Stone Village Television Acquires Rights To Alex Michaelides’ The Maidens’ For TV Series Development

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Scott Steindorff and Dylan Russell’s Stone Village Television has acquired the film and television rights to Alex Michaelides’ forthcoming novel The Maidens to develop as a premium television series.

The story, set on the Greek island of Naxos and also in the town of Cambridge, England, is described as a well paced murder mystery with sudden twists and turns. It is centered around Mariana Andros who is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on a secret society called “The Maidens,” when one of the members, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered at Cambridge. Mariana becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, a Classics professor named Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. Her determination to prove him guilty will send her life spiraling out of control, to destroy her career, her relationships- even if it costs her life.

Celadon Books will publish the novel in June 2021. It is the first of a series of books about the
Greek psychologist who investigates mysteries.

Michaelides’ first novel, The Silent Patient, was the biggest-selling debut novel published in
2019. It spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and was published in 49 countries.

“This is the kind of story I’ve been wanting to help tell my whole career,” said Scott Steindorff, Managing Partner of Stone Village. “It has everything I love: a layered and heroic lead woman, academia, Greek Islands, classics, complex psychology, and an unpredictable mystery. The characters and world are all here for endless, entertaining storytelling.”

Currently Steindorff is prepping a documentary he will direct with Stone Village about Spectrum Neurodiversity. Stone Village is producing the HBO Max TV series based on Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel with writer/showrunner Patrick Sommerville (Maniac) showrunning, and Jeremy Podeswa (Game of Thrones) and Hiro Murai (Atlanta) producing and directing.

Michaelides is repped by Katie Haines at The Agency and Sam Copeland at RCW.