SCOTTISH literature has no shortage of gems, with plots and characters that leap off the page.
Over the years, a raft of titles – from Treasure Island to Trainspotting and more – have been adapted for film and television.
Here, we've pulled together a list of six Scottish books destined for our screens very soon. How many have you read?
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman's smash debut novel has been optioned by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production company with a movie in the works.
Set in contemporary Glasgow, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is a warm, uplifting and incredibly funny tale. Its indomitable eponymous heroine is a social misfit with a traumatic past.
Witherspoon has a knack for finding stories that can make the jump from books. She produced the Oscar-nominated films, Gone Girl and Wild, as well as hit TV shows Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere.
Conviction
Speaking of Witherspoon, she chose Conviction by Denise Mina as her Hello Sunshine Book Club pick last December.
Although no film deal has been formally announced, there's a good chance that the actor and producer has an eye on bringing the whip-smart thriller – where a woman obsessed with true crime podcasts finds herself at the heart of a jet-setting murder mystery – to the screen.
In 2011, Mina's Paddy Meehan crime novels were adapted to become The Field of Blood, starring Jayd Johnson, David Morrissey and Peter Capaldi, which ran for two series. Her new novel, The Less Dead, is published by Harvill Secker, priced £14.99.
A Dark Matter
Doug Johnstone’s domestic noir series centres on three generations of women – Jenny Skelf, her mother Dorothy and daughter Hannah – who run a family funeral director business with a sideline as private investigators in Edinburgh.
The first novel, A Dark Matter, was published in January and has been optioned as a TV drama by Glasgow-based production company Blazing Griffin, while the second, The Big Chill, is published by Orenda, priced £8.99. Click here to read The Herald Magazine cover story with the author.
Blood Orange
This brilliant debut novel from Harriet Tyce has been optioned by World Productions – the makers of Line of Duty and Bodyguard – for development into a TV series.
The gripping psychological thriller follows a high-flying criminal barrister taking on her first murder case at the same time as her personal life descends into chaos when an affair leads to dark obsession.
The Edinburgh-born author's second book, The Lies You Told – like Blood Orange it is set in the world of criminal law – is published by Wildfire, priced £12.99.
Karen Pirie
ITV is making a three-part crime drama based on The Distant Echo, the first in a series of cold case novels by Val McDermid. Set in St Andrews, DCI Karen Pirie is tasked with reopening an investigation into the murder of a teenage barmaid who has become the subject of a provocative true crime podcast.
Karen Pirie is another on the World Productions slate and is being adapted by Harlots writer Emer Kenny.
A separate series of McDermid's books were made into an ITV drama, Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green as psychological profiler Dr Tony Hill in 2002. Her latest DCI Karen Pirie thriller, Still Life, is published by Little, Brown, priced £20.
Ash Mountain
If you were glued to the BBC thriller, The Cry, which starred Jenna Coleman as a young mother whose baby vanishes on a trip to Australia, then look out for Ash Mountain.
The Cry’s author Helen FitzGerald’s latest novel, published this month, is a deftly written and darkly funny portrait of small-town life as a woman returns home to care for her gravely ill father.
The TV rights have been snapped up by the new Melbourne-based offshoot of Glasgow production company Synchronicity Films, who also made The Cry. FitzGerald hails from Australia but has lived in Scotland for more than 30 years, so we can claim her as one of ours.
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