A novel written by a former island resident could be turned into the next hit television series.

Author Chris Ewan’s latest novel ‘The House Hunt’ was only released in August last year but Sony Pictures Television-backed Eleventh Hour Films now plans to turn into new TV show, Variety reports.

The company has already brought Victoria Asare-Archer onboard to adapt Chris’s The House Hunt.

She is the lead writer and executive producer on Netflix’s Harlan Coben adaptation Missing You, which is currently in production.

The House Hunt features young couple Lucy and Sam who put their newly renovated house on the market to try and clear their debts.

Lucy finds herself agreeing to take a viewing from a prospective dream buyer alone while Sam is at work but all is not as it seems.

Chris, who was born and currently lives in Somerset but who lived on the island for a number of years, visited the island last year where he read from his new thriller at the Henry Bloom Noble Library in Douglas.

Describing the novel, he previously told Isle of Man Today: ‘The House Hunt is a heart-pounding and claustrophobic “what would you do” thriller about a young couple who are selling their recently renovated dream house in London and what happens when the woman, Lucy, is forced to show a potential buyer around their house who refuses to leave.

‘The idea came to me after my wife and I went to view a house with an estate agent, only for the home owner to insist on carrying out the home tour himself. As he took us from room to room, he began over-sharing, telling us his wife was divorcing him after cheating on him, and that he didn’t want to sell.

‘It made me realise what an unsettling and invasive experience it can to be show a potential buyer around your home. After that, I knew I had a new idea for a book.’

Asare-Archer has been named one of the Radio Times’ top 100 voices in TV. She has previously written two episodes of Netflix’s “Stay Close” as well as the Emmy-nominated virtual reality game “Doctor Who: The Runaway

‘All my years of Rightmove stalking have finally paid off!’ Asare-Archer told Variety. ‘It’s a dream to be able to combine my love of property porn and tense domestic thrillers in one gripping series. Chris has written the most engrossing book about one young couple’s property nightmare. It’s an honour to have been asked to turn a bestselling book into a must-watch TV series.’

The House Hunt is Chris’s 12th published novel with five novels published in his ‘Good Thief’s Guide To…’ mystery series, followed by a number of standalone thrillers with ‘Safe House’ set in the Isle of Man which is about an amateur TT rider who gets caught up in a missing person conspiracy.

The ‘Good Thief’s Guide To...’ series has also been developed for television in the US a number of times and they are currently in development again.