The Revenge Club: All the changes from Paramount+ series versus the book it's based on
The debut novel is a 'gripping psychological thriller'
The Revenge Club on Paramount+ is based on the J.D. Pennington novel The Othello Club which, in itself was loosely based on one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays – but the writer has made some major changes from the book.
A six-part series, it introduces six divorcees who have been left unable to move on after the break down of their marriages. The band of lonely-hearts are strangers at first, but soon they become unlikely friends. Crucially, they realise they all have something in common – they are all hurting, and they’d like to get some revenge on the person who wronged them.
At first the “revenge” comes in the form of some well-executed pranks. As lead character Calum describes them, they are a “Poundland’s Ocean 11”. But their cathartic attempts to deliver karma soon tips into something more sinister… And one (or more) of the exes turn up dead.
It’s a brilliantly executed, darkly comic thriller that will leave you guessing until the end. But fans of the book will definitely notice some major changes in The Revenge Club from The Othello Club.
Is The Revenge Club based on a book?
The Revenge Club is based on the debut novel The Othello Club from author J.D. Pennington. The series was filmed before the novel was even released. However, it was subsequently published in paperback in October 2025.
The synopsis for Pennington’s revenge thriller says: “Emily had the perfect life – the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect husband – before she was blindsided and betrayed and lost it all. Now she’s sitting in a divorce counselling group wondering how she’ll ever feel okay again. What she wants is her old life back, and these group sessions seem to be the only way she’ll be able to move on – past the jealousy, the hurt, and the daydreams of getting revenge.
“It seems everyone in the group is in the same boat: jilted by an ex-partner and struggling to cope. So over post-therapy drinks, the six divorcées come up with the brilliant idea to get a little payback of their own – Strangers-on-a-Train style, with each getting even on another’s behalf. Nothing serious. Just enough to disrupt their former partner’s picture-perfect lives.”
But just when the group think they’ve pulled off the perfect petty crimes, one of the exes is found dead… And then another… And another…
The book has been adapted for television by Gabbie Asher. She wrote the recent hit thriller The Girlfriend, and is also the writer behind episodes of Call The Midwife, EastEnders, Riviera, and the 2024 film The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Is The Othello Club based on Shakespeare?
The novel The Othello Club by J.D. Pennington is directly inspired by William Shakespeare’s play Othello. It leans heavily on the play’s themes, but puts them in a modern thriller narrative.
The famous play explores the themes of jealousy, betrayal, obsession, and revenge.
Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most tragic plays. It follows a respected Moorish general in Venice who is manipulated by the treacherous, Iago, into believing his devoted wife, Desdemona, is unfaithful. Consumed by jealousy, Othello murders Desdemona before discovering the truth, He subsequently takes his own life.
What are the major changes from The Revenge Club versus the book?
Talking about adapting the book for the screen, writer Gabbie Asher said: “I read the book, and it was one of those very rare experiences where the adaptation just came to me, sort of wham fully-formed, based around the core concept. This has never happened before. But the creation of the show, the characters, the format and the first draft of episode 1, they just flowed out in three weeks.”
She went on to describe how some crucial changes had to be made in order to bring the book to life. She explained: “I kept the brilliant central concept from the book, the six divorcees meeting and making a revenge pact. But beyond that, everything was created specifically for TV: the characters, the relationships and the way the story evolves. Because it does become something else. If anyone reads the book it’s fantastic, [but] it would have been very difficult to take it as it is, for various reasons.
“I don’t want to do spoilers, but that would have been quite challenging. So we tried to take as much of the essence as possible. Rather than faithfully adapting every element, we just used the concept as a launching pad to explore the themes of pain, betrayal and what people are capable of when they’re pushed to their limits.”
‘It’s a complex novel, there’s multiple characters’
Talking about this book being adapted for The Revenge Club and the necessary changes to the book, author J.D. Pennington said: “It’s a complex novel. There’s multiple characters and so I was very curious as to how they were going to fit all of that into six episodes. So I think Gabbie Asher, the showrunner, did a tremendous job in doing that and structuring it into a riveting TV series.”
He added: “There’s six characters and then there’s a lead detective, and the therapist. So there’s multiple characters, but there is a protagonist as well. There are multiple characters in The Othello Club so I needed to have distinct voices, cultural backgrounds, the novel is set in London so it’s a melting pot of disparate cultures which is again a great crucible for conflict.
“They all had to be distinctive in appearance, personality, background, and then their independent grievances against their ex-partners. Most of them are based on people I’ve met. I’m a real magpie when it comes to absorbing characteristics of people.”
Author J.D. Pennington described the major changes from book to The Revenge Club series
Addressing the changes, J.D. Pennington said: “Obviously there was a divergence from the book and the TV series which is inevitable in the adaptation process. But the way I see it is the readers of my book will get one experience out of it, and then they’ll get a new experience out of watching the series, which is still true to the book. But there’ll be some new, unexpected twists and plot points that they can enjoy through that as well.
“Then, of course, anyone who hasn’t read the book it doesn’t t make any difference. They can just enjoy the series.”
As for the characters, J.D. Pennington said “most of them are inherently the same character”. He said: “I recognised all of them. There are a few differences, obviously. But there’s a couple I really liked, like there’s a real nuance to Steve’s wife, and a separate plot structure going on with his backstory, and his relationship with his wife that I thought was actually better than what I developed.
“It’s a bittersweet process because it’s your baby, so ideally you don’t want anything changed. But you have to accept that it’s a different media. So once I’d got past the initial shock that things had sort of changed within my world, I started to embrace it and then, like I say, I was kind of turning the pages with baited breath wondering what was going to happen next.
***Warning: spoilers from The Revenge Club ending ahead***
Is the killer the same in the book?
Yes, Emily is the killer in the book, and the TV series. The twist that Emily is the true killer is masterfully seeded. Talking about the reveal, J.D. Pennington said: “Like any great reveal, any great twist in the tale, particularly at the ending, has to be reverse engineered. So I came up with the ending pretty early in the process, and then that’s when I get a greenlight story. I have to have a great concept but, if the ending isn’t as good as the concept, I’ll move on. So that’s my criteria for storytelling: once I come up with the ending I then start to reverse engineer it.
“Obviously Emily is an unreliable narrator. So [I had] to make all of that work so that the ending doesn’t appear massively ridiculous. […] You know anyone can pull a rabbit out of the hat with a twist that you didn’t see coming. But to get away with it, the only way to really do it is to really plan it throughout.”
