Karin Slaughter has spent years watching other people adapt her books. With The Good Daughter, she has written every episode herself. The six-part limited series stars Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy as Samantha and Charlotte Quinn, two sisters whose lives were split apart by one night of violence and who are pulled back together, twenty years later, by a new crime in their small Georgia hometown. It arrives in the UK and Ireland on Thursday 12 November 2026, exclusively on Sky and NOW, the same day it launches on Peacock in the US.
Release at a Glance
- Series: The Good Daughter (2026), limited drama series
- Episodes: Six
- Writer and showrunner: Karin Slaughter, adapting her 2017 novel
- Director (all episodes): Steph Green
- Starring: Rose Byrne, Meghann Fahy, Brendan Gleeson and Olivia Williams
- UK and Ireland: Thursday 12 November 2026, exclusively on Sky and NOW
- US: Thursday 12 November 2026, all six episodes on Peacock (rated TV-MA)
- UK episode pattern and certificate: To be confirmed
Viewer Match
- Best for: Fans of character-led crime drama who want a family story with a mystery at its centre.
- Maybe skip if: Avoid if a story built around a school shooting and the aftermath of a violent attack is not for you right now.
- Expected mood and pace: Tense, raw and emotional; a slow-burn investigation rather than a breakneck chase.
- Cinema or streaming?: A streaming settle-in: six episodes is a manageable commitment across a week or a couple of evenings.
- Spoiler level: Spoiler-free: nothing beyond the official premise.
Confirmed So Far
The Quinn sisters grew up in Pikeville, a fictional small town in Georgia. When they were teenagers, a violent home invasion took their mother’s life and very nearly killed Samantha. The sisters went in very different directions afterwards. Sam left town and became a patent lawyer at a big New York firm. Charlie stayed and became a defence lawyer like their father, Rusty, mostly representing young people. Rusty, meanwhile, is one of the most divisive figures in town, because he takes on the clients nobody else will touch.
Two decades later, Charlie is at her old high school when a shooting leaves the principal and a young student dead, and she becomes the first witness on the scene. When Rusty asks Sam to come home and help, she reluctantly agrees. As the sisters dig into what really happened at the school, the new case starts to drag up everything they have spent twenty years trying to bury about their own past.
Academy Award nominee Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) plays Sam and is also an executive producer. Emmy nominee Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) plays Charlie. Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin) is Rusty, a larger-than-life defence attorney, and Olivia Williams (The Crown) plays their mother, Harriet “Gamma” Quinn. Harper Steele (Will & Harper) plays Lenore, Michael Dorman (For All Mankind) plays Ben, and Audrey Grace Marshall and Drew Cheek play the young Sam and Charlie. Peacock also names Paula Malcomson (Deadwood) as Judith and Jake McDorman (Mrs. Davis) as Mason, also known as Huck.
In America, all six episodes arrive on Peacock at once on 12 November. Sky acquired the series for the UK and Ireland and confirmed the same date, on Sky and on NOW, though it hasn’t yet said whether the episodes will drop together or weekly. You’ll find it in our UK Release Calendar and our US Release Calendar.
The Author Takes the Pen
This is a significant step for Slaughter. She was an executive producer on the screen versions of Pieces of Her and Will Trent but didn’t write them. Here she is the writer of all six episodes, the showrunner and an executive producer, so the adaptation comes directly from the author.
Her novel The Good Daughter was published in 2017. It is a standalone thriller, separate from her Will Trent series, and became a New York Times bestseller. Readers will know its blend of courtroom drama, small-town secrets and the slow reckoning with a family’s worst night. Fans of the book will want to see how a six-hour series opens up the story, and how much of the novel’s darker detail makes it to the screen.
Who Is Making It
Every episode is directed by Steph Green, who also executive produces. Her television work includes The Americans, Billions and Ahsoka, and she earned an Emmy nomination in 2020 for directing the Watchmen episode “Little Fear of Lightning”. The series comes from Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories, the company behind The Undoing and Pieces of Her, in partnership with the studio Fifth Season, which is also handling international distribution. Papandrea, Steve Hutensky and Casey Haver are executive producers for Made Up Stories.
It has been a while coming. Peacock ordered The Good Daughter straight to series in March 2024, with Jessica Biel originally attached to star. Biel left the project that September, and in December 2024 Byrne and Fahy were confirmed as the leads, with Fahy taking the role Biel had been set to play. According to Peacock, the series was filmed in and around Atlanta.
Watch the Trailer
Sky released the full trailer on 6 October 2026, following a first teaser in September. It sets out the stakes quickly: an estranged sister summoned home, a teenage girl accused of a double killing, a father who seems to know more than he is saying, and a town where old grudges have clearly never gone away.
What to Look For
Watch the sisters. Byrne and Fahy are a smart pairing as two women who love each other and can barely stand to be in the same room, and the trailer suggests the show knows that its real hook is the relationship between the Quinns rather than the whodunnit.
Look for Gleeson, too. A combative small-town lawyer father who takes the cases nobody else will is the kind of role that can lift a whole series. Finally, notice the balance. The story deals with gun violence, grief and trauma, and it will need to treat those seriously while still working as a gripping mystery. Having one writer and one director across all six episodes suggests a consistent vision rather than a show made by committee.
Spoiler-Free Preview Verdict
The Good Daughter has strong ingredients: an author adapting her own bestseller, one director steering every episode, and a cast led by Rose Byrne, Meghann Fahy and Brendan Gleeson. If it keeps the Quinn family at the heart of the mystery and handles its darkest material with care, this could be one of the most gripping thrillers on Sky and NOW this autumn. We’ll find out on 12 November.
Have you read Karin Slaughter’s novel, and will you be watching The Good Daughter on 12 November? Tell us below.