Rose Tremain's latest book fictionalises the love story behind Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca

Bestselling author Rose Tremain’s latest book has been acquired by Chatto & Windus, with plans already underway to turn it into a film starring Uma Thurman. 

The Housekeeper is set in 1930s England and fictionalises the inspiration behind Daphne du Maurier’s famous novel, Rebecca.  

Clara Farmer, associate publishing Director at Chatto & Windus, acquired rights in UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada) territories from Caroline Michel at Peters Fraser and Dunlop. It will be published in September 2025. 

A film adaptation will be directed by Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal, The Children Act), with Uma Thurman confirmed as the housekeeper, Phoebe Dynevor as du Maurier and Sir Anthony Hopkins as Lord DeWithers.  

The housekeeper of the title is a Mrs Danowski (known as Danni) who becomes the lover of a writer called Daphne when they meet at Manderville Hall, the grand Cornish house where Danni works as housekeeper to the widowed Lord DeWithers. 

Tremain said: “I’ve been on a 10-year journey with the idea behind The Housekeeper, from a short story published in 2014, through to its expansion into a screenplay in 2024. But still the voice of Danni, my fictional housekeeper, seems to be asking me to dig deeper yet into her extraordinary story. So it’s with great energy and excitement that I am now exploring in novel form how Danni believed she had found the great love of her life and then lost it to a writer’s desire for immortality.” 

Farmer said: “Rose continues to be master of her art, and readers are going to flock to this sexy drama of betrayal. The Housekeeper is not a retelling; rather, it’s an ingenious approach to a famous story, and a brilliant and bravura act of imagination. This will be a major publication for Chatto & Windus and Vintage next autumn. The fact that there is such a star-studded film to follow is an unbridled delight."

Tremain’s novels and short stories have been published in 30 countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award (The Colonel’s Daughter and Other Stories), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music and Silence) the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Femina in France (Sacred Country) and the South Bank Sky Arts Award (The Gustav Sonata). 

Tremain lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer Richard Holmes.