Lovers of the romance genre have been absolutely spoiled in recent months with a steady stream of film and TV adaptations of beloved novels and book series. From Off Campus to Every Year After to the first onscreen version (so far) of an Emily Henry novel, romance readers and watchers alike have been booked and busy. And it’s not stopping: Still to come this year are adaptations of Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis and Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard. At the same time, this summer has also heralded the arrival of the second season of Netflix’s Ransom Canyon.

The Netflix show is based on a long-running series of cowboy romance novels by prolific author Jodi Thomas. Each dives into the life and love stories of a broad cast of characters throughout a West Texas ranching community. With the next set of eight episodes arriving on the streaming service on July 23, there’s no time like the present to dive into Thomas’ books—and, just in time, we’ve compiled a guide to help you on your journey through the neo-Western saga.

How do the 'Ransom Canyon' books compare to the Netflix series?

The first season of Netflix’s Ransom Canyon hews fairly close to the first book in Thomas’ book series, with its primary focus on Staten and Quinn. However, it also expands the roles of certain characters, such as Lucas and Yancy, who only briefly appear in the first book before having their stories fleshed out in later installments. Similarly, other characters, like Lauren, debuted in the show right away, while their arcs are introduced much later in the novels.

But beyond season 1, expect the show to veer off in a pretty drastically different direction from Thomas’ novels. Showrunner April Blair has said that the series essentially used the first Ransom Canyon book as a jumping-off point and will continue expanding the primary characters' lives and stories, instead of turning its attention to a new couple each season, as Thomas' books do.

“In Jodi’s series, each novel introduces a whole new cast of characters. It’s almost kind of anthology-like, and some characters reappear from time to time, but it really is like a whole new group of people,” Blair told Deadline when season 1 premiered. “That wasn’t really an achievable thing for us in series. We wanted to stick with one cast, so we stuck to the single book as this jumping-off point.”

So—spoilers for the first Ransom Canyon book and season ahead!—while the first novel in Thomas’ series ends with Staten and Quinn deciding to be together and preparing to welcome a baby, the TV show is stretching out their relationship into a will-they, won’t-they. After Quinn heads off to New York at the end of the first season, she returns to Texas in season 2 to figure out where she’s meant to be. She even has a new love interest (Ben Robson’s Oliver), making things even more complicated between her and Staten.

Everything to Know About the Main 'Ransom Canyon' Series

Book 1 — 'Ransom Canyon'

Thomas’ initial entry in the series arrived in 2015 and primarily follows an older Staten who’s haunted by memories and often turns to the artsy, reclusive Quinn O’Grady for comfort. In the Netflix series, this core couple is played by Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly. The book also charts the coming-of-age story of the ambitious Lucas (Garrett Wareing in the show) and the potential start of a new life for petty criminal Yancy (played by Jack Schumacher).

Book 2 — 'Rustler’s Moon'

The main romance in Book 2 centers on Angela Harrell, a woman who ends up in Ransom Canyon while on the run from her past life, and Wilkes Wagner, who has also recently landed back in town to take over his family ranch. The novel also picks back up with Lucas, who’s keeping his high school sweetheart Lauren (portrayed by Lizzy Greene) in a frustrating situationship instead of committing to the full-fledged relationship he’s long promised.

Book 3 — 'Lone Heart Pass'

Lone Heart Pass introduces yet another ranch in Ransom Canyon: The rundown Lone Heart farm, which Jubilee Hamilton inherits. Still reeling from a career crash-out and a breakup to boot, Jubilee soon finds sparks flying with the gruff new foreman she’s hired, Charley Collins. They’re also joined on the farm by Thatcher Jones, who needs a safe place to land while tangled up in a murder investigation.

Book 4 — 'Sunrise Crossing'

Yancy’s back in Book 4, focusing on getting his life together and rebuilding his old house in Crossroads, Texas. There, he crosses paths with an artist, Tori, who’s hiding out from her controlling parents. Intertwined in their love story is that of Parker, Tori’s gallery manager, who hitches a ride with strong, silent cowboy Gabe to come to the artist’s aid.

Book 5 — 'Wild Horse Springs'

Thomas’ fifth book in the main Ransom Canyon series also circles back to some OG characters, as Lauren returns to her hometown and finds herself right back in the orbit of her first love, Lucas. Elsewhere, her dad Dan (played by Philip Winchester in the Netflix series) just might decide it’s time to spice up his steady life with the help of free-spirited singer Brandi.

Book 6 — 'Indigo Lake'

We’re back at the Lone Heart farm, now inherited by Blade Hamilton, who rides into his ancestors’ dusty Texas town on a motorcycle. He finds a star-crossed lover in Dakota, who can’t seem to resist Blade’s charms, despite the longstanding feud between their families. Meanwhile, Lauren is struggling to figure out where she really belongs: pursuing a big-city life or getting back to her comfortable roots in the canyon.

Book 7 — 'Mistletoe Miracles'

The penultimate novel in the main Ransom Canyon series centers on three separate people, each of whom ends up with a Christmas miracle on their hands. There’s Griffin Holloway, who’s decided the best way to save his family’s Maverick Ranch is by marrying a wealthy bride by the end of the year; Jaxon O’Grady, who learns from an unexpected visitor that maybe he actually isn’t as content in his solitude as he thought; and Jamie Johnson, who discovers a mysterious man sleeping on her couch—and claiming to be her husband.

Book 8 — 'Christmas in Winter Valley'

The eighth and final book in Thomas’ core series is another wintry tale and centers on two more of the Holloway men. Cooper, trying to avoid family Christmastime chaos, retreats to the remote Winter Valley, only to be visited by two strangers who each deeply impact his life. Elliott stays put at Maverick Ranch, where he’s juggling farm finances, an overbearing family, and the re-emergence of a past love.

Are there any 'Ransom Canyon' prequel novels?

You could start your Ransom Canyon reading journey by diving into the prequels, which Thomas published in 2015 and 2025—or you could read them later on after you've been introduced to some of the characters, considering these feature more of their and the town's origin story.

The first prequel, Winter’s Camp, is set in the frontier era and explains how the Ransom Canyon community came to be by following a young James Randall Kirkland on his journey west, where he comes across a beautiful Apache woman named Millie and is quickly smitten.

Silverleaf Rapids, Thomas’ latest addition to the series, picks up several generations later and further sets up the stories to come. A young Staten Kirkland leaves college early to take over his family’s Double K Ranch in the wake of his grandfather J.R.’s illness, forcing him to grow up quickly and shoulder quite a bit of responsibility. Meanwhile, two other couples you’ll soon come to know and love—Peggy and Duke, and Charlotte and Wade—are also finding each other in the small Texas town.

Are there any other books in the 'Ransom Canyon' series?

Thompson simply can’t get enough of Ransom Canyon Christmastime tales: In 2017, between Indigo Lake and Mistletoe Miracles, she published A Christmas Affair, a novella telling the very sweet love story of Maria, a hopeless romantic who makes jams and jellies to be sold at the local grocery store, and Wes, the store’s shy owner.

Otherwise, Thompson hasn’t said anything about publishing any other Ransom Canyon books. But while we continue to hold out hope for still more installments, there are plenty more series and standalone romance books from the author to dive into, most of which are also set in Texas and span both contemporary and historical love stories.

The YA genre tends to dominate lists of buzzy book-to-TV adaptations, but now and then, viewers crave a more mature adult romance. Thankfully, Peacock has already snapped up one of #BookTok's most beloved, complex love stories to bring it to screens.

Since 2022, author Kennedy Ryan has enthralled readers with emotional, breathtaking romances that also explore deeper issues like depression, grief, chronic illness, financial hardship, and caring for an aging parent. Now, several of these love stories may be headed to our TVs; in April 2026, Universal Studio Group announced a "first-look" deal with Ryan in which she can develop not only projects based on her own books, but also new original stories and adaptations from other authors. First up: a series based on her breakout novel Before I Let Go, which is in development at Peacock.

"Kennedy’s stories are deeply resonant and culturally impactful, and we are excited to collaborate on adaptations that honor her vision while connecting with audiences in bold, meaningful ways. Not only is she a celebrated and powerful voice in the literary space, but she leads with thoughtfulness and creativity. We can’t wait to work with her to bring these new and existing stories to life," Jordan Moblo, USG’s executive VP of creative acquisitions and IP management, said in a statement.

Though it's still early days for Ryan's journey from page to screen, we've already begun keeping an eye out for any news on the adaptation of her most-loved novel. Read on for everything we know about the Before I Let Go TV series adaptation so far.

What is 'Before I Let Go' by Kennedy Ryan about?

Before I Let Go, the first book in Kennedy Ryan's Skyland series, is a "scorching emotional second chance romance" about ex-spouses who can't help but be drawn back to each other.

Yasmen and Josiah Wade built a life together that includes two children and a successful restaurant in the Atlanta neighborhood Skyland. But following a pair of unthinkable tragedies, their marriage falls apart. Before I Let Go picks up two years after their divorce, which they spent learning to co-parent and run their business together amid the new normal.

After dealing with so much change, both Yasmen and Josiah are ready to date again. But as the spark between them reemerges—and spurs some spicy stolen moments—they begin to wonder whether they're really ready to let go of forever.

As Ryan has explained, "this is a love story for realists." "[This] may sound funny coming from a romance writer, but the romance I write leans into the realities of life and really makes no attempt to escape them," the writer has said. "These two people, who loved each other so very much, had a lot to work through on their own. I’m not saying they or anyone else has to divorce to do that, but for this story and the decisions this couple made, time apart reformed them into people who could be happy and healthy together."

Who is involved behind-the-scenes of Peacock's 'Before I Let Go' series adaptation?

With development underway, Universal is already building a dream team for Before I Let Go. In addition to serving as executive producer, Ryan is co-writing the series alongside Malcolm D. Lee, the writer and director behind the classic Black rom-com franchise The Best Man. Lee has also directed comedy films like Roll Bounce and Girls Trip, so Lee's a perfect fit for the material.

There will likely be more announcements for additional names joining the series as Ryan and Lee build out the show.

What has Kennedy Ryan said about Peacock's 'Before I Let Go' series adaptation?

On the day the deal was announced, Ryan shared a comprehensive update on the Before I Let Go adaptation and the full scope of the "first look" deal.

"Getting the chance to co-write the Before I Let Go pilot with Malcolm D. Lee is such an honor and an incredible experience," she wrote. "We are working hard to bring you the show you deserve! We’ve been plotting and cooking for a while. This opportunity has given me not only a great collaborator, but a friend! We’ll share more when the time is right."

Who has been cast in the 'Before I Let Go' series adaptation?

With Before I Let Go still in early development, no one has been cast in the series yet. Of course, that hasn't stopped devout readers from throwing their fan casts into the ring. Names that have been thrown out include Trevonte Rhodes, Aldis Hodge, McKinley Freeman, Jay Ellis, Jayme Lawson, Yaya DaCosta, and Teyonah Parris, among others. Start manifesting your dream Yasmen and Josiah now!

Netflix's Little House on the Prairie revives Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic novels—and the hit 1970s drama—for a new generation. Created by Rebecca Sonnenshine, the new adaptation follows the Ingalls family as they set out to start a new life on the American frontier during the 1860s and 1870s. By the end of the delightful eight-episode season, released on July 19, Laura, her Pa Charles, her Ma Caroline, and her older sister Mary settle in Independence, Kansas, and make new friends—until a shocking revelation prompts the family to seek out a new home.

Thankfully for eager fans, the team behind Netflix's reimagining is already working on new episodes. Below, read on for what we know about Little House on the Prairie season 2 so far, including which book will inform the basis of the next installment.

Has 'Little House on the Prairie' been renewed for season 2?

Yes! Netflix confirmed Little House on the Prairie season 2 in early March, four months before the series' debut.

"We are delighted to renew this beautiful reimagining of Little House on the Prairie for a second season ahead of its Netflix debut." Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of US and Canada scripted series, said at the time. "The exceptional work by Rebecca Sonnenshine and the entire cast and crew on season 1 has established a rich foundation of storytelling for years to come. With its hopeful spirit and emotional authenticity, we’re confident that Little House will deliver even more of what fans truly love.

When will 'Little House on the Prairie' season 2 come out?

Though Netflix hasn't revealed when Little House on the Prairie season 2 will arrive, the show's journey to the next installment is already underway. According to Radio Times, season 2 began filming in early June in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and is expected to continue through mid-October.

This filming schedule matches the production for season 1, which began in June 2025 and wrapped in October. That means there's a very good chance the series could return at the same time next year, in summer 2027.

Who in the cast will return for 'Little House on the Prairie' season 2?

Netflix has yet to confirm the season 2 cast, but Little House on the Prairie wouldn't be the same without the Ingalls family and their closest friend. That said, we're expecting Alice Halsey (Laura Ingalls), Luke Bracey (Charles Ingalls), Crosby Fitzgerald (Caroline Ingalls), Skywalker Hughes (Mary Ingalls), and Warren Christie (John Edwards) to return to lead season 2.

Unfortunately, since the Ingalls have left Independence, Kansas, behind, it's unlikely that the rest of season 1's cast will return. However, there's always the chance of cameos.

Who are the new cast members in 'Little House on the Prairie' season 2?

Get ready to meet some more beloved characters from Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. Deadline has confirmed three new actresses set to join Netflix's reimagining. The Runarounds star Willa Dunn has signed on to play Nellie Oleson, Laura Ingalls's childhood bully and the fan-favorite villain from the original 1970s TV adaptation. (Fans of the earlier show may have spotted the original Nellie actress, Alison Arngrim, had a cameo in the Netflix series.)

Per the outlet, Netflix's take on Nellie may be a more layered look at the character. Her description reads, "On the surface, Nellie (Dunn) is a world-class spoiled princess and a playground bully. Smart and supremely confident, sharp-tongued but easily wounded. Lives and breathes to make Laura Ingalls (Halsey) miserable. But beneath her mean-girl persona is tenderness and a yearning for true friendship—even if she doesn’t know exactly how to get it."

Meanwhile, Charlotte Sullivan has signed on to play Margaret Oleson, Nellie's mother. "Beautiful, high-energy, charming, unfiltered, fun and funny, with a quick wit and gallows humor, Margaret adores her daughter fiercely and completely, but also fears losing her love," her description reads.

And rounding out the new cast, Rachelle Lefevre is set to play Eva Beadle, the beloved town schoolteacher who instantly wins over Laura and Mary. The character is described as "open-minded, passionate, forthright and brave...well-educated, well-read, adventurous, generous of spirit, a world-traveler."

Which Laura Ingalls Wilder book will 'Little House on the Prairie' season 2 adapt?

Spoilers for Netflix's Little House on the Prairie season 1 finale ahead. By the end of season 1, the Ingalls family (plus new baby Carrie and an honorary Ingalls, John Edwards) has set off for a new adventure. Though they spent the season settling in Independence, Kansas, the family's forced to leave when the government orders them to pay for the land they'd been promised for free. At Mr. Edwards' suggestion, the group heads to a little town called Walnut Grove.

Walnut Grove—a real-life Minnesota town that boasts the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and the annual Wilder Pageant—is best known as the primary setting of the 1970s series. However, the Ingalls only spent one installment of the source book series in the town: the fourth entry, On the Banks of Plum Creek. We'll have to wait and see how long Netflix's adaptation will stay in Walnut Grove, but season 2's guaranteed to at least cover part of the novel.

The official description for On the Banks of Plum Creek reads: "The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as they leave their little house on the prairie and travel in their covered wagon to Minnesota. They settle into a house made of sod on the banks of beautiful Plum Creek. Soon Pa builds them a sturdier house, with real glass windows and a hinged door. Laura and Mary go to school, help with the chores around the house, and fish in the creek. Pa’s fiddle lulls them all to sleep at the end of the day. But then disaster strikes—on top of a terrible blizzard, a grasshopper infestation devours their wheat crop. Now the family must work harder than ever to overcome these challenges."

What will 'Little House on the Prairie' season 2 be about?

Though most of the plot details for season 2 are under wraps, creator Rebecca Sonnenshine has spoken out about the influences she wants to balance throughout her reimagining of Little House on the Prairie. Speaking with The Wrap, the Vampire Diaries and The Boys alum explained that she’s interested in depicting the books’ version of the Ingalls, who were more nomadic than shown in the '70s TV series.

“A part of my pitch was that we were going to follow the ebbs and flows of the books, and they are fairly nomadic for quite some time,” she told the outlet. “I missed that from the original show, which was an amazing show and everyone loved it, and it was very special. But it didn’t have the opportunity just because of the realities of television, and it didn’t have the opportunity to do this. And we do now.”

While that means leaving behind season 1’s supporting characters, Sonnenshine added that she’s “always going to look for a way to bring those characters back” if the story allows. “I hope that it runs for a long time so that we get the opportunity to organically do it...We’re trying to be faithful to historical truth and still look for ways to keep our characters alive, however we can.”

As for the future of the series, the showrunner also added that she would “love to do all the books and then look beyond [at Wilder’s] fascinating life.” She added, “When I think about Laura Ingalls Wilder, it’s kind of amazing that someone lived through times that started in covered wagons and no electricity, and lasted all the way into airplanes and the atomic bomb.”

Love Island USA season 8 has officially wrapped, concluding six weeks’ worth of chats, challenges, and not-so-covert communal bedroom hookups. It felt like everyone was glued to their screens this season; after all, it shattered viewership numbers, increasing 68 percent from season 7. The reality TV hit even reached new heights beyond the villa and Peacock: Host Ariana Madix even earned the show’s first Emmy nomination for reality television host.

But if you need to fill the Love Island USA-shaped hole in your heart—and to wean yourself off the steady IV drip that an episode a day provides—we’ve curated a list of reality TV-inspired books.

Over the last decade, reality TV novels have essentially become their own subgenre, with a slew of books inspired by dating shows like The Bachelor and Love Island, slice-of-life Bravo staples like The Real Housewives, and competition series all hitting shelves and building on the phenomenon. Below, find the fiction reads you need to add to your TBR list, especially if you need to unplug a bit but always have an appetite for ample drama. Pick up a prescient 1980s Stephen King thriller, a mystery send-up of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and more. We promise they’re just as binge-able.

Nearly a century after Laura Ingalls Wilder published the first book in her Little House on the Prairie series, the novels are still massively adored and still reaching new audiences—thanks, most recently, to Netflix’s TV series adaptation, which debuted on July 9. There’s just something so timeless about the books, which were previously made into a still-beloved NBC show in the ’70s and ’80s, an early-aughts ABC miniseries and a 2008 stage musical, among several other adaptations.

