Shannon's The Bone Season snapped up for TV

Samantha Shannon’s international bestseller The Bone Season will be adapted into a "major" TV series by producer Harriet Hammond of Lunar Park.

The first series will be comprised of eight episodes, with further series to follow. The deal for television rights was brokered by Kirsty McLachlan at DGA Associates.

The Bone Season is the first in a seven-book series which was snapped up in a six-figure deal and published in 2013. It imagines a dystopian future where clairvoyance is a crime, forcing 19-year-old dreamwalker Paige Mahoney into a double life, using her skills in the criminal underworld but all the while concealing her talents if she wants to survive. 

Lunar Park is the new venture from Hammond and Daz Spencer Lovesey of Bad Penny Productions, who have produced a number of films most recently Michael Morpurgo’s Waiting for Anya (Egmont) starring Anjelica Huston. Lunar Park will focus on original high-quality drama aimed at the direct to television and streaming video on demand markets, Hammond said.

Shannon said: "TV has come such a long way in recent years and offers rich opportunities for a long series like this one — there’s so much room for character development and expansion on the source material. It’s also very exciting to be able to re-approach the novels as a screenwriter. Once a book is out in the world, it’s essentially set in stone, but adapting The Bone Season for TV will allow me to explore the world of Scion in even more depth and consider the story from new angles. I’m looking forward to the journey.”

Hammond said: “We feel privileged that Samantha has given us this opportunity, and are delighted that she will be working closely with us to adapt her novel. The rich quality of The Bone Season makes it perfectly suited for a series adaptation – we want plenty of time to really get to know Paige and her world.”