Tamora Pierce’s popular YA fantasy books will be coming to television, Deadline announced.  Lionsgate and Playground Entertainment have teamed up to produce a television series set in Pierce’s Tortall universe.

Tortall is a fantasy land of knights and lords, mages and princes, thieves, pirates, and spies.  There are over twenty books divided into several series, The Song of the Lioness quartet, The Immortals quartet, Protector of the Small quartet, Tricksters duo, the Beka Cooper trilogy, and the Numair Chronicles (only one book so far, but more are expected).  The books stretch over centuries throughout the kingdom of Tortall and the surrounding lands, which gives the producers plenty of material to work with.

Most readers begin with The Song of the Lioness, whose first book is the aptly named Alanna: Her First Adventure, the story of Alanna of Trebond, a nobleman’s daughter who disguises herself as her twin brother, so she can get the knightly training he doesn’t want and she desperately craves.

Pierce said, “Not only am I over the moon that the Tortall books will be adapted by Playground, but I know my fans will be ecstatic.”

Playground Entertainment are behind the stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. They also produced Little Women for PBS’ Masterpiece and King Lear on Prime. The executive producers will be Playground’s Colin Callender [producer of Timeslip, The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock, and The White Queen], Scott Huff and David A. Stern, and negotiations are underway with potential showrunners.

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