Is Netflix’s The Hunting Wives based on a book? Inspiration behind the Malin Åkerman series, explored

Netflix will release The Hunting Wives on July 21, 2025. The show will run for eight episodes and is based on the 2021 novel written by May Cobb. It follows a group of women in East Texas whose lives are driven by status, secrets, and shifting loyalties. Malin Åkerman and Brittany Snow lead the cast along with Dermot Mulroney, Chrissy Metz, and Evan Jonigkeit.

Rebecca Cutter created the series and also serves as the showrunner and executive producer. The project was first approved by Starz before it moved to Netflix in 2025. Filming took place in North Carolina, where downtown Mooresville was redesigned to resemble a wealthy Texas town.

The show explores how personal choices turn into public consequences in a world where image matters more than truth. It focuses on how control is gained, lost, and manipulated inside marriages, friendships, and small-town politics.

What sets The Hunting Wives apart is its mix of high society glamour and dangerous personal entanglements. At its core is Sophie O’Neil (played by Brittany Snow), whose quiet life takes a sharp turn after meeting the seductive Margo Banks (Åkerman). The series teases themes of obsession, temptation, and a deadly mystery, raising a key question for fans: Is the series directly based on the book that sparked it?

Inside the book that inspired Netflix’s The Hunting Wives

Yes, The Hunting Wives is based on a novel—a 2021 book by author May Cobb, published by Berkley. The series adaptation sticks closely to the book’s original setup while expanding certain characters and plotlines to fit television.

Cobb’s novel centers around Sophie O’Neill, a woman in her late 30s who leaves behind her Chicago career and city life for a quieter, more affordable life in a small East Texas town. What starts as a break from stress becomes something far more dangerous once Sophie meets Margo Banks, a wealthy, magnetic woman with a tight-knit group of friends known as the “Hunting Wives.”

In the book, the Hunting Wives aren’t just drinking buddies—they spend weekends shooting guns, flirting with younger men, and doing whatever it takes to maintain power in their social circle. The show builds on this by giving these women more layered personalities and adding backstories that weren’t fully explored in the novel.

Malin Åkerman’s Margo Banks is nearly identical to how Cobb wrote her—bold, manipulative, and effortlessly in control. But the series deepens her personal conflicts, especially with her husband, Jed Banks (played by Dermot Mulroney), which were only briefly referenced in the book.

The show’s Sophie O’Neil, played by Brittany Snow, stays true to the novel’s version: a woman looking for something more than domestic routine. In both the book and the series, Sophie’s descent into obsession is not sudden—it’s slow, calculated, and full of small choices that spiral.

The show doesn’t seem to be toning that down. It adds new scenes to show how Sophie begins drifting from her husband, Graham (Evan Jonigkeit), and growing closer to the group, even when she sees the warning signs.

One key element lifted directly from the novel is the murder that reshapes the entire narrative. In both versions, Sophie finds herself entangled in a crime that brings everything to a halt.

The book delays the actual murder until late in the story, and the series follows that same structure, introducing viewers first to the parties, secrets, and power plays that define the group. This decision allows more time to establish the toxic friendships and shows how things slowly unravel.

Another important detail is the setting. While the book is set in East Texas, production for the series moved filming to North Carolina, specifically Mooresville, which was redesigned to reflect the Southern atmosphere of the source material. The creators made sure the environment still echoed the feel of Texas life—church culture, gun clubs, and social cliques that quietly run the town.

The Hunting Wives isn’t just loosely inspired by Cobb’s book. It’s a direct adaptation, with full input from Rebecca Cutter, who respected the original tone but made changes to suit a visual format.

The characters, relationships, and conflicts all remain intact, but the show adds context, side plots, and tension that unfold over eight tightly written episodes. For viewers who’ve read the book, the core remains the same. For new audiences, the show will likely prompt them to pick it up.

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