EXCLUSIVE: Author and actress Jenny Mollen will see her debut novel published by the Nacelle Company, which also has retained the book’s film and television rights.
City of Likes is the first work of fiction for Mollen, who penned a memoir and a book of essays in the 2010s.
The novel centers on Maddie, an unemployed thirtysomething copywriter whose career has taken a back seat to motherhood. When her family moves to New York, she meets the enigmatic and gorgeous Daphne Cole – an Instagram mommy influencer with millions of followers and a soft spot for Maddie. Maddie finds herself with an unlikely new best friend, getting a taste of the access, fame and unlimited chickpea puffs that power Daphne’s life. But soon enough, Maddie begins to suspect this world isn’t as picture perfect as it seems to be. Will she be able to pull herself out of the dark fantasy and back to reality?
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Mollen wrote the 2016 book of essays Live Fast Die Hot, whose film rights were acquired by Anne Hathaway and Gail Berman, and the 2014 memoir I Like You Just the Way I Am, which was optioned by Sony TV. She later was attached to write and star in a comedy series adaptation of the book for ABC.
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She also wrote a standing column for Parents magazine and has contributed to Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Elle, New York and Playboy. Mollen is a recurring co-host on The Wendy Williams Show and also appears on Good Morning America, Today and Rachael Ray.
“I’m thrilled to partner with Nacelle, a company whose grit and outside-the-box thinking appeals to the rule breaker in me,” said Mollen, whose acting credits include Chicago Fire, Girls and the 2016 feature Amateur Night. “This book is by far my most personal. And its message is one that I cannot wait to share.”
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Added Nacelle Company founder and CEO Brian Volk-Weiss, “We are truly blessed to be working with a bestselling author whose reputation for quality comedy and deep pathos is unsurpassed.”
The Nacelle Company, which produces Disney+’s Behind the Attraction and Netflix’s The Movies That Made Us, The Toys That Made Us and Down To Earth with Zac Efron, next is reviving the 1980s Rankin/Bass toon series Silverhawks. It also has eight-part docuseries The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek headed to History Channel, with Volk-Weiss directing, and inked a first-look deal with Sony Pictures TV in October.