For those who haven't perused a Little House novel since third grade but are diving headfirst into the new Netflix show, the series chronicles the semi-fictionalized lives of the Ingalls family in the Midwest U.S. throughout the late 1800s, starring a young Laura alongside her parents and siblings. Wilder published most of the series in the 1930s and ’40s, with a final book arriving posthumously in 1971.

If you’re planning to revisit the novels—or introduce them to a new generation—after bingeing the Netflix adaptation, look no further for a comprehensive guide to the entire Little House series. And a reminder as you dive in through 2026 eyes that while Wilder’s work has long been widely lauded and critically acclaimed, it’s very much a product of its time: You’ll want to be aware that it heavily perpetuates the American frontier myth and therefore includes problematic portrayals of Indigenous people (an aspect of the series that Netflix has sought to correct).

Book 1 — 'Little House in the Big Woods'

The first book in Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling series starts in 1871, with 4-year-old Laura living in a log cabin in Wisconsin with her parents and two sisters. It introduces readers to life on the homestead through about a year’s worth of chores and celebrations, detailing wintertime maple syrup harvesting, the birth of a calf, and everyday tasks around the house and farm, with many days capped off with Pa playing the fiddle for his daughters.

Book 2 — 'Farmer Boy'

Wilder detoured from her own history in Book 2 to focus on her husband’s upbringing instead. In Farmer Boy, a young Almanzo Wilder grows up in upstate New York in the 1860s, joining his siblings in the seemingly unending work of running a farm—only occasionally interrupted by exciting visits from a tin peddler or a traveling fair.

Book 3 — 'Little House on the Prairie'

We return to the Ingalls family in the series’ third book, just in time for their big move from Wisconsin to the prairies of Kansas in the mid-1870s. For several months, they get to work building a new house and starting a farm on territory belonging to the Osage Nation, grappling along the way with malaria and ongoing conflicts with Indigenous groups—only to eventually accept that they’ve illegally settled on the land and must move along.

Book 4 — 'On the Banks of Plum Creek'

The Ingalls family piles back into their covered wagon and heads north, ultimately stopping to make a new home in Minnesota. There, Laura and her sisters attend a real school for the first time and must remain resilient as they face challenges to their way of life, including fires, blizzards, crop-destroying grasshopper swarms, and, worst of all, a mean girl at school named Nellie.

Book 5 — 'By the Shores of Silver Lake'

Ready to leave behind the many troubles they encountered in Minnesota—and following a bout of scarlet fever that left Laura’s older sister Mary blind—the growing Ingalls crew heads west, into what was then the unsettled Dakota Territory. There, Pa takes a job on a railroad and claims a permanent homestead in the area. In the meantime, Laura and her sisters enjoy a respite from many of the most difficult parts of frontier life: swapping their covered wagon for train travel, cozying up in a comfortable home for the winter, and raking in earnings from catering to the many pioneers passing through their town.

Book 6 — 'The Long Winter'

Alas, those happy early days in South Dakota weren’t to last. As suggested by the title, The Long Winter details the particularly devastating winter of 1880 and 1881, when Laura was 13. A shocking seven months of continuous blizzards leave many in the Ingalls’ town snowed into their homes and stop supply trains from delivering needed food and fuel. However, a bright spot for Laura: Here, she first crosses paths with her future husband, as Almanzo and a friend risk their lives to deliver wheat to her town.

Book 7 — 'Little Town on the Prairie'

Things are on the upswing for Laura after making it through that horrible winter—despite the onslaught of classic teenage angst and the arrival of her old nemesis Nellie in town. She’s fielding invitations to socials, parties, and literary society meetings, plus a request from Almanzo to start walking her home from church every week(!). She also begins working toward earning her teaching certificate and makes a point of contributing everything she can to Mary’s tuition at a college for the blind in Iowa.

Book 8 — 'These Happy Golden Years'

Originally the final book in Wilder’s Little House series, this eighth novel encompasses Laura’s late teens, as she takes a job at a nearby school and truly comes into her own as a self-sufficient young adult. There’s also, of course, her continued courtship with Almanzo, which culminates at the end of the book with his proposal and their sweet, simple wedding.

Book 9 — 'The First Four Years'

More than a decade after Wilder’s 1957 death, her daughter Rose’s designated heir, Roger MacBride, discovered a first draft of The First Four Years among Rose’s belongings and published it as-is. It wraps up Laura’s coming-of-age story by documenting the first years of her marriage to Almanzo, as they begin making their own way as a young pioneer family, with all the trials and tribulations that entails, from illnesses to fires to tragic deaths.

Did Laura Ingalls Wilder write anything else?

Indeed, she did, though all of the nonfiction variety. Amid the many collections of newspaper columns, letters, poems, and other writings published since Wilder’s death, several stand out. The first, in 1962, was On the Way Home, detailing her, Almanzo, and Rose’s move from South Dakota to Missouri in 1894. It was followed in 1974 by West From Home, comprising a series of letters Wilder wrote to her husband during a 1915 visit to Rose in San Francisco.

Those books were combined into A Little House Traveler in 2006, along with The Road Back, a previously unpublished diary that Wilder kept while returning to South Dakota with Almanzo in the 1930s to visit her family and gather information for her Little House series.

Are there any other books in the 'Little House' universe?

So many. Several authors have taken on the task of expanding the Little House-iverse, including the aforementioned MacBride, heir and “political disciple” to Wilder’s daughter Rose. He published eight books in the 1990s about her life, known as “The Rose Years.”

There are also “The Martha Years,” a four-book series about Laura’s great-grandmother by Melissa Wiley; “The Charlotte Years,” another tetralogy from Wiley, this one describing the life of Laura’s grandmother; and “The Caroline Years,” seven novels about Laura’s mother, with the first four written by Maria D. Wilkes and the final three by Celia Wilkins.

Wilkes also published two dozen chapter books simplifying several of the longer novels’ stories about Caroline, Laura, and Rose. And even younger readers can get in on the Little House fun with the countless picture books, board books, and other pre-reader versions of the stories that have hit shelves over the years.

Elsewhere, in an attempt to fill in some blanks between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake, prolific children’s author Cynthia Rylant published Old Town in the Green Groves in 2002, based on some of Wilder’s notes and historical records. Meanwhile, between 2007 and 2012, Heather Williams and Elizabeth Cody Kimmel filled in a few more gaps, releasing a trio of books telling the stories of Nellie, Mary, and Almanzo.

Less canonical is the Days of Laura Ingalls Wilder series, which comprises eight books written by Thomas L. Tedrow in 1992. Though they feature Laura, Almanzo, and Rose in their Missouri home, the books aren’t explicitly based on Wilder’s actual life or writings, but instead imagine how she might have responded to many of the most pressing issues of the early 1900s.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, Rosebud Baker—comedian, former Saturday Night Live writer, and Fully Baked author—shares her favorite books about women behaving badly.

No topic is ever off the table for comedian Rosebud Baker—she’s been known for telling jokes about everything from her sister’s death to her own struggle with alcoholism. So when the stand-up decided to unpack her trauma by writing a memoir, she embraced the mess even more so.

In June, the former Saturday Night Live writer published her debut book, Fully Baked, which delves into subjects like her dysfunctional childhood and journey with IVF. But it goes beyond the constraints of a tight 10 by examining transformations and how she found career success and became the mother she is because of the hardships she’s lived through.

Baker tells Marie Claire that while she was writing, stories about women wrestling with “obsession, desire, rage, and making spectacularly bad decisions” were both a source of solace and inspiration. “I found myself returning to stories about women who blow up their lives, survive their mistakes, and sometimes learn absolutely nothing,” she says.

“I’ve always been drawn to female characters who refuse to be likable,” the author says, adding that they informed her own ability to be vulnerable. Here, Baker shares her favorite books about women behaving badly, from recent bestsellers to feminist favorites and literary classics. “The women in these books are obsessive, selfish, reckless, grieving, horny, destructive, and completely unreasonable. They’re also some of the most honest characters I’ve ever encountered.”

Fully Baked is available now, and catch Baker on tour this summer.

Everyone keeps saying women’s sports are having a moment. But it’s more than that. On and off the court, women’s sports are changing culture, conversations, and even our personal style. For Marie Claire’s Women in Sports series, we talk to the athletes, executives, and industry vets who are at the top of their game.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

From Serena Williams returning to tennis to the World Cup and ESPN’s new series, Women’s Sports Sundays, sports of all stripes are playing point this summer. Lucky for sports fans and bibliophiles alike, it doesn’t end there. In recent years, sports romance books have vaulted onto our bookshelves, and the subgenre has won over readers with its diverse characters, high stakes, and palpable tension.

Sports romance has become the MVP of the book world for the better part of the past decade. Titles like The Deal by Elle Kennedy, which was self-published to viral success in 2015, arguably put the trend on the map. The book found renewed interest on #BookTok, inspiring Prime Video to adapt it and the rest of Kennedy’s Briar U series into the hit TV show Off Campus—and now it’s just one of the many series about smitten athletes topping best-sellers lists. In fact, sports romance is among the fastest-growing niches, and one of the top subgenres that’s made romance novels outpace the book sales of all other genres on the market, per 2025 Circa Bookscan data.

So, what is it about these books that leaves readers pining for more? For one, authors of sport romances are the Simone Biles of trope-maxxing. These writers barely break a sweat as they layer familiar plot devices with the extra intensity of risking everything—be it one’s career, sport, or dream—for love. This couldn’t be more evident than in Rachel Reid’s hit Game Changers series, the hockey-romance books that inspired the phenomenon that is Heated Rivalry. Here, familiar tropes like enemies-to-lovers and forbidden love are whipped into a tizzy with high-stakes competition and a hidden romance, earning a gold medal from readers across platforms like Goodreads, #BookTok, Bookstagram, and even IRL, as the genre’s inspired everything from game day watch parties to conventions.

Whether you’re new to the subgenre or a seasoned reader, a fan of soccer, football, or figure skating—or honestly, just love a good romance—there are so many options to enjoy. Below, discover the best sports romance books that hit a home run with their spicy scenes, lovable characters, and capital-T Tension.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, Mara Brock Akil—showrunner behind hits like Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane, and Forever—shares the books that inspired her first novel, The Revelation of Dionne Daphne.

Legendary showrunner Mara Brock Akil has spent the past three decades creating TV shows that make Black women feel seen in all their humanity, ambition, and complexities. But for a story she hoped to tell but felt didn’t make sense on screen, the Girlfriends and Forever writer turned to literary fiction.

Brock Akil recently released The Revelation of Dionne Daphne, her debut novel about a magazine editor in early '90s N.Y.C. who's introduced while reeling from the end of her relationship with the man she thought she would marry. But when he shows up on her doorstep six months later with life-changing news, Dionne must face the trauma she has buried since her childhood.

Brock Akil explains to Marie Claire that writing Dionne for the page offered a medium that could “hold the full weight” of the character’s interiority, without compromise. “Television is a collaborative art form, and I love it deeply, but collaboration means negotiation—and what I was uncovering inside Dionne's life, the decades of shame and secrets that quietly authored her every choice, I wasn't willing to negotiate on that,” she says. “The novel let me hold all of it at once, without interruption.”

Brock Akil has always drawn from real-life experiences in her writing—but her debut novel is said to be her most personal story yet, as it examines the cultural baggage of past generations who often buried their pain under a perfect veneer. Dionne Daphne explores what ruminates beneath a Black woman's pursuit of perfection and shows the reader what can be found on the other side of self-discovery.

“Dionne hides behind a carefully crafted mask, but eventually she has to stand in the rubble and confront the messy parts of herself,” Akil explains. “What I love about her is that she's not a cautionary tale and she's not a redemption arc. She is a woman who understands she can no longer outrun her storms, that it’s better to be engulfed by them to be made whole; that is the revelation.”

To coincide with the release of her highly anticipated novel, which hit shelves on June 30, we asked the author to share which other books inspired it, from classic Black literature to recent bestsellers.

Whether you’re throwing a book in your beach bag, taking advantage of an international flight, or lying by a body of water, July is for long, languid days of reading. This month brings a handful of new books you won’t want to put down—and because it’s summer, you won’t have to.

Get ready to fill your TBR list with coming-of-age stories of desire, obsession, and Tinder dates, as well as titillating thrillers and novels all about climate anxiety, sweaty summer jobs, and family scandals. To help you decide how to curate your summer reading and what to add to your cart, read on for our picks of the best must-read books coming out in July 2026.

The Best Literary Fiction Coming Out in July 2026

The Best Mystery-Thriller Books Coming Out in July 2026

The Best Short Story and Essay Collections Coming Out in July 2026

This Fourth of July, America turns 250—and while she does look good for her age, some of us aren’t feeling particularly celebratory this year. There are plenty of reasons to feel disaffected by the state of the union, from the war with Iran to the attacks on trans people to the flood of book bans sweeping the nation. So if you're feeling disillusionment, you're certainly not alone. We put together a reading list for those looking to skip (or at least step away from) the BBQs and fireworks—but still hoping to get engaged and think more expansively about the U.S.

Below you’ll find Independence Day book recommendations featuring histories that deserve more attention, memoirs that grapple with American identity, and nonfiction that tackles some of the biggest political issues facing the country today. These books remind us of where we've been and offer perspectives on how we can shape the country's future.

Whoever said romance novels have no substance was, first of all, wrong—but certainly hasn't read Kennedy Ryan. Though the novelist, who writes under a pen name, has been dubbed the “Queen of Hugs” by her fans for her welcoming embraces at book signings, Ryan’s emotion-driven books are anything but fluff, tackling deeper issues such as mental health and neurodivergence, social injustices, and climate change.

Ryan told Elle that the more profound subject matter she infuses into her traditionally light-hearted genre reflects the writing she wants to see out in the world. “I want to see people who are usually on the periphery—those identities, communities, and experiences—moved to the center,” she said. “I want to see marginalized voices represented. Once I had that level of intentionality, it formed a blueprint for my writing that I think started right around Long Shot. And that’s been the blueprint ever since.”

The formula has certainly landed with readers. She’s amassed more than half a million followers on TikTok, claimed several spots on The New York Times Best Sellers lists, and landed a “first-look” deal at Universal that will not only enable her to develop one of her own steamy works for the small screen but also develop various projects for others.

Before she expands her universe, however, we're paying homage to her journey thus far: Ryan has more than 20 titles to her name, and we’ve taken the liberty of ranking the top 10. Below are the best Kennedy Ryan books—including some of her steamiest reads.

The Best Books by Kennedy Ryan, Ranked

What is Kennedy Ryan's most popular book?

Ryan’s most famous book is the first novel in her Skyland series, Before I Let Go. Upon its debut, the book found a devoted following on #BookTok as much as it became a critical darling, landing on year end lists.

The author herself has spoken about the book's resonance and how its success catapulted her career to the next level. IIn an interview with Bookpage, she explained what inspired her to write it. "Before I Let Go was the third book I wrote during the pandemic," she said. "I had my annual check-up right before COVID hit, and my doctor expressed concern that I had several early indicators for depression. I never understood how debilitating depression and neglecting your mental health could be until I couldn’t get out of bed. Until I couldn’t make it through a day, sometimes through an hour, without crying. Until I was having panic attacks regularly. There was no room for creativity because I honestly was just trying to survive."

Once Ryan found her footing ("It took finding the right therapist…and the right medication for me to start feeling better"), she channeled that experience into the novel’s protagonist, Yasmen Wade, who struggles with her own depression in the wake of a stillbirth and the death of a loved one. "With Yasmen's journey, I wanted to convey the importance of putting yourself first. Women—moms and wives especially—often put everyone before themselves. I wanted this to be about a woman who esteems her personal, emotional and mental well-being above all else," Ryan said. "Choosing herself becomes a matter of survival."

What order should I read Kennedy Ryan's books in?

Ryan’s books can be read in several different ways. With seven different series to choose from—All the King's Men, The Bennetts, Grip, Hollywood Renaissance, Hoops, Skyland, and Soul—you can choose the character arcs and worlds that best align with your interests.

The series for which Ryan is most-known, the Skyland series, is about Yasmen, Soledad, and Hendrix, a close-knit trio of Black women who lean on each other for support while juggling high-stakes careers, romantic reconciliations, and family struggles. It kicks off with Ryan’s most famous book, Before I Let Go, and is followed by This Could Be Us and Can’t Get Enough.

Ryan’s most recent series, the Hollywood Renaissance series consists of Reel, The Close-Up, and Score and was inspired by the Harlem Renaissance. True to the series title, its characters are all navigating the entertainment industry (and their love lives) in various ways—Reel’s Neevah Saint is a Broadway understudy, for instance, while Score’s Verity Hill is a screenwriter. “It felt like a natural era to explore when I was examining overlooked accomplishments by Black creatives,” Ryan told The New York Times of the trilogy.

The All the King’s Men series, meanwhile, features The Kingmaker, The Rebel King, and Queen Move deals with social justice. The third entry is a standalone novel, but the first two books focus on Lennix Hunter's fight for the rights to her people's ancestral land against the nefarious Cade Oil company. The only problem? She’s gone and fallen for the company’s heir—A.K.A. the source of her people’s pain.

If sports romances are more your bag, you’ll want to skip straight to the Hoop series, which includes three interconnected standalone novels (Long Shot, Block Shot, and Hook Shot), a special edition book called Hoops Holiday (to be read after Block Shot, per Ryan’s website) and a novella (Hoops Shorts) that ties them all together.

The Grip series (Flow, Grip, and Still) also focuses on the entertainment industry, but with a more modern feel: The Black rapper/poet at its center, Marlon “Grip” James, is building a musical empire while navigating a romance plagued by socioeconomic challenges with his White manager.

Those with a penchant for music will appreciate the aptly-named Soul series—a three part chronicle of the blossoming love between Kai Pearson, a Georgia native on a mission to make it as a singer/songwriter, and rock star Rhyson Gray. (Start with My Soul To Keep before picking up Down To My Soul and Refrain.)

Last but not least, there’s Ryan’s first-ever series, The Bennetts. Ryan’s tetralogy may not be Austen-related, but the characters in When You Were Mine, Loving You Always, Be Mine Forever, and Until I’m Yours, are dealing with just as many interpersonal intricacies as those in Pride and Prejudice, if not more. The couple at its center, Kerris Moreton and her fiancé’s BFF Walsh Bennett, are in a tricky position, indeed.

Are any of Kennedy Ryan's books being adapted into movies or TV shows?

