‘What Happened to Nina?’ Author’s #1 Bestseller Officially Heads to TV

This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.

The streaming era has paved the way for a much wider selection of books to reach the screen, whether as films or television series. Netflix, in particular, has been aggressive in snatching up the rights to acclaimed and bestselling novels, finding success this year with everything from Shelby Van Pelt‘s Remarkably Bright Creatures to Alice Feeney‘s His & Hers. Now, it’s officially Australian thriller author Dervla McTiernan‘s time to shine once again. Her star has been on the rise for a while now, with two of her previous novels, The Murder Rule and the acclaimed What Happened to Nina?, both being optioned for adaptation by FX and Lingo Pictures, respectively. Yet another of her titles is now about to get the television treatment.

Easy Tiger Productions, the banner behind the acclaimed romantic comedy series Colin From Accounts, has won a heated bidding war for the rights to McTiernan’s 2026 novel Three Reasons for Revenge. At this time, a streamer or other distributor has not been set, meaning it’ll still have to be taken out to the wider market and sold before it can really hit the ground running. It does, however, already have a big name on board to write in Shaun Grant. Best known of late for penning the Jacob Elordi-led miniseries The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the 2021 Caleb Landry Jones-led psychological drama Nitram, he shared in a statement how confident he was from the beginning that McTiernan’s latest was destined for the small screen. “From the moment I first read Three Reasons for Revenge, I immediately envisaged it as a television series,” he said. “It is a supremely crafted thriller full of surprises, and I thank Dervla for entrusting Easy Tiger and myself with her creation.”

Three Reasons for Revenge revolves around “three seemingly unconnected people caught in a lethal web of deceit and unhealed wounds.” All three live in completely different houses throughout Melbourne, yet they all receive similarly mysterious gifts, each of which is painstakingly tailored to fit its recipient to a T. However, they’re all carefully thought out to destroy their lives from the inside. It’s left up to Detective Sergeant Judith Lee to unravel who could’ve had such intimate knowledge of each of the three people’s lives and vulnerabilities to craft such monstrous presents. Making things more curious is that they all seem to tie back to the sudden and mysterious disappearance of a woman who had reported an assault less than a day before she vanished.