BBC Studios Fiction has optioned The Paying Guests, the only novel by acclaimed British author Sarah Waters not yet adapted for screen, marking the completion of a long-running effort to bring her entire canon to television and film. Writer Kayleigh Llewellyn, known for In My Skin and Killing Eve, is attached to adapt the 2014 novel as a series, though no broadcaster or streamer has yet signed on.

Set in London in 1922, the story follows Frances Wray and her mother as they take in married lodgers Lilian and Leonard Barber, with a secret love affair between Frances and Lilian escalating into murder and a courtroom drama. Waters, twice shortlisted for the Booker and Women's Prize for Fiction, has had several previous works adapted, including Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith (which also inspired Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden), Affinity, The Night Watch and The Little Stranger. The project joins BBC Studios Fiction's slate alongside the third series of Time, as the newly formed label, led by Josh Cole, builds out its output alongside sister labels such as BBC Studios Drama Productions, Clerkenwell and Sid Gentle.