At least one of Ryan's novels, Before I Let Go, is being adapted into a TV series on Peacock, per Variety—and more of the author's projects may follow suit. The outlet reported in April 26 that Ryan has landed a “first-look” deal with Universal Studio Group that will enable her to develop various projects. “What I am most excited about is the opportunity to identify other authors’ work, especially marginalized authors, and to shepherd those projects from book to screen,” Ryan told the New York Times. “We are seeing an explosion in romance adaptations right now, and I want to see more Black, brown and queer authors.”

In addition to Ryan, who is co-writing and executive producing the script for the Before I Let Go series, Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man, Girls Trip) is set to direct and executive produce. John Legend and Debra M. Chase (Sparkle, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2) are also onboard as an executive producers.

A release date has yet to be announced and the series is still in the early development phase, which gives you more than enough to dive into the book—and her other novels—if you haven't already.

Why Trust Us

Marie Claire is a trusted voice in the book community for good reason: We love to read. Just like you, we live for a good murder mystery series, swoon over the latest #BookTok romances, and find it easy to get swept up by faeries and dragons galore in a good imaginative fantasy just as much as the latest, buzzy literary fiction. If we’re not getting our book facts straight from the source (A.K.A. by reading them ourselves), we’re investigating them from every angle, taking into account a book’s rankings, awards, and opinions from readers—just like you.

In the summer, I tear through dozens of books. I consider myself a big reader year-round, but when it’s warm out, I think there’s nothing more relaxing than spending the afternoon with my nose in a book at the park or on the beach. With my TBR list ever-growing, Prime Day can be a great opportunity to get deals on the classics and buzzy best-sellers I have yet to read—and make sure my summer reading stack stays fully stocked.

This Prime Day, which lasts until June 26, bibliophiles can score deals on just about every genre. Looking for a vacation read? There are more than a few easy, breezy options. What about your next book club pick? Many of these are great discussion-starters—and the prices are so good, you may as well get copies for the whole group. Oh, and have you been eyeing a new Kindle? Well, it must just be time to add one to the cart. So, once you finish stocking up on skincare products and shopping for discounted styling tools or more pieces for your summer wardrobe, here are the books and bookish accessories to buy over Prime Day 2026.

The great thing about the romance novel genre is that there’s truly something for everyone. Friends-to-lovers stories? You got it. Enemies-to-lovers? Absolutely. Opposites-attract workplace romances between grumpy-sunshine duos with lots of forced proximity and an “only one bed” situation? Oddly specific, but definitely a thing.

But while those and other popular romance tropes certainly have their merits, there’s something particularly irresistible about a classic fake-dating love story. The premise is playful and improbable, and the payoff—when our two main characters finally admit that there’s something very real between them—is so satisfying. In short, it’s the perfect recipe for a romance novel that’ll have you giggling, blushing, and rooting for those clueless lovebirds to open their eyes and realize they’re in love already.

Here, we’ve rounded up some of the very best fake-dating romance novels that are often-hilarious and always-steamy. Below, find great reads that have spawned adaptations and #BookTok phenomena, from beloved authors like Emily Henry, Elle Kennedy, and more.

The Best Fake-Dating Books Adapted for the Screen

The Best Fake-Dating Books From Romance Genre Giants

The Best Fake-Dating Books of 2026

If ever you needed proof that you can pivot your career, you needn’t look any further than author Liz Tomforde. The former flight attendant used her job working in-air for an NHL team as the inspiration for Mile High, her hit 2022 novel—and one of the most popular sports romance series.

She’s gone from “scribbling notes mid-flight and typing chapters in hotel rooms" to becoming a New York Times bestselling author with more than 25.4 million readers, a TV series in development, and a second series, the Wilder Woods books, set to debut in March 2027.

“I didn’t think any of this was possible,” Tomforde gushed to fans in a May 2026 Instagram post.

While the romances featured in her sports-centric books are fictional, Tomforde has continued to infuse her characters with her own experiences. She shared in an interview with Little Stack, “The female main character in…Mile High shared my same profession and her feelings about her body image were pulled from my own life experiences. In Caught Up, Miller’s burnout and work pressures were influenced by how I was feeling in my own career at the time. And Hallie, the main female character in Rewind It Back, was the caretaker for a sick parent, which is influenced by my own life as well.” That realism—and the spice levels of her books—have won over readers on #BookTok and beyond.

In preparation for the release of both the Prime Video adaptation that's in the works and the novelist's brand new book series, we’re looking at her literary journey thus far. Read on for a ranking of every Liz Tomforde book, from her first self-published release to her newest hit.

Every Liz Tomforde Book, Ranked

When will Liz Tomforde's next book be released?

Tomforde signed a four-book deal in February 2026 for a brand-new series called Wilder Woods. According to the author, these romance novels will reintroduce readers to the Wilder siblings from 2025’s Rewind It Back and be set in Northern California. “It’s a family of…siblings, three brothers, one sister,” she shared in a March 2026 interview. “Mostly different sports.”

Though the first novel in the series, Cardinal Rule, was originally slated for November 2026, its release date has since been pushed back to March 2, 2027, per Tomforde’s Instagram.

What is Liz Tomforde's most popular book?

Mile High is far and away the novel that put Tomforde on the #BookTok map. As the first book in the Windy City series, it not only expanded Tomforde’s previously Wattpad-dominant audience, but it also introduced readers to many of the characters they would grow to love in her subsequent books, from Stevie’s twin brother, The Right Move’s Ryan Shay, to Zander’s teammate and BFF, Rewind It Back lead, Rio DeLuca.

What order should I read Liz Tomforde's books?

The order in which you read Tomforde's books will depend on your personal preference, though if you're looking to see what all the hype is about, we recommend diving into the Windy City books. Whether you start with the Windy City books—which start with Mile High and culminate with Rewind It Back—or crack open her debut novel and its sequel, Becoming Selfish and Staying Selfless, we suggest you read the series chronologically, given their recurring characters and Easter eggs. 2026's In Her Own League can be read at any time, considering it's a standalone novel.

If you want to read the books in the order they were published, you can pick them up in the following order:

• Becoming Selfish (2021)
• Staying Selfless (2022)
• Mile High (2022)
• The Right Move (2023)
• Caught Up (2023)
• Play Along (2024)
• Rewind It Back (2025)
• In Her Own League (2026)
• Her next book, Cardinal Rule (2027), is also available for pre-order

Are any of Liz Tomforde's books being adapted into movies or TV shows?

Tomforde’s Windy City series will soon be coming to the small screen, thanks to Prime Video. Deadline reported in May 2026 that the streaming giant would be tackling the project with Alison McDonald (a writer and producer on shows like #BlackAF, Your Honor, and Russian Doll) at the show’s helm.

"Soon readers who fell in love with my characters will get to watch their stories step off the page and unfold on screen," Tomforde said in a statement. "What started as a personal passion project has turned into a career that I truly never thought was possible. And now, thanks to Premeditated Productions and Amazon Studios, it’s becoming something bigger than I ever dreamed."

The author has also expressed just how much she trusts McDonald. In an Instagram post, she told fans how "excited" she was to have a showrunner on board and called her "wildly talented."

With the show still in early development, an official release date for the series has not yet been announced. Prime Video has become the home for romance book-to-series adaptations (Off Campus! Every Year After! Fourth Wing!), so it seems likely we should be in for another hit and learn more details soon enough.

Why Trust Us

Marie Claire is a trusted voice in the book community for good reason: We love to read. Just like you, we live for a good murder mystery series, swoon over the latest romance phenomenon, find it easy to get swept up by faeries and dragons galore in a good imaginative fantasy, keep our eyes and ears peeled on what's coming from the rising literari. If we’re not getting our book facts straight from the source (a.k.a. by reading them ourselves), we’re investigating them from every angle, taking into account a book’s rankings, awards, and opinions from readers—just like you.

If you've read a Harlan Coben thriller or watched any of the numerous Netflix series based on his books, then you know the writer loves a twist. Netflix's latest Coben adaptation, I Will Find You, is no exception. In fact, it might be the twistiest one yet.

The mystery series begins with a simple premise: David Burroughs (Sam Worthington) is a man serving a life sentence after being convicted of his son's murder, but what happens when he learns that his son might not be dead after all? What follows can only be described as a rollercoaster of bad decisions in the pursuit of the truth.

David escapes prison with the help of his godfather and prison warden Philip (Peter Outerbridge), as well as his policeman son and David's childhood friend Adam (Jonathan Tucker), and his former sister-in-law, Rachel (Britt Lower), as he becomes convinced that Nicky Fisher (Clancy Brown), a local mob boss, set him up for murder and kidnapped his son as part of a very convoluted revenge plot against David's father. The truth, however, is much, much creepier. Read on as we break down how I Will Find You really ends.

Who kidnapped Matthew in 'I Will Find You?'

As it turns out, the local mob boss didn't kidnap Matthew (Ashton Cressman) in the Netflix thriller. In fact, he wasn't taken by anyone trying to get revenge on David or anyone in his family. He was taken by Hayden Payne (Milo Ventimiglia), Rachel's on-and-off boyfriend who previously interacted with Matthew once at a Fourth of July party.

So, why would a man supposedly in love with Matthew's aunt kidnap the boy and frame David for murder, you ask? And why did he help David and Rachel when they were on the run investigating? You're going to want to sit down for this one.

Why did Hayden kidnap Matthew in 'I Will Kill You?'

Hayden kidnapped Matthew for one very simple reason: He believed that Matthew was his biological son. Over the course of their investigation into the case, Rachel and David learn that Cheryl (Erin Richards), Rachel's sister and Matthew's mother, had visited a fertility clinic before getting pregnant. She and David had been trying for a while, and in her desperation to become a mother, Cheryl decided to use a sperm donor without telling her husband. Only, she didn't get the sperm she thought she was paying for.

The donor wasn't a stranger; it was Hayden, who paid off the fertility doctor to use his sperm in the insemination. It turns out, Cheryl used Rachel's name at the fertility clinic, fearing that she might be found out, so Hayden believed that Rachel was the woman he was inseminating. He couldn't stand the thought of her being tied to another man, so he orchestrated the entire operation using his family's money and connections.

How did Hayden set David up for murder on 'I Will Find You?'

After meeting Matthew at the Fourth of July party, Hayden couldn't stop thinking about him and became obsessed with the idea of taking back his biological son. So, he did the only logical thing: fake a murder. But first, he had to find a body. Lucky for him, his family owned a Swiss orphanage where a boy around Matthew's age had arrived. Hayden used his money to have the boy taken to the U.S. and murdered, planting the boy's dead body in Matthew's bed and making it look like David had killed his own son. With the help of his mother (Madeleine Stowe), he was able to manipulate the genetic testing so that the body found was identified as Matthew. With Matthew legally declared dead, Hayden was free to raise him as his own. Matthew, now 8, spent the last five years believing he was Hayden's son named Theo.

Who is Matthew's father in 'I Will Find You?'

Hayden spent years believing that he was Matthew's biological father, but in the final episode of I Will Find You, he learns the brutal truth: Matthew isn't his. Yes, Cheryl was artificially inseminated, but, as she learned soon after, she had already been pregnant at the time. David is Matthew's father.

By the time Hayden thought about getting a paternity test, he had already killed a boy and framed David for murder. Wanting desperately to protect her son and her family legacy, Hayden's mother lied to him about the results. What Hayden had done, after all, could not be undone.

What did David's dad and Nicky Fisher have to do with Matthew's Disappearance in 'I Will Find You?'

Once David breaks out of prison, he and Rachel follow the only lead they have: a witness who testified that she saw David burying the murder weapon in the woods on the night of Matthew's murder. David tracks her down, and while she maintains she saw an unidentified man burying the murder weapon that night, she admits that Nicky Fisher, the local mob boss, paid her to testify that she saw David.

David is convinced that Nicky Fisher has his son, but Nicky is actually just a red herring. He paid the witness to ensure that David would end up in jail, but only because David's cop father, Lenny (Hugh Thompson), had previously sent Nicky's own son to jail, where he then died. Nicky, blaming David's father, decided that David's trial was the perfect opportunity to get his revenge. (It also didn't hurt that David and his partner had, in fact, buried the murder weapon on the night of Matthew's death in an effort to save David from prison.)

How does 'I Will Find You' end?

After spending the season hunting David, FBI Agents Sarah Greer (Logan Browning) and Max Williams (Chi McBride)—partners and a father-daughter pair—take a leap of faith in the series finale, choosing to trust the escaped convict instead. Despite being suspended after a shootout with Nicky Fisher's men that left Max in the hospital, Sarah determines that Matthew's case is connected to that of a missing boy from Switzerland—the boy who was killed and believed to be Matthew. She decides to team up with Rachel and David to rescue Matthew from Hayden before they can leave the country.

While Rachel, David, and Sarah head to the Payne Estate, Cheryl heads to visit Max in the hospital and gives him proof that Matthew was not the boy who was found dead all those years ago. She had a family friend run another DNA test on the blood found the night of the murder, and it wasn't a match. With this new evidence, Max calls in reinforcements from the FBI.

Before the FBI can arrive, however, Hayden shoots his mother after learning that Matthew was never his biological son and shoots David as they both run after a very confused Matthew. Sarah and Rachel manage to catch up with him before he can escape, and, without a way out, Hayden decides not to surrender. He points his gun at Rachel instead, forcing Sarah to shoot him.

The finale then cuts to months later. After solving David's case, Sarah took over as the head of the FBI's Boston Fugitive Task Force. Meanwhile, David was cleared of all charges, and he and Cheryl were able to take their son home. Cheryl also gave birth to a baby girl with her new husband, and David and Rachel are giving their relationship a shot. Their entire blended family is adjusting to their new lives in Boston.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

Maybe there’s something in the air, or we’re deep in a Couples Therapy rewatch, but it seems like ethical non-monogamy is everywhere in pop culture. From Olivia Wilde’s new comedy The Invite and book-to-screen adaptations like Netflix’s Vladimir to plenty of polyamory podcasts, the topic of inviting a person(s) into a coupleship is proudly out in the open.

And why shouldn’t it? Folks have been widening their romantic circle for decades (hello, key parties). Perhaps a holdover from that horny, halcyon post-COVID era, people are increasingly interested in experimenting to find what works for them. According to a 2023 YouGov survey, a third of U.S. adults consider an ideal relationship to be non-monogamous in some fashion.

Authors are also flocking to the topic. Recent hit novels have delved into the minds of romantic partners, and memoirs and non-fiction books are providing blueprints for entering such arrangements—or for whether they can actually work. Whether you’re a fiction or nonfiction fan, and no matter where you stand on ENM, there’s a book about polyamore for you. Below, check out the best books about entering, maintaining, and in some cases, leaving an open relationship.

Two years ago, one dress completely changed my reading game. Dôen collaborated with Kaia Gerber's book club, Library Science, on a babydoll nightgown made for binge-reading sessions. Two years later, the dream duo reunited to romanticize my TBR list with another little white dress.

On June 18, the morning after I finished Tia Williams's new novel, The Missed Connection, Gerber and her co-founder, writer Alyssa Reeder, launched the "dreamy little day dress" I can't wait to start reading my next series in. Library Science teamed up with "our friends at Dôen to support [the global non-profit] Room to Read and their work to champion girls’ literacy," the online book club revealed via Instagram.

According to Dôen's post, the brands designed the '60s-inspired Cordelia Dress with "dreamy summer reading and vacation escapes in mind." Its wider than spaghetti straps, crisp cotton poplin, square neckline, and thigh-high, lace-trimmed hemline make the dress the definition of effortless.

Peach-colored ribbon—intertwined through the embroidered bust—channeled the girlish charm of a vintage nightie. Library Science's logo appeared a few inches south of the torso's vertical pleats, in pale pink to match the neckline's bow. Much like other options in Dôen's dress catalog, both brands designed it to be multi-purpose. According to the label's notes, the $298 mini can be styled as "an easy daytime dress, a swim cover-up, or a nightgown."

Gerber went with the first option, styling it alongside oversize yellow gold hoops. If she were to wear it out in L.A., I suspect she'd accessorize with ballet flats from her collaboration with French footwear brand Repetto. The model might even stack Library Science's book tote over the lacy shoulder strap.

Each Dôen x Library Science collections spotlights a singular style. In Dec. 2024, the pair introduced the Lillian Nightgown, complete with scalloped eyelet trim and a baby blue bow. Fans have been begging for a restock for months, but like the Cordelia, it was limited-edition.

This time around, Dôen and Library Science dropped a summer reading list alongside the dress. It includes Gerber's July book pick, Eric Rohmer’s novel Èlisabeth, followed by Ruins, Child by Giada Scodellaro, Repetition by Vigdis Hjorth, Fairy Tales by Robert Walser, and more.

Gerber and I aren't the only fashion people on a reading kick right now. Last summer, Dior's new creative director, Jonathan Anderson, took a literal approach to the beloved Book Tote, decorating it with Western classic book covers. Flip ahead to 2026, and Coach's functioning Book Charms went viral on the Brooklyn and Tabby bags of Elle Fanning, Storm Reid, and more.

Then, there are the celebrity book clubs, which just keep coming. Dakota Johnson, Dua Lipa, and Gerber are welcoming new members by the day. Owning a Dôen dress isn't a requirement for Library Science membership, but if it was, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Bella Hadid, and Elsa Hosk would be invited to the next reading.

It's Juneteenth weekend, and while we believe you should be reading books by Black authors all year long, the three-day weekend is the perfect time to crack open an unputdownable work of Black history.

Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were informed of their freedom—nearly two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation—marking the official end of slavery in the United States. Though June 19, 1865 marks a significant victory, it is also a stark reminder of how those in power can manipulate the truth to maintain the status quo. Alongside the celebrations, you can honor the legacy of this day by spending time with stories by Black authors about Black American life and history.

Whether you’re looking to read a buzzy new book or check out that classic you’ve never gotten around to, the list below features fiction and nonfiction books that cover a wide range of Black American experiences from 1915 through the 1990s.

No one loves a romance novel quite like Prime Video. Over the last few years, the streamer's been on a roll—pouncing on the buzzy titles scrolling across your #BookTok FYP and snapping up their adaptation rights.

In the last five years alone, the platform has released series adaptations of Jenny Han's sun-drenched The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, Elle Kennedy's over-10-year-old hockey romance series Off Campus, and Carley Fortune's splashy Every Summer After novel, re-titled Every Year After. There are a handful of best-sellers on Prime Video's book-to-screen docket, from this September's STEM romance The Love Hypothesis to the long-awaited Fourth Wing series—but fans of Irish novels and love triangles have another to look forward to: The Boys of Tommen.

Author Chloe Walsh's The Boys of Tommen series delighted readers with six novels' worth of steamy romance, charming athlete tropes, and top-tier yearning—which means excitement's at a fever pitch to see all those details come to life on the screen. Read on for everything we know about The Boys of Tommen TV series adaptation so far.

