Jenna Bush Hager, “Bel-Air” showrunner Carla Banks Waddles, and “Good Girls” creator Jenna Bans are teaming to adapt Diane Marie Brown’s debut novel “Black Candle Women” into a television series at Universal Television.
Hager, the co-host of “Today with Hoda & Jenna,” previously announced “Black Candle Women” as her March pick for her book club #ReadWithJenna. Waddles will write and executive produce the series. Bans and Casey Kyber of Minnesota Logging Company will executive produce along with Hager and Ben Spector of Thousand Voices. Waddles is under an overall deal at UTV, as is Bans, while Hager is under a first-look deal with Universal Studio Group. USG’s Creative Acquisitions and IP Management team, led by Jordan Moblo, was said to be instrumental in securing the rights to the novel.
“I am thrilled that my book will not only be adapted but also be in such incredibly talented hands,” Brown said. “I’m so excited to see these characters that have lived in my head for so long brought to life on screen.”
Per the official description, the book “introduces four generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—who have lived together in their quaint two-story bungalow in California for years. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when seventeen-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the other women have been withholding a secret from Nickie that will end her relationship before it’s even begun: the decades-old family curse that any person they fall in love with dies. Their surprise guest forces each woman to reckon with her own past choices and mistakes. And as new truths about the curse emerge, the family is set on a collision course dating back to a Voodoo shop in 1950s New Orleans’s French Quarter—where a hidden story in a mysterious book may just hold the answers they seek in life and in love.”
“Diane’s magical, poetic novel captured my imagination from the first page,” Hager said. “I am thrilled to partner with the indomitable Carla to bring the four generations of Montrose women to viewers. We are also thrilled that Jenna and Casey have joined us alongside our partners at UTV.”
