In a pre-emptive purchase, the Walt Disney Co. has paid mid-six figures for feature film rights to the novel "Sweet Hush" by author Deborah Smith, reports The Hollywood Reporter
"Hush" is about the widowed female head of an Appalachian apple-growing empire who is pitted against the White House when her only son comes home from Harvard after having secretly married the president's daughter.
Smith is a romance novelist who has published such novels as "Blue Willow," "Silk and Stone" and "A Place to Call Home."
"Hush" is the first of her works to be optioned by a major studio.