What is 'Boys of Tommen' about?

Written by Irish author Chloe Walsh, The Boys of Tommen series follows a team of rugby players at the elite school Tommen College in County Cork, Ireland, as each athlete navigates love, rugby, and growing up. With six books already released and at least a few more forthcoming, each coming-of-age sports romance explores the relationship between one of the players and their love interest.

"It’s just an unbelievable constellation of characters, but it’s also got such a specificity for place and the time," Prime Video's International Content Chief, Nicole Clemens, told Deadline in February 2026, when the adaptation was announced.

Though originally published in 2018, the series experienced something of a renaissance online in recent years—like its older American-hockey-playing brother, Off Campus. Fans have praised the books for how they explore heavy emotional topics, including addiction, abuse, and trauma. The renewed interest stirred enough buzz to catch the eye of Prime Video, which announced the series adaptation via an Instagram post in February 2026.

What 'Boys of Tommen' books are being adapted in season 1 of the TV series?

Prime Video has announced that the first season of the show will feature eight episodes that explore the first two books in the Boys of Tommen series, Binding 13 and Keeping 13. The duology focuses on the forbidden love story of star rugby player Johnny Kavanagh and shy new girl Shannon Lynch. "Both teenagers are hiding secrets; Johnny, a potentially career-ending injury, and Shannon, a troubled and violent home life," the show's logline describes. "Through their secret and highly charged connection, the two teens from opposite worlds battle against the odds and find a way to save each other."

Though future seasons have yet to be confirmed, should they be greenlit, viewers can expect them to follow the subsequent books: Saving 6, Redeeming 6, Taming 7, and Releasing 10.

Who is involved behind the scenes of the 'Boys of Tommen' TV show?

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder alum, Poppy Cogan, takes the helm as the show's lead writer and executive producer. She shares the latter title with author Chloe Walsh.

Prime Video's International Content Chief Nicole Clemens teased that "Poppy's scripts capture the intensity of Johnny and Shannon's powerful romance and dive into the rich constellation of characters to explore the themes of mental health, bullying, and resilience with the same authenticity that fans love in Chloe's books."

Also behind the series are the production houses Drama Republic (One Day), Temple Hill (Twilight), and wiip (The Summer I Turned Pretty). Irish filmmaker Brendan Canty—known for directing Hozier's "Take Me To Church" music video—is also attached to direct.

Who has been cast in the 'Boys of Tommen' TV show?

We already know many of the Tommen College coeds! In late May, Prime Video announced that Nancy Surridge and Conor Sánchez will lead the first season as Shannon and Johnny. While Sánchez already has a few acting credits under his belt—including Power & Glory, One Night, and Invertigo—Boys of Tommen will be Surridge's breakout role.

James O'Donoghue and Sophie McGibbon were also cast as Joey Lynch and Aoife Molloy, the romantic leads of the third and fourth Boys of Tommen books. McGibbon will appear later this year alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones as Miss Grey in the forthcoming Sense & Sensibility movie adaptation. O'Donoghue, meanwhile, can be seen in Fair City and A Witch's Tale.

“We searched far and wide, receiving over 3,000 casting suggestions from across the U.K. and Ireland, but from the moment Nancy, Conor, James, and Sophie walked into the room, it was clear we’d found something beyond special," director Brendan Canty said in a statement via a Prime Video press release. "Each of them brings the spirit and emotional depth this story demands, and I couldn’t be more excited to bring Chloe’s world to the screen with this extraordinary young cast.”

Beyond the leads of books 1 through 4, a handful of supporting cast members (and potential eventual stars) were announced in late June 2026. According to Deadline, Amelia May (Wild Cherry) will play Claire Biggs, and John Hewson—the youngest son of Bono from U2—will have one of his first major roles as Gerard Gibson. As readers will know, Book 5 turns its focus to Claire and Gerard's romance. The leading characters of Book 6, Claire's brother Hugh and Lizzie Young, have also been cast: Indy Lewis (Industry) will take on Lizzie, and Irish racecar driver Alex Dunne will make his acting debut as Hugh.

In July, Variety revealed up-and-comer Jamie Schneider will be the show's Patrick Feely, whom book fans know as Player 12, and will be the upcoming lead of the yet-to-be-published books 9 and 10 (Feeling 12 and Trusting 12). The outlet reported that the show also found its Pierce O’Neill—who dates Lizzie before Hugh—in rising actor, James Craven (who has had small roles in House of the Dragon and Doctor Who).

Other members in the ensemble include Eoin Macken (Merlin, La Brea) and Róisín Gallagher (How to Get to Heaven From Belfast) as Shannon's parents, Teddy and Marie Lynch, Amy Huberman (Finding Joy) as Johnny's mom, Edel Kavanagh, Dixie Egerickx (The Secret Garden) as Katie Wilmot, theater actress Daisy Jacob as Bella Wilkinson, rising Irish actor/filmmaker Jonathan Heed as Cormac Ryan, and newcomer Cathal Ó Síocháin as Ronan McGarry.

When will the 'Boys of Tommen' TV series be released?

Though the series got the green light from Prime Video earlier this year, it'll still be a while before our screens transport us to Cork. With the casting of the leads complete, we can assume that the show may be ready to move into production later in 2026. If that's the case and filming goes smoothly, it's possible we could see episodes in late 2027 or early 2028.

Fingers crossed we get more information soon; we'll keep this story updated as more details become available.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, Tia Williams—former beauty editor and bestselling author of novels like Seven Days in June and A Love Song for Ricki Wilde—shares her favorite globe-trotting romances.

A passionate, whirlwind romance is always irresistible, even when you live in the greatest city in the world. Tia Williams is known for nuanced, sexy romance novels in which New York City enclaves become the third main character—from the historical streets of Harlem to the effortless cool of her own home base, Brooklyn.

But in her latest release, The Missed Connection, the bestselling author taps into the fantasy of a cross-continent fling. The novel follows Sasha Cruz, an early-30s casting agent who sets off an international manhunt after meeting her dream man on a flight to Paris…and drinking so much rosé that she disembarks without learning his name.

Williams tells Marie Claire that the mystery man of her new novel, who hails from a town on Italy’s southern coast named Gallipoli, is partly inspired by her real-life love. “My husband’s father is from Gallipoli!” she says via email. “A few years ago, my husband and I spent a few weeks there, and I fell in love with it. The scent of the Cypress trees and the sea, the exquisite seafood, the rocky cliffs? It’s all so romantic and inspiring. I knew I’d write about this place.”

In The Missed Connection, Sasha is so intrigued by her crush, whom she dubs Seat F, that she hires a private investigator from her past to find her would-be lover. The recipe to Seat F’s allure: a dashing smile, an instant comfort, and the fantasy of being swept away from ordinary life.

“Being away from the predictability of everyday life is always delicious. The sights, the sounds, the tastes, the vibes—emotions are heightened because you’ve escaped from the ordinary,” she explains. “This is why international flings feel so powerful. A kiss in a different country always feels electric.”

To coincide with the release of her highly anticipated new book, which hit shelves on June 10, we asked the author to share her favorite books centered on international love stories, from historical novels to queer favorites.

Today's romance fans have no shortage of ships to swoon over, but it hits a bit harder when the actors' chemistry can even be seen off set. In Prime Video's latest book-to-TV adaptation, Every Year After, rising stars Sadie Soverall and Matt Cornett portray an irresistible second-chance romance. Former childhood besties Percy (Soverall) and Sam (Cornett) spent every summer together in Barry's Bay, until their building romance was interrupted by an irreparable mistake. When Percy returns to mourn a loved one's death, old feelings reemerge and threaten to upend the life that Sam has built without her.

In honor of the series' streaming debut, Soverall and Cornett sat down with Marie Claire to test their friendship with a game of How Well Do You Know Your Co-Star?. The pair quickly proved how much they've learned about each other while making the show, as they guessed each other's favorite romance tropes, childhood celebrity crushes, and must-have snacks and sweet treats. Most tellingly, Cornett confirmed that the cast-mate he'd text first—minus Michael Bradway, who he considers his "brother" on- and off-screen—was Soverall. After all, he assured, he's "such a big Sadie Soverall fan."

Watch the full challenge above, then head to Prime Video to watch Every Year After, streaming now.

Once again, a buzzy summer romance show has arrived on Prime Video and made a cohort of fans fall in love with it. Based on Carley Fortune's 2022 debut novel, Every Summer After, Every Year After follows Percy Fraser (Sadie Soverall) and Sam Florek (Matt Cornett), who reunite in the picturesque Barry's Bay a decade after a mysterious betrayal torpedoes their teenage friends-to-lovers romance. Alongside the pair's second-chance encounter, the show's eight episodes flesh out some of the original book's supporting characters, from Percy's best friends Chantal (Aurora Perrineau) and Delilah (Abigail Cowen) to Sam's older brother Charlie (Michael Bradway).

Although Percy and Sam's time in the spotlight has seemingly come to an end, fear not: Fortune has written another book set within the Every Year After universe, so there's ample source material to pull from.

If you've already torn through the first season and are itching to return to Barry's Bay, you're not alone. Keep reading to find out everything we know about a potential Every Year After season 2 so far, including which character is poised to become the show's new romantic lead.

Has 'Every Year After' been renewed for season 2?

Summer isn't over yet! In late June 2026, at Prime Video's Obsessed Fest, the streamer confirmed a season 2 renewal for Every Year After. Not only that, Prime Video confirmed that the upcoming episodes will adapt the next book in Fortune's Barry's Bay series: One Golden Summer. Considering that major cliffhanger (more on that below!), book fans had speculated as soon as they binged season 1 that the next novel was bound to be adapted.

Showrunner Amy B. Harris also shared a statement about the good news in a press release. She said, "The response to Every Year After has been truly extraordinary, underscoring the universal appeal of Carley Fortune’s storytelling and the deep connection audiences have formed with the world of Barry’s Bay."

Peter Friedlander, Head of Global Television, Amazon MGM Studios, added, “We’re incredibly grateful to Carley, Amy B. Harris, our exceptional cast and creative team, and the passionate fans who have embraced this series around the globe. We’re excited to return to Barry’s Bay and bring audiences another deeply emotional and unforgettable chapter.”

What's more? Harris has also alluded to the show running long past season 2. Of course only a second installment is on the table right now, but it's possible there's more to come down the line. "I see five seasons," she told Entertainment Weekly when season 1 hit streaming. "Obviously, there’s another book that’s connected to Barry’s Bay that I think will be a very exciting blueprint for us for a potential season 2."

Which Carley Fortune book will 'Every Year After' season 2 adapt?

Every Year After season 2 will adapt Carley Fortune's 2025 book, One Golden Summer. The romance novel, also set in Barry's Bay, follows Sam's brother, Charlie (Michael Bradway). Meaning, that's right: He does, in fact, survive season 1's shocking cliffhanger!

Over the course of One Golden Summer, Charlie falls in love with photographer Alice Everly, who returns to Barry's Bay years after taking a photo there that changed the course of her life. And yes, that photo just so happens to be the snapshot of Charlie, Percy, and Sam that Charlie sees at the end of the season 1 finale.

During a recent Teen Vogue interview, Bradway teased that the cast and crew crafted his character's season 1 storyline with One Golden Summer in mind. "There were definitely things that we did in the first season that we were intentional about," the actor told the outlet. "[We] made sure that Charlie acted a certain way [in relationships] because we knew that Alice was going to be coming next season."

What will 'Every Year After' season 2 be about?

While Charlie and Alice's romance will drive season 2's plot, Harris also plans to continue fleshing out the stories of the rest of the Every Year After characters.

"We intentionally built out the ensemble because I think we can tell lots of stories with our main characters," she told Deadline. "Obviously, Sam and Percy are our love story, the one we were following this season, but to me, the love triangle between Jordie, Chantal, and Delilah has much more to explore."

During an interview with Elle, Harris pointed out that this broader interest in the show's ensemble is part of what inspired the choice to rename the show rather than use the original book title, Every Summer After. "The book is obviously Every Summer After and takes place during the summer, and the first season does take place in the summer," she said. "But what I was intrigued by is that it isn't just every summer that [these characters] have been...dealing with the ramifications of their behavior. That doesn't just affect your summers...I've been thinking a lot about the next season [of the show], and wanting there to be a fall, a winter, a spring."

Which cast members will return for 'Every Year After' season 2?

You can expect all of season 1's major players to return, including Michael Bradway as Charlie, Sadie Soverall as Percy, Matt Cornett as Sam, Aurora Perrineau as Chantal, Abigail Cowen as Delilah, and Joseph Chiu as Jordie.

Although Elisha Cuthbert's character, Sue, died in season 1, she could still appear in flashbacks.

Meanwhile, season 2 will introduce a major new character: Alice Everly, the show's new female romantic lead and Charlie's eventual love interest. The word is still out on who will play her, so start your fan casts now.

When will 'Every Year After' season 2 come out?

It's unclear when season 2 will premiere. However, we can look at the season 1 timeline for an idea; the show was originally ordered in summer 2024, and by mid-summer 2025, the series was cast and began production. Season 2 was renewed in late June 2026—though the showrunner seemed to have an idea that it was a possibility and a plan for what to bring to the screen next. So, if the writers get back to work ASAP, it's possible filming could pick up in time to shoot before the summer weather is totally through. But a more likely timeline may be for filming to begin next spring. Depending on production timing, hopefully we'll be back in Barry's Bay sometime in 2027.

We'll keep this story updated as more information becomes available. In the meantime, you can get the show's source material, Every Summer After and One Golden Summer, on Bookshop.

This article contains major spoilers for season 1 of Every Year After. Like many buzzy romance shows, Prime Video's Every Year After started as a book. More specifically, the first season is an adaptation of author Carley Fortune's 2022 debut novel, Every Summer After.

Both versions follow Percy Fraser (Sadie Soverall) and Sam Florek (Matt Cornett) across two timelines. One tracks how the childhood best friends became each other's first loves over several summers. The other takes place a decade later, as the two reunite after a mysterious period of estrangement has derailed their relationship.

Although many of the story's major plot beats are the same, Every Year After also makes some adaptive changes to flesh out Barry's Bay, the picturesque lake town that Percy and Sam call home. Read on as we break down the major differences between Every Year After and the original book.

Why is the title of 'Every Year After' different from the book, 'Every Summer After?'

Although Every Year After adapts Fortune’s 2022 novel Every Summer After, the show title is obviously different.

During a recent Variety interview, Fortune shared that there were “a lot of conversations” about the decision. “There were a lot of conversations about it,” she said. “The feeling was that Every Year After opened it up to live beyond the book. And it was one of those things that in an adaptation, things just change when other people come into the mix.”

Although it's too soon to say, here's to hoping that means many more seasons could be in store.

How does Barry's Bay from 'Every Summer After' to 'Every Year After?'

Both the show and movie are set in the idyllic Canadian lake town of Barry's Bay, although the setting differs slightly from the page to screen. Fortune famously writes her love stories in her native Canada, and in the book, Barry's Bay is supposed to be in Ontario's cottage country—and is, in fact, a real place. However, in the Prime Video series, it's been fictionalized to be on the opposite side of the country in British Columbia. To account for the switch-up, Percy also hails from Seattle, Washington, not Toronto. (In real life, the show was shot on Bowen Island, an island outside of Vancouver.)

How does Percy's job in 'Every Year After' differ from the book?

In the book, adult Percy works alongside her best friend, Chantal (Aurora Perrineau), as a senior editor at a home decor magazine. However, in the show, she finds herself writing local obituaries.

“[It’s] one of the few things newspapers still need writers for,” she says in the series premiere. “It pays the bills.”

Percy’s death-centered job takes on a more personal note when she discovers that her former parental figure, Sue Florek (Elisha Cuthbert), has died.

How was Percy and Sam's first kiss changed from the book in 'Every Year After?'

In Every Year After, Percy and Sam’s first kiss is a little later in the story’s timeline. The book characters kiss in summer 2013 after watching The Blair Witch Project during a sleepover, prompting a terrified Percy to open up about her crush on Sam.

Meanwhile, in the show, the duo don’t kiss until the next summer, while Sam is teaching Percy a steamy anatomy lesson.

Is the love triangle between Jordie, Chantal, and Delilah in 'Every Year After' in the book?

Chantal barely appears on the page in Every Summer After, since the book's Percy returns to Barry’s Bay solo. However, in the show, a recently engaged Chantal accompanies Percy to the lake town for Sue’s memorial. There, she finds herself falling for Sam’s best friend Jordie (Joseph Chiu). At the same time, Percy’s childhood BFF Delilah (Abigail Cowen) is also harboring feelings for him (while in a less-than-happy marriage with Sam's brother Charlie).

No matter which couple you’re rooting for, we’re in uncharted territory, since Jordie, Chantal, and Delilah’s love triangle is entirely a show invention.

How does Delilah change from 'Every Summer After' to 'Every Year After?'

Many of the book characters are expanded on-screen, including Percy's childhood best friend Delilah who's changed extensively. In the book, she attends the same college as Sam but is not a part of the present timeline, as she and Percy have drifted apart. In the show, however, she's changed to wound up in an unhappy marriage (resulting in a show-original affair with Charlie). Her being a wealthy, local fixture is also unique to the series, and leads to her want for The Tavern—none of which happens on the page because it doesn't continue her storyline into adulthood.

Her character is changed in the past, as well. The arc about her becoming pregnant and having an abortion as a teenager is only in the show and comes up as Percy reflects upon their youth.

Why were flashbacks involving Sue added to 'Every Year After?'

Although Sue’s death is the inciting incident that sends Percy back to Barry’s Bay in the adult timeline, she’s not a present character in Every Summer After. Yet in Every Year After, she’s a major character in the flashback timeline, playing a major role in Percy’s adolescence.

Showrunner Amy B. Harris told Deadline that casting Canadian actress and '00s icon Elisha Cuthbert as Sue inspired her and the other writers to expand the character’s role in the series. “We weren’t sure how much we would use [Sue] until Elisha signed on,” Harris said. “At first it was going to be touches, and then once I knew we could get her, I was like, ‘Oh, good, I get to write really meaty material,’ because she’s here for it and can do it.”

Why was Percy inheriting The Tavern added to 'Every Year After?'

Once Percy arrives back in Barry’s Bay, she’s given a reason to stay when she discovers that Sue has left her local business, The Tavern, to her. Harris told Deadline that this show invention came from Every Year After’s writers fleshing out Percy and Sue’s relationship.

