According to Deadline, the novel titled Assistant To The Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (Apprentice to the Villain) went through an intense auction for television rights. Legendary Television ended up with the rights and will be making the book into a scripted series. The book itself was published with Red Tower Books, an extension of Entangled Publishing, on August 29th.
Deadline revealed that the plot of the book and soon the show can be “Described as The Office meets The Princess Bride, the story follows the young Evie Sage who, with ailing family to support, takes a job as an assistant to the most infamous Villain in the land. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop an infatuation with your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably alluring boss. When Evie suspects that something nefarious is afoot amongst their villainous ranks, she must figure out who is sabotaging her boss before this rat wipes out their empire and puts her out of a job.”
While the show will be based on the book, the book came from a series the author made on TikTok with the same title. The novel became #2 on the New York Times Best Sellers list for fiction. The TikTok account used by Maehrer currently has 280,000 followers with the series garnering 25M views and 26.5M likes, says Deadline.
Deadline also highlighted the success of books published by Entangled Publishing. This is because the company is one of the largest women-owned independent publishers of young-adult novels as well as children’s books. The Red Tower label, which is an extension of Entangled, frequently has titles selected for The New York Times Best Sellers list. Other popular books from the label which currently also have deals to be made into TV shows are Fourth Wing, its sequel called Iron Flame, and The Empyrean Series.