The television rights for the novel Mother by former comedy agent Hannah Begbie have been sold to Clerkenwell Films before the book is even available.

The novel is published by HarperFiction later this year.

Screenwriter Tom Edge, who is Hannah Begbie’s husband, is attached, reports the Bookseller.

Murray Ferguson, c.e.o. and director of Clerkenwell Films said: "We're delighted to be adapting Hannah Begbie's gripping debut novel. Mother handles a difficult and important subject matter with great empathy and a thrilling narrative verve. Unflinching and honest, Begbie doesn't shy away from the complexity of human behaviour and in Tom Edge  we have a screenwriter whose intelligence, sensitivity and skill make him the perfect person to adapt it."

Mother explores the identities women “juggle” throughout life, inspired by her son’s cystic fibrosis. It follows Cath after she discovers her newborn daughter, Mia, has a deadly illness. Cath’s despair takes her to a parental support group where she meets a father in a similar situation, the “dangerously attractive” Richard who promises a cure for their children. As Cath falls headlong into their affair, she must question her many identities – woman, wife, mother, lover – and which must take precedence.

Begbie worked at top agency United Agents for 15 years. She said: “The idea for the story began with the painful experience of having my newborn son diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. However, as I developed the story into fiction, the scope of the novel broadened to explore themes of identity and motherhood, adultery, grief and redemption achieved at a high price.”