“I added the stuff about The Tavern, and what I kept thinking about when we were coming up with that storyline was that Sue really understood Percy,” she said. “That scene with the tiara and the tutu, when Percy says, ‘I don’t know if I can handle the crown,’ and Sue says, ‘You’re going to need to learn, because my boys aren’t going to want to'—to me, that was as much about the tavern and this life in Barry’s Bay that her boys weren’t necessarily going to hold on to. She knew that, but I think she also understood Percy really needed that.”

What did Percy do to hurt Sam in 'Every Summer After' vs. the show?

It's eventually revealed that Percy and Sam became estranged after Sam discovered that Percy slept with Charlie (Michael Bradway) during a tumultuous period of their relationship. In the book, Charlie tells Sam and Sue about his hook-up with Percy mere months after it happened.

That’s not the case in the show, in which Sam doesn’t learn the truth until years later. During episode 5, Sam attempts to rekindle his relationship with Percy in the adult timeline—and only then does he discover what went down between her and his brother.

How does the 'Every Summer After' book end in comparison to 'Every Year After?'

As it turns out, Every Year After doesn't necessarily adapt all of Every Summer After. It leaves fans swooning just enough and seems to tease that there's more to come from Percy and Sam's story—which is what's left on the page at the end of the book. Both the novel and drama pick up a year after Sue's memorial. The show hints that the former flame has spent months apart, but now they're both in better places, and may be open to exploring a new chapter. Whereas on the page, the time jump has led the two to being in a relationship and living together in Toronto. With Percy and Sam's will-they-won't-they wide open, we definitely have reason to believe there's more to come between them.

Not only that, the final cliffhanger involving Charlie—in which he has such a strong reaction to looking at an old photograph that he appears to have a medical emergency—isn't in Every Summer After. The incident occurs in One Golden Summer, the sequel, which follows his romance. The show certainly implies it hopes to adapt that love story next, but we'll let you pick up the book in the meantime to know Charlie's fate before then.

From The Summer I Turned Pretty to Off Campus, Prime Video has become the go-to streamer for the next big book-to-screen romance series. This summer is no exception, as viewers can look forward to a brand-new second-chance romance tale—courtesy of Every Year After.

Based on Carley Fortune's 2022 novel Every Summer After, the series follows childhood best friends Percy (Sadie Soverall) and Sam (Matt Cornett) as they become each other's first loves, only to be torn apart for the next decade. When they finally reunite, old feelings and past secrets surface in the picturesque vacation town of Barry's Bay.

Before you dive into the show, which premieres on June 10, here's everything to know about the cast of Every Year After.

Sadie Soverall as Percy Fraser

As a teenager, Every Year After heroine Persephone “Percy” Fraser spends her summers in Barry’s Bay. Over the course of several years, her friendship with boy-next-door Sam Florek (Matt Cornett) blossoms into young love. Years later, an adult Percy returns for Florek family matriarch Sue’s funeral, forcing her to reconnect with Sam years after a mysterious, devastating breakup tore them apart.

Sadie Soverall, 24, is a British actress best known for playing Beatrice in the Netflix series Fate: The Winx Saga. You might also recognize her from her role as one of the ex-lovers of Jacob Elordi’s character, Felix, in Emerald Fennell’s 2023 thriller Saltburn.

Sadie Soverall's Instagram: @sadiesoverall

Matt Cornett as Sam Florek

Every Year After leading man Sam Florek had a formative, ill-fated summer romance with his best friend, Percy, as a teenager. Today, he’s a doctor grieving his mother and dating a pediatric surgeon. Sparks between Percy and Sam inevitably fly when she returns to Barry’s Bay, but will they end up back together?

Matt Cornett, 27, came to fame as perfectionist theater kid E.J. in Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Other acting credits include Zombies 3, Summer of 69, and Minimum Wage.

Matt Cornett's Instagram: @mattcornett

Aurora Perrineau as Chantal

Chantal is Percy’s best friend in adulthood. A straight-laced lawyer, Chantal’s decision to accompany Percy back to Barry’s Bay might help her find herself outside of her demanding job.

Aurora Perrineau, 31, is an actress and model best known for playing Shana in the 2015 live-action film adaptation of Jem and the Holograms. Perrineau has also appeared in the horror-thriller Truth or Dare, as well as shows like Westworld and When They See Us.

Aurora Perrineau's Instagram: @auroraperrineau

Abigail Cowen as Delilah

Delilah is Percy’s childhood best friend.

Abigail Cowen, 28, previously appeared alongside Soverall in Fate: The Winx Saga, playing protagonist Bloom Peters. The actress told Teen Vogue that working together on a previous show helped them capture Delilah and Percy’s close-knit dynamic. “[Sadie is] like a sister to me, which was cool to play because Delilah and Percy were like sisters when they were young,” Cowen said. “When they’re young, Delilah’s this firecracker, free-spirit girl, and Percy’s more internal and quiet. Delilah pushes her outside of her comfort zone. And in adulthood, Percy actually pushes Delilah out of her comfort zone to eventually confront her own demons.”

Cowen can also be seen as Vicki in Stranger Things and as Dorcas in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Abigail Cowen’s Instagram: @abbeycowen

Michael Bradway as Charlie Florek

Charlie Florek is Sam's older brother. After befriending a teenage Percy, Charlie later follows his dying mother's request to reach out to her, prompting her long-awaited return to Barry's Bay.

Michael Bradway, 27, previously portrayed Jack Damon on the NBC drama Chicago Fire. Additionally, he can be seen in Marked Men and Safe House.

Michael Bradway’s Instagram: @michaelbradway_

Joseph Chiu as Jordie

Jordie is Sam’s best friend. Although he also grew up with Percy, Jordie initially pretends not to know his BFF's ex when she returns to Barry's Bay. How's that for friend loyalty?

Joseph Chiu, 24, booked his first major role as Spider in the 2025 Netflix horror film Fear Street: Prom Queen. Although he’s still a relative newcomer, he’s already booked TV appearances in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and The Miniature Wife.

Joseph Chiu's Instagram: @josephchiu0812

Elisha Cuthbert as Sue Florek

Sue isn’t just Sam and Charlie’s mom. She’s also a key figure in young Percy’s teenage years. When Sue dies of lymphoma, it’s her death that prompts Percy to return to Barry’s Bay and reconnect with the Floreks years later.

Elisha Cuthbert, 43, rose to fame as a scream queen with roles in 2000s horror films like Captivity, House of Wax, and The Quiet. More recently, she played Abby Phillips in four seasons of the Netflix comedy The Ranch.

Elisha Cuthbert's Instagram: @elishaphaneuf

If you love Every Year After and can't get enough of the Barry's Bay world, you can buy Every Summer After at Bookshop.

Back in the ‘70s—way before Twilight and True Blood got a new generation hooked on stories of sexy, brooding blood-suckers—prolific author Anne Rice ignited a vampire fever with Interview with the Vampire, the first book in her Vampire Chronicles series. A dozen more novels—plus a few spinoffs and crossover stories—followed over the course of more than 40 years. And though the paranormal book series is definitively complete following Rice’s 2021 death, it’s proven itself just as immortal as its main characters, finding new life in recent years as a prestige drama TV series on AMC that’s earned widespread critical acclaim and been praised for its depiction of queer characters and racial tensions.

The long-awaited third season arrives this summer, with a name change from Interview with the Vampire to The Vampire Lestat as it shifts focus from the first book in the series to its sequel. Whether you want to catch up on the source material before diving into the show or you’ve already sunk your teeth in and need more Louis and Lestat, read on for a full guide to The Vampire Chronicles book series.

What is 'The Vampire Chronicles' book series about?

With the core collection spanning 13 lengthy books, The Vampire Chronicles series covers quite a bit of ground. At the center of it all is Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman who was turned into a vampire in the 1700s. The series starts with Interview with the Vampire, as he tells the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac, whom he made into a vampire.

We get Lestat’s autobiography in Book 2, The Vampire Lestat, culminating in his tenure as a rock star in the 1980s—the attention from which he’s hoping will reunite him with old friends and stir up some drama between humans and vampires. The next three books—The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, and Memnoch the Devil—see Lestat fighting a major threat to the vampire community, grappling with his loneliness and lack of humanity, and coming into close contact with the devil.

Books 5 through 10 further build out Lestat’s world, both with and without him as a main character. We dive deep into the life stories of several familiar faces, including prominent vampires Marius and Armand, and see the universe expand to include characters from Rice’s witchy series, the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy.

Though Rice initially meant for Lestat’s saga to end with the 10th Vampire Chronicles book, 2003’s Blood Canticle, she resurrected him once again a decade later. Between 2014 and 2018, she published three final books in the series: Prince Lestat, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, and Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat. The final installments begin as the vampire emerges from exile and attempts to calm widespread chaos by stepping up as leader of the vampire community.

Which books from 'The Vampire Chronicles' series have been adapted for the screen so far?

AMC’s critically adored TV series debuted in 2022 as Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and kept that title for 2024's season 2 as well. Those initial 15 episodes bring to life the events of the first novel in The Vampire Chronicles, with Game of Thrones alum Jacob Anderson as Louis and Australian actor Sam Reid portraying Lestat.

Starting with the third season, which premiered on June 7, the show has been renamed Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat and will dig into the eponymous second book in Rice’s series. The new installment will reportedly also tie in The Queen of the Damned.

Meanwhile, AMC is also adapting Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy, the titular characters of which feature heavily in the Vampire Chronicles books. Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches is now two seasons in, with a third currently in production. Both shows are part of AMC’s Immortal Universe based on Rice’s vast bibliography.

So far, the Immortal Universe also includes another series: Talamasca: The Secret Order, which debuted in fall 2025 and focuses on an organization that crops up in both the Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches books and is tasked with investigating and monitoring supernatural communities.

It's still early days, but in 2025, AMC revealed that an adaptation of Memnoch the Devil is also in development at the network. Lestat is still the main character in the fifth novel of the series, though without The Vampire Lestat renewed for additional seasons, it's unclear whether the Book 5 adaptation will be another installment, a spinoff, or a new show entirely.

Elsewhere, before The Vampire Chronicles got the prestige TV treatment, Interview with the Vampire was first brought to the screen as a 1994 film starring Tom Cruise as Lestat, Brad Pitt as Louis, and Kirsten Dunst as Claudia, a young girl-turned-vampire who becomes something of a daughter to the pair. (In the series, she's portrayed by Bailey Bass and Delainey Hayles.)

In 2002, a movie combining elements from both The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned—taking its title from the latter—premiered with Stuart Townsend as Lestat and Aaliyah as Akasha, the original vampire in Rice’s books.

How do I read 'The Vampire Chronicles' books in order?

Here are all 13 of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles books, from 1976’s Interview with the Vampire to 2018’s Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat:

• Interview With the Vampire (1976)
• The Vampire Lestat (1985)
• The Queen of the Damned (1988)
• The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)
• Memnoch the Devil (1995)
• The Vampire Armand (1998)
• Merrick (2000)
• Blood and Gold (2001)
• Blackwood Farm (2002)
• Blood Canticle (2003)
• Prince Lestat (2014)
• Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016)
• Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018)

Are there any spinoffs to 'The Vampire Chronicles' series?

Yes! About halfway through writing The Vampire Chronicles series, in 1998 and 1999, Rice published two more books that further flesh out the universe but can stand alone and don’t directly impact the plot of the main series. This New Tales of the Vampire series comprises Pandora and Vittorio, the Vampire. Pandora tells the story of the titular vampire, who has known Marius for centuries and crops up as a side character in Lestat’s 1980s timeline. Vittorio, the Vampire, meanwhile, is an autobiography of yet another centuries-old vampire. His story, however, doesn't crossover with the main characters of The Vampire Chronicles books.

And, while technically not direct spinoffs of the Vampire Chronicles books, Rice’s three Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels do take place in the same universe as and star characters that feature heavily in the vampire-focused series. They include 1990’s The Witching Hour, 1993’s Lasher, and 1994’s Taltos.

Countless mystery-thriller authors have cult followings and ascend to the top of bestseller lists, but not all of them straddle YA and adult audiences. British phenom Holly Jackson, however, does—and has followed all of the clues and gathered all of the evidence to know how to be damn good at it.

In less than a decade, Jackson has become one of the top-selling crime authors in the U.K., thanks in part to her largely teen-girl readership, whom she reveres and have followed her with each release since her 2019 debut, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. The book, following teenage detective Pip's investigation into a cold case, peaked at No. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list, where it spent over 77 weeks, and its Netflix adaptation went on to reach No. 1 on its streaming charts in roughly 80 countries.

With a highly devoted fan base and a healthy Easter egg-hiding habit, the author has even earned the nickname “The Taylor Swift of books,” selling more than 10 million novels in the process. It checks out, considering how intricately she plans her whodunnits. "I am obsessive about it," she has said. "I don't quite have a 'murder board' because it's not on the wall, but it is on the floor."

Whether you’re just discovering the British writer thanks to her recent foray into adult thrillers, you’re a diehard fan, or obsessed with Netflix's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, there's much to dive into. Below, we ranked every one of Holly Jackson's books so you know which one to pick up next.

Every Holly Jackson Book, Ranked

How to read Holly Jackson's books in order:

There are several different ways to approach Holly Jackson’s novels. If you want to dive straight into the young adult series that made the author famous, you’ll want to start with A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, followed by its sequels, Good Girl, Bad Blood and As Good As Dead, and its prequel novella, Kill Joy.

Five Survive, The Reappearance of Rachel Price, and Not Quite Dead Yet can be read in any order, since they’re all standalone novels.

If you prefer to read your books in the order that Jackson wrote them, however, you’ll start with the same first two books, but switch up the order of Kill Joy, which was released in February 2021, and As Good As Dead, the final book in the Good Girl’s Guide series, which was released in August 2021.

You can see Jackson's full chronological list below:

• A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019)
• Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020)
• Kill Joy (2021)
• As Good As Dead (2021)
• Five Survive (2022)
• The Reappearance of Rachel Price (2024)
• Not Quite Dead Yet (2025)

Which of Holly Jackson books are being adapted into TV shows or movies?

So far, two of Holly Jackson’s books—A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and Good Girl, Bad Blood—have been adapted for the small screen. The first season of the series debuted on Netflix and BBC Three in 2024, and season 2 will premiere on May 27, 2026.

While Poppy Cogan adapted the novel for the screen for season 1, Jackson told Variety that she had a lot of input into the final product. “I was very heavily involved in the show,” she said. “I was doing script notes throughout. I was basically…working 24/7 on the show.”

According to the author, the work came naturally. “I like to joke that I’m a screenwriter trapped in the body of a novelist,” she once told the New York Times. “I’m very visual. I need to be able to run the entire story, kind of like a movie in my head, before I put it down on paper.”

As such, she had opinions on the series, which she said was originally “far too different” from the book. She told Variety, "I just made it very clear at that point that if they weren’t going to adapt the book as an adaptation, I could take it elsewhere."

The author added, "If I hadn’t offered my sage advice and guidance and butted in, the show wouldn’t look the way it is today."

Season 2, which adapts the sophomore novel, Good Girl, Bad Blood, sees Jackson even more involved. This time around, she has a co-writing credit with Cogan. "I am BEYOND thrilled that we can continue Pip’s story and, this time, I’m writing on the show!" she said in a statement to Netflix's Tudum.

She expounded upon her role to Radio Times, saying, "I’ve always wanted to write for the screen as well as books, and with season 2, this is my take on what the show should be. I’m confident fans will love it—I’m really proud of it."

We'll have to wait and see if Book 3, As Good As Dead, or even the prequel, makes it to the screen. We certainly hope we'll see more of Pip's story play out; after all, the material is there!

Why Trust Us

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of obsessed with books. Our team of editors and writers regularly spends hours scrolling through #Booktok, reading feedback on Goodreads and Reddit to see what hidden gems we’ve yet to discover, and, most importantly, actually reading the books we put on our lists.

We’re interviewing your favorite authors, listening to podcasts for the dirt on the best new book adaptations, and out in the world, checking out buzzy literary scenes. Bottom line: You should trust us because we’re lovers of the written word—just like you.

When Off Campus arrived on Prime Video on May 13, the steamy hockey romance pulled off a surprise no one expected. Based on Elle Kennedy's book series of the same name, the romance adaptation's debut season was expected to solely focus on musician Hannah (Ella Bright) and team captain Garrett (Belmont Cameli), the leads of book one, The Deal. However, season 1 sneaks in a secondary couple that quickly stole viewers' hearts: actress Allie (Mika Abdalla) and ladies' man Dean (Stephen Kalyn) from book 3, The Score.

In the week since the show's debut, Dean and Allie have become an iconic couple with a co-sign from genuine rom-com royalty. Now Mika Abdalla, who plays Allie, has viewers around the world wondering who's that girl stealing scenes on TV's biggest romance of 2026 so far. Read on for everything to know about Mika Abdalla, from her child-star roots to her hopes for Allie in Off Campus season 2.

Mika Abdalla is a former teen actress with rom-com experience.

Mika Abdalla was born in Plano, Texas, on May 13, 2000. (In fact, Off Campus debuted on her 26th birthday!) She started as a child model at 6-years-old, before appearing on an episode of Barney & Friends. After appearing in shorts and indie films, she landed her breakout role as a teen spy on the Netflix series Project Mc², earning her a 2016 Young Artist Award nomination.

Since then, Abdalla has mostly held small roles in series like S.W.A.T., The Flash, Suits L.A., and The Pitt (where she shared the screen with her eventual Off Campus co-star Jalen Thomas Brooks!). She also starred in the coming-of-age films Snack Shack and Sex Appeal.

Mika Abdalla channeled her college days at UCLA while filming 'Off Campus.'

As a young star preparing to transition to adulthood, Abdalla decided to take a hiatus from her career. She enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017, after graduating from high school a year early. In a Her Campus interview, Adballa explained that she "dabbled in being a kid" during her time at school.

"I had five roommates in my dorm at UCLA," she recalled of her early college days. "I went to a big UCLA-USC game [and] I got punched by a very drunk USC sorority girl. We were walking towards the stadium. She saw me, and she did not like the UCLA of it all. And she gave me a good, solid punch in the arm. So that was fun!"

Though Abdalla returned to working after the pandemic, she eventually graduated with a degree in philosophy and film, seven years after enrolling. Speaking to Her Campus, she credited it to the discipline she learned in her childhood days in equestrian sports. "I wanted to get [my] degree to honor that part of my life," she said.

Mika Abdalla was previously engaged to a fellow child actor.

Like Allie, Abdalla is entering her single-girl era after a long-term relationship. Three weeks after Off Campus's premiere, US Weekly revealed that the actress had split from her fiancé Jake Short after five years of dating.

