and authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment a place of ecstatic release.

All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself and her choices just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it?

A recent winner of the prestigious Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, the psychological thriller follows central character Therese Thorne, who has married a wealthy older man and built a successful career, only for a fraud investigation to threaten her sense of loyalty as well as her reputation. She faces a midlife reckoning about love and complicity while being drawn to her neighbour, Claire, who offers an enticing, wild, but risky new approach to womanhood.

The story will be adapted for television with Baker attached to direct all episodes. Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, and Katie Amos will produce for Made Up Stories along with Higgins, Baker, and Perkins.

The company, known for its adaptations of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, as well as the soon-to-be-released The Last Anniversary, said in a joint statement with Higgins that they were excited to collaborate with “truly original creatives” such as Perkins and Baker in bringing the book to screen.