Meet the author ADELE PARKS
First she switched from writing romantic fiction to twisty domestic noir tales – now Adele Parks is turning her hand to movies
Adele Parks has been commissioned to write the screenplay of her 24th novel, First Wife’s Shadow. It’s a psychological thriller that looks at the issue of living in the shadow of a previous wife, as a whirlwind relationship between career-driven Emma and Matthew, a widower 12 years her junior, goes awry. Emma becomes obsessed with his late first wife… and then strange things start to happen.
“If I write the screenplay, we’d be looking to try and get a green light over the next year and then film it,” says Adele, 55, whose books have sold in their millions and been translated into 31 languages.
Her husband Jim has also been involved in her movie journey. A former international marketing director and website designer, he retrained at the National Film and Television School to help achieve their ambition of turning her previous book, The Image Of You, into a film.
The couple were executive producers on The Image Of You – a dark tale about identical twin sisters and how one goes to extreme measures to discover the truth about the man the other is dating. It stars Pretty Little Liars actress Sasha Pieterse and was released in May. An adaptation of another of Adele’s novels, The Stranger In My Home, has already been filmed and is due for release next year.
“I’ve got the bug now. I do really want to see a few more of my books adapted for screen,” Adele says.
“First Wife’s Shadow is about a woman who is completely sorted, financially successful, who has built her own home and is CEO of an energy company. We don’t expect women to fall in love with younger men. We all question it when they do. But she can’t get over the fact that his first wife is dead and if she wasn’t dead he’d still be with her.” Adele agrees it’s nothing like her own marriage. “Jim and I have been married for 20 years. There is complete trust. When we met I was already a mum of a 13-month-old (she had separated from her first husband when their son Conrad was 10 months old) and I was really straightforward about saying, ‘It’s not just me, we’re a package deal.”
She acknowledges that Jim gave up his career for her and appreciates every second of it.
“He was the international marketing director at Universal, marketing their DVDS and films. My career was huge and involved a lot of travel and we decided we didn’t want our son to be brought up with nannies. So we did the childcare between us, but he couldn’t keep his job because of the hours. It was just too much. For many years he was at home supporting my career.”
When Adele isn’t writing, she loves to read. “Crime writers, thriller writers, psychological thriller writers – I love them all,” she says. “I like crime best when there’s romance involved, and human relationships. I don’t mind if it’s siblings or your child, or your parents. But I think the most exquisite thing about being human is how complex we are and how much love we’ve got to give and how often we get that wrong and how hate spews out. I’m not interested in psychos that want to chop up bodies. I want to know what makes people tick.”
‘I’ve got the bug now. I really want to see more of my books adapted’
First Wife’s Shadow by Adele Parks (HQ, £16.99) is out now