"Due to recent interest in Mika’s personal life it would feel remiss to not address that her and Jake are no longer together," a rep for Abdalla told the outlet. "They continue to support each other and remain on friendly terms, and kindly ask for privacy and respect."

Abdalla and Short—a former child actor best known for a ubiquitous meme—first met as co-stars on Hulu's 2022 teen comedy Sex Appeal, where they played childhood besties who enter a friends-with-benefits/sexual-discovery situation. (Of course, Short's character is secretly in love with Adballa's the whole time.) The pair got engaged in May 2025, according to an Instagram tribute.

Mika Abdalla inspired Allie's onscreen look before she even auditioned.

Abdalla has been vocal about her deep connection to her character, and it turns out there was a bit of fate behind her casting as Allie. The actress initially auditioned for the role of Hannah, though she admitted to Her Campus that she "would not consider myself a singer or a musician." But even before Abdalla landed the audition, series creator Louisa Levy had already connected her to Allie.

Levy revealed to Her Campus that she and her co-showrunner, Gina Fattore, had unknowingly included Abdalla in their pitch for Off Campus, on a mood board evoking Allie's energy. "I found Mika and a lot of her photos in Snack Shack, and her Instagram page…she just felt like Allie to me," Levy told the outlet. And so we have this fake Instagram profile for Allie that is Mika, and it was well before she ever came to audition."

Abdalla elaborated on her connection to Allie in an interview with Numero Netherlands. "I see a lot of myself in Allie, but simultaneously, she is nothing like me. Her energy is at a pretty consistent 10/10. I like to say she’s me when I’m having the best day ever. I was really excited to explore a part of myself that doesn’t always show."

Mika Abdalla knew that her J.Lo-approved jungle dress would be a hit.

One of the buzziest scenes of Off Campus season 1 is Allie and Dean's meet-cute, which takes place on the dance floor of a costume party. For the scene, Abdalla wears a recreation of Jennifer Lopez's iconic Versace jungle dress from the 2000 Grammys. The moment was such a hit that it even made it to J.Lo's timeline; the multi-hyphenate reshared the clip on X/Twitter, adding the note, "love this shooooww."

Speaking to PEOPLE, Abdalla recalled her intuition that the scene would be a hit. "I had a feeling, especially because it happened so early on," she told the outlet. "When we were getting close to the dress being finished, and I saw what it was going to [look like], when we were shooting it, I was like, 'Huh, I think people are going to like this.'"

Abdalla also told Betches UK about the work it took to feel secure in the dress that inspired Google Images. "It was unreal. [The dress] was built from scratch," she said. "My first fitting was like, put on this nude leotard and we're going to cut it up and pin all this shit to you. It was five fittings. It was insane, I was so taped in. I was ready to dance the night away."

Mika Abdalla is excited to portray "deep emotional turmoil" Allie will go through in 'Off Campus' season 2.

In an interview with PEOPLE, Abdalla opened up about her hopes for Allie in the show's already-confirmed second season. Though she hinted that she's "not excited" about the challenges Allie will have to face in the future—which book readers will be well aware of—Abdalla is prepared to stretch her acting muscles.

"I am excited about it as an actor," she said. "I am excited for the deep emotional turmoil that Allie is going through, because I think that'll be a lot of fun [to play], and that's not really something I got to play around with too, too much this season."

She added, "I am excited to see the inner workings of her. It's really fun to play such a vibrant, larger-than-life character who also has these extremely deep feelings about herself and the world around her. It's such a balance. I'm excited to do the puzzle of Allie."

Forget portable fans, sunscreen, and white jeans: The No. 1 thing on our Memorial Day weekend shopping list? Books! We’ve got our hearts set on three days of bliss, A.K.A. an entire holiday spent making a serious dent in our TBR list.

This spring, a handful of novels and memoirs have hit shelves that we can't wait to pick up as we jetset off for our first summer travels or settle in for our staycation. From celebrity-penned literary hits to long-awaited follow-ups from bestselling authors, there are more than a few page-turners worth adding to your cart, grabbing at the airport before you board, or nabbing at your local bookstore. They've even got the #BookTok and celebrity book club stamp of approval.

Whether you’re planning to lay low at home and read to your heart’s content or need a good beach read for your destination (or more likely, the plane), we’ve got you covered. Below, find every book you should buy today for Memorial Day weekend and beyond.

Why Trust Us

New favorite author? There’s a good chance they’re already on our radar. From a writer’s first signs of success on #Booktok to buzzy literary scenes and beyond, we’ve got our ears to the ground (and our noses in their books). Want sneak peeks of their soon-to-be best-sellers? Got ‘em. Full catalog rankings galore? Yep. All the scoop on the inevitable adaptations? Most definitely. In short? We’re the book people—reading’s kind of what we do.

For reality TV fans, it's hard to remember a time when Love Island didn't dominate summer—or pop culture, for that matter. Since the dating show launched in the U.K. in 2015, with the U.S. version spinning off and debuting in 2019, it's become a full-blown, appointment-viewing phenomenon. The show, which airs on ITV2 in the U.K. and Peacock in the U.S., has launched bona fide stars, introduced phrases into the lexicon, inspired countless memes, and its near-real-time release schedule has made it unique in form—all of which contributed to the seventh season of Love Island USA to become the most-streamed show on TV.

This year, fans will need to make time between watching LIUSA and LIUK because a different kind of bombshell is set to arrive: The first-ever Love Island book. Titled Enter the Villa: The (Unauthorized) Reality Behind Love Island, the nonfiction release from Vanity Fair contributing editor Anna Peele explores how the reality show is made behind the scenes and what has led to its international success. Compiled with over 100 interviews with cast members, producers, and experts, it marks the most comprehensive deep dive to date of the reality hit we can't stop watching.

As Enter the Villa hits shelves on May 19, below, read an exclusive excerpt about the appeal of LIUK season 5 breakout star Maura Higgins, who's gone on to host the aftershow Aftersun and compete on The Traitors. In it, Higgins herself weighs in on how she feels now about the iconic moment in which she stood up to Tom Walker.

Maura Higgins’s star power was obvious to her castmates before she walked into the Villa; well before their season, Curtis [Pritchard] DMed Maura when he was pro on Dancing with the Stars Ireland and she was a local hottie. The twenty-eight-year-old Monster Energy event model came into the Villa on day ten after producers told her she had the personality to be a bombshell. Though Tommy [Fury] and Molly-Mae [Hague] were already a tight couple, Maura made her intentions for Tommy clear as soon as she stepped into the Villa, announced he gave her "fanny flutters," and went on a date with him as Molly-Mae watched from the balcony. Molly-Mae was aggravated to her emotional peak, whisper-shouting in annoyance to the other women.

After the date, Maura told Molly-Mae she was freezing, and Molly-Mae reverted to a more typical mode of operation: killing descension with kindness and co-opting the threat with fashion by offering Maura her jacket—which meant Maura was wearing the white leather moto when she pulled Tommy for a chat in front of Molly-Mae. Maura’s brazen interest in Tommy and her lack of intimidation at Molly-Mae’s presence activated Molly-Mae’s normally fluster-proof personality.

Molly-Mae was understanding on paper if not in practice, in that she recognized that, technically, it was Tommy’s decision whom he pursued, and Maura was doing her job. “A bombshell has every right to come in and just do your thing. That’s what you’re there to do,” Maura says. Molly-Mae became much more understanding when she realized Tommy was obsessed with her; even during the conversation with Maura where she flirted with him in Molly-Mae’s clothing, he’d kept looking over at Molly-Mae with a look that registered somewhere between longing and extreme anxiety about pissing her off.

After Tommy let down Maura, the two women became close. “We couldn’t deny our friendship,” Maura says. “We just got on so well, so all of that stuff, it never affected us.” Maura moved on to Tom Walker, a twenty-nine-year-old model who was youthfully handsome and immature, and whose mouth would soon get him in trouble.

In a scene that would become indelible, Maura was surprised to learn her fellow Islanders had chosen for her to a date with Tom in the Hideaway after they’d known each other only for a few days. “I really didn’t wanna go in there with him,” Maura says now, reflecting on the situation. “I wasn’t at that stage. Like, we had kissed a few times, but it kind of felt very early for that.” They weren’t even in an official couple yet. While it isn’t mandatory to hook up in the Hideaway, the building is strongly associated with the activity, and Maura was unusually sex positive even for an Islander. As he walked to his date, Tom was oozing with entitlement. He told the boys, “It will be interesting to see if she’s all mouth or not.”

Maura had gone downstairs to grab lingerie to wear to the Hideaway and saw that the men were gasping and clutching each other at the sight of her, thinking she’d overheard what Tom had just said. She had not and asked Tom to repeat it. For some reason, he did, to which a horrified Maura replied, “Are you fucking joking?” Tom, realizing his gaffe, tried to reframe it as a miscommunication. “You said it, making me feel like a piece of shit,” Maura yelled in the dressing room as the other women turned their backs in an effort to do something between disappear from this mortal coil and eavesdrop more effectively. The camera kept zooming in on a mirror, where Molly-Mae hid her face with knit fingers as Tom sputtered, no longer brave enough to slag off Maura now that they were face-to-face. “What? ‘Uh, uh’?” she said, mocking his inability to articulate. The shot cut to Molly-Mae’s reflection again, shown shaking with silent laughter. “They ‘asked you a question’?” Maura said. “Maybe you should have been a gentleman.” Cutting Tom to ribbons was what Maura could do with her mouth.

Along with the rest of the show’s fandom, Love Island USA host Ariana Madix became enraptured with Maura while watching this play out on-screen. “That’s my favorite Maura moment, because you know what? That is who she is through and through. She is an Irish queen,” she says of her friend and Aftersun castmate. Maura also enjoys it as a viewer. “Every time it comes up, I still watch it to this day,” she says. “You do really forget that the cameras are there, and you don’t know what’s being shown, what’s not. The way it was all edited together was just brilliant.”

Episode after episode and quip after flame-up, Maura generated evidence that she was a Hall of Fame Islander. She was incautious in a way that allowed her to role with the extemporaneous production style and social milieu; when Tom tried to make her look foolish or she managed to do that herself, Maura never felt embarrassed. After she decided she liked Curtis, she voraciously pursued him. Though Chris Taylor was ostensibly a much better match for someone who loved to spar through quips, Maura spent her date with him spying on Curtis, who was telling his own partner that he was interested in Maura.

Once he submitted to her crush, Curtis also relaxed into Maura's improvisatory approach to things. “She brought out a more fun side to me,” Curtis says. “I felt like with Amy [Hart], I was a married man. With Maura, I felt like I was more my age.”

She even got the not-always-quotable Molly-Mae to start riffing. “Maura’s going to literally destroy Curtis in the Hideaway,” Molly-Mae said when the pair got together and Maura was finally headed to the bungalow with someone who wasn’t using her sexuality to make himself look big. (Curtis did briefly workshop a joke referencing the “all mouth” line with the other men before deciding maybe it wasn’t the time, though as a bit, he did borrow Chris’s kimono, with the caveat that Curtis needed to fold the silk, not crease it.) “He’s going to come back with a limp,” Molly-Mae insisted.

When Maura returned, she issued her verdict: “It was fanny-tastic,” she said.

Spending less time in his head—not striving to be the group’s parental figure or barista but a guy flirting with one of the funniest Islanders ever—took Curtis to the end. “Maura’s vote probably got me to the final,” he says, now that he’s had time to reflect on it. “She had the whole of Love Island behind her. People loved her, so knowing all of this now, like, it wasn’t me [who] got to the final; it was bloody her.”

Excerpted from ENTER THE VILLA: The (Unauthorized) Reality Behind Love Island by Anna Peele. Copyright 2026 Anna Peele. Published by Atria Books.

Once again, a steamy hockey romance has taken over the internet. Prime Video debuted Off Campus on May 13, 2026, bringing Elle Kennedy's book series of the same name to life. Set at Briar University, the new series is centered on the stars of the school's famed hockey team, with each player getting their own love story a la Bridgerton. In season 1, team captain Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli) and musician Hannah Wells (Ella Bright)'s fake-dating arrangement brings the swoon-worthy drama.

It's no surprise that the highly anticipated show was an instant hit, with the romance adaptation getting acclaim from critics and fans. Luckily, Prime Video has already fast-tracked Briar U's spring semester. Below, read on for every update and clue on Off Campus season 2 so far, including which couple from the Off Campus cast will lead the new episodes.

Has 'Off Campus' been renewed for season 2?

Yes! Prime Video confirmed that Off Campus will return for season 2 in February 2026, three months before season 1's debut. The early renewal seems to have been a good call; official viewership numbers for Off Campus won't come out for a few days, but season 1 quickly took over the streamer's Top 10 list (as well as most social media feeds) upon release.

"Off Campus captures the kind of emotionally charged, character-driven storytelling that truly resonates with our global Prime Video audience,” said Peter Friedlander, Amazon MGM Studios head of global TV, in the renewal announcement. “We have great confidence in the way Louisa has mastered this adaptation, and we’re excited to give fans even more of the romance, friendship, and heart that define the series.”

When will 'Off Campus' season 2 be released?

Viewers won't have to wait too long to return to Briar University! Thanks to that early renewal, the Off Campus team has already gotten a head start on season 2. Speaking to Variety on the day of the series premiere, creator Louisa Levy revealed that "all eight scripts are written" for the upcoming season. Meanwhile, stars Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli confirmed that they were scheduled to begin filming season 2 just days after the season 1 premiere.

Filming for season 1 took place from June to October 2025 in Canada, before the episodes arrived on Prime Video in May 2026. If season 2 follows the same schedule, the hockey romance's spring semester could begin in May 2027.

Which Elle Kennedy book will 'Off Campus' season 2 adapt?

Get ready for a shake-up. After moving up Dean (Stephen Kalyn) and Allie (Mika Abdalla) to become season 1's secondary love story (the Scott and Kip of the season, if you will), the minds behind Off Campus have confirmed that season 2 will continue the couple's romance. This means that the rest of The Score, the third book in Elle Kennedy's series, will likely be adapted in Off Campus's second season.

Fans assumed as much while season 1 was airing, and then Prime Video confirmed Hannah and Garrett are passing the baton to Allie and Dean in late May. The streamer shared a swoon-worthy clip and charming photos of the stars to celebrate, along with the cheeky caption, "One couple made a deal. The next one is keeping the score. ❤️‍🔥🏒 From Garrett & Hannah to Dean & Allie — the Off Campus love story continues in Season 2."

Showrunner Louisa Levy also shared a statement in a press release. She said, "We are so excited to continue Allie and Dean’s story as our primary romance of season 2 after kickstarting their romance in season 1."

She also put fans at ease, ensuring we'll still see more of our beloved season 1 leads, adding, "But if you fell in love with Hannah and Garrett, don’t worry—they will still be an integral part of our robust ensemble."

"We’re looking forward to telling the next chapter of everyone’s story. There's a lot for fans to look forward to!” her statement concluded.

For non-readers, The Score mostly follows the same setup featured in the back half of season 1: Aspiring actor Allie Hayes breaks up with her longtime boyfriend, Sean, because he doesn't support her dreams. After a night out, Allie ends up commiserating over the breakup with the womanizing Dean Di Laurentis. (They hook up that same night in the book, while the show stretches out their flirting.) Dean becomes hooked on Allie, and though she turns him down for a while, they eventually become friends and begin secretly hooking up, even spending Thanksgiving together.

Thanksgiving is when Off Campus takes a completely different direction than The Score, with Allie deciding that she and Dean should sleep with other people (because she's lowkey catching feelings). She goes through with it, hooking up with Hunter Davenport (Charlie Evans), a freshman hockey player who has beef with Dean. Off Campus season 1 ends with Dean and Hunter fighting in a cliffhanger twist that shocked fans of the book. (In The Score, Dean and Hunter have a sweet mentor-mentee relationship; Hunter later gets his own book in the Briar U spinoff book series.)

Though Off Campus includes many major plot points from The Score, there's still more to adapt in season 2. Dean and Allie both have individual storylines that aren't mentioned in season 1. These include Allie struggling to figure out her path after college (she's a senior in the book); Allie's dad's declining health; Dean's feud with his once-again coach Frank O'Shea, and his backstory with his high school girlfriend. Then there's the devastating turn that Dean and Allie's romance takes after tragedy strikes. (No spoilers, but if season 1 made you fond of Dean's football-playing bestie Beau Maxwell, maybe grab some tissues for season 2.)

We'll have to see how Off Campus fits in all of the above, plus the new drama with Hunter. (Not to mention a possible new secondary love story...)

Will 'Off Campus' season 2 also adapt 'The Mistake?'

While Dean and Allie will take the spotlight in Off Campus season 2, that still leaves the question of what will happen to the stars of the second book in Elle Kennedy's series, John Logan and Grace Ivers. Logan (Antonio Cipriano) plays a significant role in both season 1 and its source book, The Deal; he has a secret crush on Hannah, who, of course, ends up with his best friend Garrett. Grace only gets a brief mention in Off Campus season 1, but the show has already cast India Fowler to play Grace in season 2.

If season 2 follows a pattern of Off Campus exploring an upcoming couple as a secondary love story, then Grace and Logan's romance could fit in perfectly. Avoiding spoilers, Book 2, The Mistake, picks up right after The Deal; Logan, who is a junior, almost freshman Grace Ivers, before "a thoughtless mistake pushes her away," per the synopsis. When they return to Briar U as a senior and sophomore, respectively, Logan is determined to win Grace back, and she plans to make him work for it. The Off Campus team hasn't confirmed anything, but it would be very cute if season 2 features Grace and Logan's failed hookup, before season 3 focuses on their second-chance romance.

Who in the 'Off Campus' cast will return for season 2?

Prime Video has confirmed the season 2 cast for Off Campus, and the show's main cast will return, including Mika Abdalla (Allie Hayes), Stephen Kalyn (Dean Di Laurentis), Antonio Cipriano (John Logan), and Jalen Thomas Brooks (John Tucker). The streamer has yet to confirm whether Khobe Clarke (Beau Maxwell) and Charlie Evans (Hunter Davenport) will return, but it seems likely—especially Evans, considering that finale cliffhanger.

We're also set to see more of Ella Bright (Hannah Wells) and Belmont Cameli (Garrett Graham) in Off Campus season 2. Series creator Louisa Levy confirmed to TV Guide that she's interested in "continuing where each of them have left off" in the next installment, as they try to figure out their futures after college and navigate their relationship.

Unfortunately, it seems that Off Campus will lose one of season 1's actors. Levy revealed that Josh Heuston won't return to play Justin Kohl in season 2. However, she added, "I love Josh, and I would not write him off if I can find a way to bring Justin back at some point. We never got a chance to meet Stella, who is the person he ends up with in the book. So maybe we'll find a way to fold him into a future season. We don't have him [available] next season, but never say never."

Who are the new cast members joining 'Off Campus' season 2?

It's almost time to meet Grace Ivers! Two weeks before Off Campus's premiere, Prime Video revealed that Fear Street: Prom Queen alum India Fowler would join the cast as a series regular. The star behind Logan revealed the news to Fowler in a social media clip where Antonio Cipriano invited her to join the Off Campus production in Vancouver.

Meanwhile, Prime Video also announced that Hamilton and Doctor Odyssey alum Phillipa Soo will play "Scarlett, a theatre artist who is guest-directing an original play in the college’s drama department."

Only a few months after Heated Rivalry took the world by storm—and sent sales surging for the Rachel Reid-penned book series the show is based on—another one of our hockey romance obsessions has followed in its footsteps, jumping from page to screen. Season 1 of the long-awaited TV series adaptation of Elle Kennedy’s beloved and best-selling Off Campus books debuted on Prime Video on May 13, with plans for each season to follow a different book in the series.

Each novel in the romance series centers on a love story between a hockey player and a fellow student at fictional Briar University, filled with enough spicy scenes and tried-and-true romance tropes to keep your heart fluttering and feet kicking throughout. For example, the first book, The Deal, which serves as the inspiration for the first season of Off Campus, follows team captain Garrett and music student Hannah on a fake-dating plot that—surprise, surprise—is jeopardized when a certain campus bad boy catches real feelings for his not-so-real girlfriend. Hannah and Garrett stick around the rest of the series, as each book follows the romantic escapades of Garrett’s close friends and teammates.

If you’ve already binged the first season of Off Campus and desperately need more Briar U in your life, or if you want to know what’s coming in future seasons of the show, read on for a guide to Kennedy’s book series. Below you'll find everything you need to know about the individual novels, how to read them in order, the multiple spinoff books, and series that are still expanding the broader Off Campus universe.

'Off Campus' Book 1 — 'The Deal' (Hannah and Garrett)

The first of Elle Kennedy's books set at Briar U—originally published in 2015 before it took off on #BookTok—follows a scheme between studious Hannah and hockey-obsessed Garrett. The two agree to very publicly fake-date when Garrett is in serious need of a tutor to help his GPA, and Hannah is looking for a way to make her crush jealous. The pact marks a major step forward for Hannah, who’s understandably guarded around all things sex and romance after surviving a traumatic incident in high school. Their relationship (inevitably) gets even more complicated when the two discover the decidedly not-fake chemistry between them.

In the TV version of their love story, Hannah is played by Ella Bright, while Belmont Cameli steps into Garrett’s skates. Season 1’s eight episodes include plenty of fake-dating, opposites-attract, forced-proximity goodness, from a semi-awkward Only One Bed situation to an intense hometown visit.

'Off Campus' Book 2 — 'The Mistake' (Grace and Logan)

Second-chance romance lovers, this one’s for you. The second installment in Kennedy’s series centers on another Briar U hockey star, John Logan (who, as one of two Johns on the team, goes by his last name), and his own headstrong love interest, Grace. Their lore runs deep: When Logan was a cocky junior and Grace a shy freshman, they started hooking up but stopped due to a careless mistake on Logan’s part. The following school year, he’s desperate to end his college career on a high note and make things up to Grace, who’s back on campus feeling much more confident for her sophomore year.

We’ve already met Logan in the first season of Off Campus, played by Antonio Cipriano. The show hasn't necessarily been unfolding book-by-book—for instance, Allie and Dean's romance from The Score is heavily featured in season 1—but we have reason to believe some or most of The Mistake will unfold in season 2. An April 2026 casting announcement named India Fowler as the on-screen Grace, so we suspect she'll be at least one of the leads.

'Off Campus' Book 3 — 'The Score' (Allie and Dean)

Next up on the roster is Dean, a ladies' man whom senior Allie has selected as the perfect target for some one-night-stand rebound sex once she gets her heart broken. Afterwards, Allie is perfectly content to move on with her life and get back to fretting over what she’s going to do after graduation. Dean, on the other hand, finds it difficult to leave their time together as just one night and move forward as friends. Let the chase begin!

As a member of the Briar U hockey team, Dean is also introduced in the first season of the Off Campus TV show, played by Stephen Kalyn. Allie’s there, too, since she’s best friends and roommates with The Deal’s Hannah; The Pitt alum Mika Abdalla brings her to life. Quite a bit of their love story plays out in season 1—though it ends on a major cliffhanger, leading us to believe it'll continue in season 2, as well. (And thank goodness: Some fans have swooned even harder over their fling than Hannah and Garrett's!)

'Of Campus' Book 4 — 'The Goal' (Sabrina and Tucker)

The final entry in the core four Off Campus books stars the other John (yes, his name really is John Tucker, but this one’s not a serial cheater). After a single, sexy hookup with aspiring lawyer Sabrina, the pair end up parents-to-be. Though Sabrina is determined to juggle her impending motherhood and career goals all on her own, the very sweet Tucker—who’s also the product of a devoted single mother—is equally determined to break down her walls and start building a life together.

On screen, Tucker is being played by another The Pitt star, Jalen Thomas Brooks. Sabrina is the only character among the main Off Campus couples who isn't cast yet, but that hasn't stopped the fancasts. Some readers have said they can see actresses such as Savannah Lee Smith, Isabella Briggs, and Sydney Park in the role.

'Off Campus' Book 5 — 'The Legacy'

Technically a compilation of four novellas, the fifth and final book in the Off Campus series checks in with all four couples from the preceding novels, three years after college graduation. They’re all still together, thankfully, and between them are a wedding, a proposal, an elopement, and a pregnancy. We'll keep it spoiler-free, though, so you'll have to dive in to find out exactly which couple is going through which major life event.

Will there be another book in the 'Off Campus' series?

Unfortunately for fans clamoring for even more love stories from this particular iteration of the Briar U hockey team, Kennedy seems to be done with the OG Off Campus series. The five aforementioned books were published between 2015 and 2021, with the final installment serving as a “where are they now”-type epilogue to wrap up the series.

That said, Kennedy has stayed plenty busy since putting out the original Off Campus books. She’s published many more romance novels, both standalones and entries in other series, including multiple set in the same universe as Off Campus. More on those below…

Are there any other books set in the 'Off Campus' universe?

Yes! Kennedy has written several books inspired by the Off Campus universe. First to follow the original series was Briar U, which she published between 2018 and 2020. The four-book collection is about the romantic dalliances of a new set of Briar University hockey players, a few years behind Garrett and the gang. There are plenty of overlaps between the two series: For example, the female main character in the first Briar U book, The Chase, is none other than Dean’s younger sister Summer (which, by the way, sets up a perfectly tangled “brother’s best friend” forbidden-romance situation).

There are more Easter eggs and romance tropes where that came from. So, after The Chase, you can dive into The Risk, The Play, and The Dare.

In fact, fans already deep in the book lore were surprised to see a character from The Play make his on-screen debut in Off Campus season 1. The character Hunter Davenport appears as the show diverges from Hannah and Garrett to focus on Allie and Dean. Charlie Evans portrays him, but he's not introduced as Hunter. He's first known as "Carter St. James V," the name on his fake ID, which is what Allie knows him as when she meets him at the campus hangout, Malone's, and Allie decides she's interested in pursuing another guy. They kiss and eventually hook up—the same night Dean confesses his love for Allie. (Yikes.)

Hunter's appearance is a major change from the books to the show. And as the series reveals, Dean and Hunter—who is really a freshman recruited to the team by Logan when Garrett is suspended—have bad blood because Hunter and Dean's sister Summer were classmates. This shift is stark from the books, in which they have a mentor-mentee relationship. It also certainly sets up conflict for season 2, which those showrunners have already teased. Although it remains to be seen if Hunter's romance with a character named Demi will make it to the screen eventually, as well.

Hunter's early introduction also implies the show is pulling from Kennedy's wider universe, and even more changes, Easter eggs, and cameos may be in store—all the more reason to get reading.

The characters may not make their on-screen debut any time soon, but, in addition to Briar U, Kennedy started yet another spinoff series, Campus Diaries, in 2023. These three books (The Graham Effect, The Dixon Rule, and The Charlie Method) are also set at Briar, also feature players from the hockey team, and also include cameos from some very familiar characters—20 years after the events of Off Campus. In a very fun continuation of the OG series, the main character of The Graham Effect, the first Campus Diaries book, is none other than Garrett and Hannah’s daughter, Gigi. She's following in her dad’s footsteps by serving as captain of the Briar U hockey team…and by getting caught up in her own deal-based romance. The next two main characters aren’t second-gen, but there are still plenty of Off Campus echoes throughout their stories, too.

Meanwhile, a double helping of second-gen romance can be found in Kennedy’s latest standalone book, Love Song. The novel arrived in March 2026 and details the steamy summer romance between Grace and Logan’s daughter, Blake, and Hannah and Garrett’s son, Wyatt—Gigi's twin brother—who have known each other for years but have never been able to get their feelings for one another in sync.

With XO, Kitty currently in renewal limbo and Heated Rivalry season 2 nearly a year away, fans are hoping Prime Video's new show, Off Campus, can fill the romance-shaped gap in their TV schedules. Based on the Off-Campus book series by Elle Kennedy, the series brings the drama of college and the sexual tension of hockey together, and to say fans are already obsessed would be an understatement.

In case you're unfamiliar, Off Campus is a beloved romance series comprised of five books—The Deal, The Mistake, The Score, The Goal, and The Legacy. Each book focuses on a different couple at Briar U, with the leading men all playing on the school's hockey team. Some stories are more interconnected than others, and though Off Campus has already been renewed for season 2, co-showrunner Louisa Levy has confirmed that the show won't follow the exact timeline of the books, which means fans could get glimpses at their favorite series couples in season 1.

This means it's especially important that you get to know the Off Campus cast and their characters ASAP. Otherwise, you might miss the beginning of a new romance. Here's your guide to who's who in Off Campus, with a hint about what fans can expect from future seasons.

Ella Bright as Hannah Wells

Hannah Wells is a music major at Briar University who finds herself in a classic rom-com fake-dating scenario after she strikes a bargain with star hockey player, Garrett Graham. He promises to pretend to date her to help her catch the eye of her real crush, Justin, as long as she tutors him. But what begins as a simple exchange becomes complicated when the two actually start to catch feelings.

Ella Bright, 19, might be new to American audiences, but she's been appearing on stages and screens in the U.K. for years. She broke out in 2020 with the lead role in Malory Towers, a British TV show, which ran for five years. She also previously appeared as a Young Kate Middleton on The Crown, but Off Campus will be her first major U.S. role.

Ella Bright's Instagram: @ellabright__

Belmont Cameli as Garrett Graham

Garrett Graham is a junior at Briar University, captain of the hockey team, and star forward—but his dreams of playing in a professional league are in serious jeopardy due to his failing grades. To get his GPA up and remain on the team, he agrees to pretend to date Hannah in exchange for tutoring. What could go wrong?

Belmont Cameli, 28, is, according to his Instagram, a “Poet. Vigilante. Meatball Connoisseur.” He's also an actor and no stranger to romance adaptations. He starred as Eli in Netflix's Along for the Ride, but is best known for playing Jamie Spano in the criminally underrated Saved by the Bell reboot.

Belmont Cameli's Instagram: @belmontcameli

Josh Heuston as Justin Kohl

In the original book, Hannah has a major crush on Justin, a football player. For the show, Justin is getting a bit of a makeover. He's no longer a jock, but a musician and lead singer in his college rock band, which makes him the artsy opposite of Garrett.

Josh Heuston, 29, is an Australian actor who has appeared in Thor: Love and Thunder, Heartbreak High, and is currently in HBO Max's Dune: Prophecy series. He might not get the girl in Off Campus, but Heuston might soon get his chance. He's one of the actors rumored to be circling the role of Xaden in Prime Video's Fourth Wing TV show.

Josh Heuston's Instagram: @jheuston

Mika Abdalla as Allie Hayes

Allie Hayes is Hannah's ride-or-die. She's fun, smart, and also happens to be the daughter of a former hockey player. Who would have guessed it? Though she mainly supports Hannah's journey in The Deal, the TV series moves up the timeline of Book 3 of the Off Campus series, The Score, which gives Allie her own love story—with Garrett's teammate Dean Di Laurentis.

Mika Abdalla is a 25-year-old actress from Texas, best known for her leading role in Netflix's children's series, Project MC². She also appeared in season 1 of The Pitt and Suits LA.

Mika Abdalla's Instagram: @mike.abdalla

Stephen Kalyn as Dean Di Laurentis

Dean is, you guessed it, yet another stud from the Briar U hockey team. Charming and rich, Dean has a reputation as a playboy. He's also been aged up for the show and will be a senior in season 1. As stated, he and Allie strike up a casual (to eventually passionate!) relationship in the third installment, The Score, which is heavily featured in season 1 and will continue in season 2.

Fans of college TV dramas might recognize Stephen Kalyn, 28, from a guest spot on Prime Video's Cruel Intentions reboot, or his recurring role on Gen V. In addition to being an actor, Kalyn is a lifelong hockey player, so he knows what he's doing on the ice.

Stephen Kalyn's Instagram: @stephenkalyn

Antonio Cipriano as John Logan

John Logan, A.K.A. Logan, is Garrett's best friend and teammate. He's easy-going and sweet, but that doesn't mean he can't harbor a crush for his BFF's fake girlfriend. Things get even more complicated for Logan in book two, The Mistake, which delves into his complicated home life. Oh, and he has to figure all this out while navigating a relationship with Grace Ivers?

Antonio Cipriano is a man of many talents. At 25, he's already appeared on Broadway in 2019's Jagged Little Pill and on multiple television shows, including National Treasure: Edge of History and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. It also looks like he'll be among the leads of Off Campus season 2, as the show announced it cast India Fowler as Grace.

Antonio Cipriano's Instagram: @antoniocipriano_

Jalen Thomas Brooks as John Tucker

Rounding out the Briar U hockey friend group is John Tucker, A.K.A. Tucker. Though he's been aged down for the TV show, Tucker is still very much a core member of the team, and not just because he's the resident chef. In the books, Tucker takes center stage in book 4, The Goal, when he falls for Sabrina James, Dean's academic rival. Sabrina does not appear in season 1 of Off Campus, so fans should look forward to seeing their love story play out in later seasons.

If you watched any TV in the last two years, odds are you'll recognize Jalen Thomas Brooks. The actor, 24, currently plays nurse Mateo on HBO's hit medical drama, The Pitt. Before that, Brooks appeared on shows like Walker and Animal Kingdom.

Jalen Thomas Brooks's Instagram: @jalenthomasbrooks

Julia Sarah Stone as Jules Logan

The TV adaptation of Off Campus introduces a new original character in Jules Logan, Logan's younger sister, who also attends Briar U. When she's not serving as a quippy, observant younger sister to Logan and his roommates, she runs a popular fan page for the Briar Hawks.

Julia Sarah Stone has been acting her entire life. After getting into theater in elementary school, the Canadian star began landing indie and TV roles and racking up accolades like a Young Artists Award and a TIFF Rising Star honor. The now 28-year-old is best known for The Killing, Wet Bum, Weirdos, and Honey Bee.

Julia Sarah Stone's Instagram: @reel.jss

Khobe Clarke as Beau Maxwell

Beau Maxwell is the quarterback of Briar U's football team, but he spends more time around the hockey boys and his bestie, Dean. (Briar is a rare school where football isn't the star sport.) As readers know, Beau will have a big impact on the second half of Allie and Dean's love story.

Though he plays a football star in Off Campus, Khobe Clarke grew up playing hockey in Calgary. The 25-year-old made his TV debut in the first few seasons of Yellowjackets, and went on to appear in Firefly Lane and V.C. Andrews' Dawn. His first major role was Scott Russell in Prime Video's Cruel Intentions reboot.

Khobe Clarke's Instagram: @khobeclarke

Steve Howey as Phil Graham

Phil Graham, Garrett's father, is a former pro hockey player who wants his son to continue his legacy at all costs. In the books, Phil is both verbally and physically abusive, which, to put it lightly, puts a lot of strain on his relationship with his son.

Steve Howey has been a staple of American television for over two decades, starting with his breakout role in Reba, continuing on Shameless, and, most recently, on High Potential.

Steve Howey's Instagram: @stevehowey

Charlie Evans as Hunter Davenport

In its most surprising deviation from the source material, Off Campus season 1 introduces Hunter Davenport, a freshman hockey player who doesn't appear in the books until The Score (and who goes on to have his own romance in the Briar U spinoff book series). Avoiding spoilers, Show Hunter will have a much more contentious relationship with Dean than their mentor-mentee bond in the books.

Charlie Evans will be a familiar face to sci-fi fans, as he spent the past two years portraying Jeremy Bradford in Hulu's Paradise. Before that, the 22-year-old Australian actor/musician played Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke's son in the 2023 film adaptation of the disaster novel Leave the World Behind.

Charlie Evans's Instagram: @charliebluejay

India Fowler as Grace Ivers

In the books, Logan uses Grace to help get over his crush on Hannah, but when he realizes that his hookup might be the real deal, he must earn the chance to date her.

We already know that rising British actress India Fowler, 22, will play Grace. You may recognize her from Netflix's teen horror flick Fear Street: Prom Queen, or Showtime's spy thriller series, The Agency.

India Fowler's Instagram: @_indiafowler

The Other Bennet Sister is the delightful comfort watch that took over the internet in the first half of 2026. Based on Janice Hadlow's novel of the same name, the BBC and BritBox's period drama is a retelling of Pride & Prejudice with the focus on Mary, the titular, oft-overlooked middle child of the Bennet family. While Jane Austen adaptations are nothing new, The Other Bennet Sister stands out with its charming focus on giving the late bloomer both the rom-com treatment and her own journey of self-discovery.

Though U.K. viewers were the first to fall in love with The Other Bennet Sister, the historical romance later arrived stateside, with the series finale landing on BritBox on June 24. Fans who are mourning the end of their new favorite show may be wondering whether Mary's story will continue. Read on for everything we know about the future of The Other Bennet Sister.

Is 'The Other Bennet Sister' renewed for season 2?

Unfortunately for fans, Mary Bennet's story has (mostly) come to an end. The Other Bennet Sister is billed as a limited series, and the 10-episode season is a complete adaptation of Janice Hadlow's novel, so it doesn't look like the series will return for future seasons.

Of course, limited series tend to find ways to live on if they're popular enough. According to The Radio Times, The Other Bennet Sister became the BBC's biggest drama launch of the last 12 months, with the first episode drawing 7.3 million viewers in its first 28 days on BBC One and iPlayer. With that kind of popularity, the network may be taking note and considering how the show could continue.

Will 'The Other Bennet Sister' return for more episodes?

The Other Bennet Sister fans are getting more episodes! On the day of the BritBox series' finale, the streamer announced that Mary Bennet and co. will return for a three-part Christmas special, answering fans' pleas for a bit more time with their favorite Bennet.

"We know how much audiences have fallen in love with Mary Bennet, and we’re thrilled that her story isn’t over yet," Jess O’Riordan, Executive Producer and Commissioning Executive for BritBox, said in a statement. "We are so pleased Mary’s story will continue for three more chapters and to welcome audiences back into the world of The Other Bennet Sister this holiday season."

When will 'The Other Bennet Sister' Christmas Special come out?

There isn't an official release date for the special episodes of The Other Bennet Sister yet, but the biggest clue lies in their unofficial title. In the tradition of other smash-hit British shows, the special will debut during the Christmas season. (It's still unclear whether the U.S. and the U.K. will get the episodes at the same time.)

The show will also be working on quite a quick turnaround. According to the announcement, production is set to film the three-part special in Wales later this summer.

Which cast members will return for 'The Other Bennet Sister' Christmas special?

So far, Ella Bruccoleri (Mary Bennet) is the only actor confirmed to reprise her role, but the rest of the main cast will likely join her. The surest bet is Dónal Finn, who plays Mary's now-husband Tom Hayward.

The Other Bennet Sister also stars Poppy Gilbert (Lizzie Bennet), Maddie Close (Jane Bennet), Molly Wright (Kitty Bennet), Grace Hogg (Lydia Bennet), Ruth Jones (Mrs. Bennet), Laurie Davidson (William Ryder), Aaron Gill (John Sparrow), Varada Sethu (Ann Baxter), Indira Varma (Mrs. Gardiner), Richard Coyle (Mr. Gardiner), and Tanya Reynolds (Caroline Bingley).

What will 'The Other Bennet Sister' Christmas special be about?

While the overall plot is under wraps, executive producer Jane Tranter teased some details on The Other Bennet Sister Christmas special to IndieWire. The special won't see Mary celebrating Christmas, as "the Regency era wasn’t so big on [the holiday]." Instead, it'll focus on newlyweds Mary and Tom Hayward and their life post-wedding, with Quintrell writing the episodes based on storylines from source author Janice Hadlow.

“The thing that Janice was interested in is, Jane Austen always pulls the camera away, in her novelistic way, at the point of marriage,” Tranter told the outlet. “And I think it’s really because Jane Austen’s novels are about longing and about love, and once marriage has been found, Jane Austen herself knew well enough that it could easily not be a choice between marriage or misery, but marriage and misery. [She] doesn’t tread down that path and doesn’t delve in [to that], Jane Austen herself was never married and she doesn’t delve into that…but we were interested in seeing, but what if we did go into the next step of what life was going to be like for the Haywards?”

Will 'The Other Bennet Sister' get a spinoff?

Even before the Christmas special was announced, the team behind The Other Bennet Sister hinted that they were interested in exploring more of the Jane Austen canon. In an interview with Variety, executive producer Jane Tranter expressed an interest in returning to the world of the show, teasing that they're "thinking about" doing another Austen-related series.

"I think that Mary Bennet and the Bennet family continues to live on in our minds, so potentially," Tranter said, when asked about the possibility of a new series starring the Bennets. "But Mary Bennet isn’t the only character in Jane Austen’s novels who Jane Austen gives a bit of a side eye to, and that is really what interests me."

What would 'The Other Bennet Sister' spinoff be about?

Avoiding any spoilers, The Other Bennet Sister ends with a true happily-ever-after for Mary, wrapping up her story as she finds true happiness. If the series goes the anthology route, it probably wouldn't center on a Bennet woman at all, since Mary's sisters were married off before the show's timeline. (Unless the series decides to pull a Francesca Bridgerton on Lydia or Kitty.)

However, there is a well-known Pride & Prejudice character who gets a redemption arc in the new series. Warning: Stop reading here if you want to stay spoiler-free. Caroline Bingley (Tanya Reynolds) arrives in London soon after Mary, and the sisters-in-law's paths cross once again around halfway through the season. However, Mary gets to see Caroline in a new light, as the Bingley sister pursues her own love story. As IndieWire points out, this new take on Caroline Bingley could be great fodder for a new installment.

Of course, there's also the chance that future spinoffs could go beyond Pride & Prejudice to explore another unsung Austen heroine. Could a character like Margaret Dashwood or Jane Fairfax step into the spotlight next? We'll have to wait and see.

How can I watch 'The Other Bennet Sister?'

The Other Bennet Sister is currently streaming on BritBox, with every episode out now. BritBox offers a seven-day free trial, after which a subscription starts at $10.99 per month.

As stated, it hasn't been announced when the Christmas specials drop, but there is a chance they could air in the U.K. on BBC iPlayer before BritBox in the U.S. If that's the case, you can use a VPN to watch. If you don't have a VPN, you can use one like Nord VPN.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

Between the health risks of pregnancy, the physical and emotional strain of raising a child—which often come with financial implications and lack of federal support— believe us when we say: Moms are total badasses.

Of course, welcoming a newborn is the first of many milestones. After the baby comes the mother load, or the often trying postpartum fourth trimester, and the doorway into parenthood. As if that weren’t enough, many new mothers are thrust into learning on the job, making motherhood ripe for messes and mess-ups.

No two mothers are alike, but there is a universality to stories about the deeply human experience of child-rearing—whether it be the relatability of guardian-child relationships, or grappling with changing relationships with oneself, one's body, or loved ones. Authors have long explored all of the components of motherhood—and in recent years, many bestsellers have taken a no-holds-barred approach to portraying the complex realities of being a mom and the societal pressures they face.

Below, we've compiled the best books that capture the beautiful and complicated chaos of motherhood—never holding back on the realities of the fourth trimester and beyond.

The season of Carley Fortune is upon us. The romance author has been making us weak in the knees with her relatable tales of yearning, heartbreak, and passion since 2022, when she burst onto the literary scene with Every Summer After. Since then, she’s churned out four more hits, with each one successfully sweeping us away into her nostalgic, sunshine-filled worlds.

“I think that my storytelling style really lends itself to summer reading, whether you’re on vacation or not, when you want to curl up with a book and escape,” Fortune explained to TODAY in 2024. “That’s really what I want my books to be—an escape for the reader.”

Make that books and TV shows. This summer will see the writer's debut getting the Prime Video treatment, while Netflix has scooped up This Summer Will Be Different.

Whether you’re looking to spot the differences between the novels and the shows, or you want to visualize your own cast of characters before seeing who winds up playing your favorites, this is a good place to start: We've ranked every single one of Carley Fortune’s books below.

Every Carley Fortune Books, Ranked

How to read Carley Fortune's books in order

The order in which you read Fortune's books will depend on your personal preference. The only two we suggest you definitely read one after the other are Every Summer After and One Golden Summer, given the connections between the two.

However, to get a sense of Fortune's style, we suggest you start with Every Summer After, regardless, since it solidified her style of crafting the perfect beach read. From there, you can dive into any of novels—or you could also read them in chronological order of their release, as Every Summer After was her debut. To do so, you would read them as follows:

• Every Summer After (2022)
• Meet Me at the Lake (2023)
• This Summer Will Be Different (2024)
• One Golden Summer (2025)
• Our Perfect Storm (2026)

Which Carley Fortune books have adaptations are in the works?

Three out of Fortune’s five novels have been slated to receive the Hollywood treatment. At the rate she’s going, it's possible the other two won’t be far behind. (Shout out to authors like her and Emily Henry for keeping the rom-com alive!)

First up, Every Year After, the retitled TV series adaptation of Every Summer After. It premieres on Prime Video on June 10, 2026, starring fresh face Sadie Soverall, Matt Cornett (High School Musical: The Musical: The Series), Elisha Cuthbert (The Girl Next Door), and Michael Bradway (Chicago Fire).

"There are lots of changes and little characters get their own new storylines," Fortune, who executive-produced the series alongside showrunner Amy B. Harris (The Carrie Diaries, Gossip Girl), told PEOPLE. "I'm so happy with how it turned out…I'm a true fan of the show."

Fortune’s third book, This Summer Will Be Different, will also be adapted into a series by Netflix. “I’m thrilled to...transport audiences to the glittering shores and windswept beaches of [Prince Edward Island],” she said in a statement when the project was announced in March 2026.

Like Every Year After, the novelist will also serve as an executive producer on the project, with Canadian creators Dane Clark (One More Time, Suze) and Linsey Stewart (Working Moms, North of North, Suze) also on board.

Eventually, a Carley Fortune movie will also hit our screens. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Archewell Productions are at the helm of bringing Meet Me at the Lake to life. "That is moving along really nicely behind the scenes," Fortune assured Swooon in June 2025. "There’s a beautiful script."

Why Trust Us

New favorite author? There’s a good chance they’re already on our radar. From a writer’s first signs of success on #Booktok (and beyond), we’ve got our ears to the ground (and our noses in their books). Want sneak peeks of their soon-to-be best-sellers? Got ‘em. Full catalog rankings galore? Yep. All the scoop on the inevitable adaptations? Most definitely. In short? We’re the book people—reading’s kind of what we do.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, Anna Konkle—the writer and actress best known for co-creating and starring in the beloved Hulu series Pen15—shares her favorite "traumedy" books.

When Anna Konkle set out to make PEN15 with her best friend and collaborator, Maya Erskine, she didn’t envision it would be dubbed a “cringe-comedy.” Instead, she thought of the coming-of-age Hulu series as a “traumedy”—a trauma-comedy that uses levity to explore tragedy, or, in this case, the universal woes of middle school.

Long before the 39-year-old even realized she was interested in writing comedy, Konkle saw humor as a powerful coping mechanism. She tells Marie Claire that she grew up in a household that revered “funny, smart people;” it instilled in her the idea that “life was easier if you found the joke first—better than being the joke.”

It’s how she moved through mining her preteen memories for her hit series, and how she moves through her debut book, The Sane One. The memoir, out May 5, is about her complicated relationship with her father, whom she became estranged from following her parents’ divorce, and later reconnected with.

The book is equal parts hysterical and moving—a balance that Konkle says feels intuitive to her because it reflects how she views reality. “To me, life is a series of minutiae-goals for survival, seemingly mundane tasks sitting to the left of a dramatic phone call or car accident or birth—the wonderfully dumb thing beside the tidal wave,” she says. “Like, watching Love Island—with the big tits and dramatic fights—while lying in a pull-out chair in hospice next to Dad, the nurse asking if he’s hot, and my dad answering, ‘I’d like to think so,’ but barely moving.”

So it’s fitting that Konkle’s favorite books take a similar approach. Here, she shares the traumedies she loves for being both “heroic” and “[giving] us company,” ranging from recent literary fiction hits to bestselling memoirs to children’s books.

Much of Jesmyn Ward’s time is spent raising her three children, but through her words, she’s also nurtured countless readers. Widely regarded as one of the defining voices of her generation, the author has enriched audiences with her lyrical prose and moving stories about Black identity and kinship in the South since her 2008 debut, Where the Line Bleeds, hit shelves, and her sophomore novel, 2011’s Salvage the Bones, won the National Book Award for Fiction.

Throughout her career, Ward has meditated on familial strength and mother-child relationships—be it the memories Annis recalls of her ancestral matriarchs, leading to her rebirth, in Let Us Descend; or how trauma and systemic structures set up mothers to fail in Sing, Unburied, Sing. "Understanding who we are as family members, caregivers, caretakers, and as children reveals who we are elementally as human beings," Ward tells Marie Claire.

Each of Ward's novels is set in her home state of Mississippi, a reflection of the “admittedly tortured love I feel for [the state],” she writes in her new collection of personal essays, On Witness and Respair. "I wanted to look squarely at the place and people who made me.”

That place, and those people, are threaded not only through Ward’s work, but her present-day life: She and her partner are raising three children in DeLisle, Mississippi, the same small town where Ward grew up surrounded by family. In On Witness and Repair, out May 19, Ward explores her upbringing in DeLisle and her experiences with grief, including the loss of her husband and the father of her two eldest children, as well as how she aspires to uplift her son as he comes of age in an era of political divisiveness.

The book is among this year’s most highly anticipated releases, and ahead of its publication, Ward shares an exclusive excerpt on how she came to build upon the storytelling tradition of Southern writers who came before her.

I was in elementary school. I felt such awe looking at that map, studying the sometimes kind, oftentimes serious illustrated faces of the writers: William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Richard Wright beamed the brightest in my childhood memory. I was too young for their work then, but as I sat in that linoleum-tiled library with its metal bookshelves and strong fluorescent lighting, that map, along with the books lining the shelves, transformed the space into something expansive and precious.

I sat at those long tables and sank into story; their authors transported me so completely that I tasted the food the characters ate, the tea they drank, and felt every little tic of terror or joy or sadness they felt. Writers were magic-workers. They spun tales from the ether, wrote narratives so riveting that I often felt a kind of overwhelming longing as I read. I could already sense the worlds they constructed, already felt so much with the characters; why couldn’t I just step through from my world into theirs? Even at the tender age of eight, I knew I was poor and Black in Mississippi, and that meant eating WIC-issued cornflakes and never being sated by them. That meant being too hot for most of the year, and being too cold the rest because we didn’t have any central climate control in any of our homes. It meant hardly ever experiencing the luxury of solitude because I spent many of my childhood years growing up in a house where aunts and uncles and my parents and my first cousins all lived together, by necessity.

Reading offered respite from all of this, but as I grew, I found myself seeking less escapism. As I grew, I understood that being Black and poor in Mississippi also meant Sunday baseball games at the local Negro-league park, everyone communing and eating and celebrating. It meant swimming with everyone in our community at the local river, camping and cooking over open fires. It meant gathering for birthdays and anniversaries and just because, playing Al Green and Otis Redding and Denise LaSalle and dancing, old with young, babies with seniors, whirling in golden living rooms, amber kitchens, on pale blue porches. This understanding led me to wanting more empathy, more feeling, and it was then I was ready to engage with those famous Mississippi writers from the map.

I began with Welty first; I muddled my way through her short stories, grinning at her sly wit, before alighting in her essays. I fought my way through Faulkner, half understanding what was happening, feeling thunderous import lurking in the margins of every page. Even though I struggled with some of their work (Welty’s essays on jazz musicians soured me, Faulkner’s story about the bear frustrated me), I recognized their power, their magic. I appreciated the way Faulkner wrote the reader into a kind of fever dream of the South, the way Welty invited the reader into the story and made one feel as if they were chums, in on a marvelous joke. But Wright struck me in the marrow, moving me. I read Wright’s memoir, Black Boy, and when he wrote about being a young, deeply feeling boy in the Mississippi Delta, I knew him. I knew him when he shimmied under houses to play in the shade of the foundation, seeking some reprieve from the Southern heat. I knew him when he opened his mouth under the spigot to drink water to fill his stomach with something, anything, as hunger wrung him; I’d done the same as a child, gulped down faucet water that smelled like sulfur, tasted of minerals. Wright worked a different kind of magic for me: it was elemental. He pushed me so far out of my own experience and crowded me so completely into his own that for a time, we became one, and when I emerged from his memoir, all that he had confirmed and questioned in his narrative rang through me with the endless echo of a great bell. By the time I read Wright, I knew I wanted to be a writer, too, that I wanted to work a little of the magic Wright had for me: that I hoped to reach some other young, solitary, hungry person in the world, barefoot and heartsore, desperate for story to help them figure out their lives, this world.

But something about Wright’s memoir was unsettling for me. He left Mississippi, traveled north, and joined the Communist Party. I didn’t necessarily disagree with his politics; I admit that I knew so little about communism that I couldn’t form an opinion. It was his leaving his home that most bruised me. It was the rancor with which he wrote about his early life, the details of the poverty he experienced, the violence at the hands of friends and family, the fact that there was little to no warmth, little to no connection, that disturbed me. What kept him alive in Mississippi? I knew what had kept me alive: my grandmother letting me perch easily in her lap, her lipstick messy as she told story after story and laughed. My father, muscled and beautiful, lifting me to the back of his motorcycle, jamming a helmet down on my skull after securing Walkman headphones on my ears, and then hitting play as he pulled out of my elementary school parking lot, Prince’s guitar warping the tunnel of trees around us. My mother standing behind me at the stove, whisking the spoon steadily along the bottom of the pan, teaching me how quickly pecan candy should be stirred. My brother and sisters, piled into my mother’s small car, fighting with our elbows for more space in the back seat, combatants and companions at once, comfort in knowing that being packed like tinned fish in the car meant we were together.

I knew something or someone had kept Wright alive, but I couldn’t easily decipher who or what had done so in Black Boy. His refusal to give me a glimpse of that which nurtured him in his life and gave him the wherewithal to escape taught me this about creative nonfiction: I wanted to look squarely at the place and people who made me, and to do my best to write with honesty, generosity, and that admittedly tortured love I feel for Mississippi. A love heavy with hanging moss and overarching live oaks, heavy with one great-grandfather shot and killed by whites who accused him of flirting with a white woman in a local store, with another slaughtered in the forest at the side of his moonshine still, with the specter of my maternal grandmother made to ride in a trunk to cross a sundown town safely, which marked her so deeply she told me that story multiple times during her life—which marked me so deeply in the hearing that I tell it as she did, again and again.

It took years, but I wrote toward nuance as well as I could.

I still thought of myself as a novelist. I’m digressive, like my maternal grandmother. I can be long-winded, like my father. I take my time telling a story, like my mother, letting a narrative unspool over years. Short stories and short-form creative nonfiction are not conducive to the kind of writing that comes naturally to me. I’ll also admit that I was carrying some doubt from my undergraduate years, wherein I’d struggled with academic essay writing so much that a TA once told me that I could not, in fact, write. According to her, I was deluding myself into thinking I could.

In a way, she was correct. Academic essays required a kind of bloodless precision, focus, and clarity that I hardly ever possessed. Narrative essays required the opposite: a willingness to explore, to sit with the questions, to sometimes fail in finding an answer. In the doing, to write toward revelation. I learned that if I held the narrative loosely to me, following where it pulled, I could discover facts and realities about myself and those I loved that I did not know when I set down the first word. This promise has led me through every essay over the years, enabling a kind of self-transformation on the page.

Excerpted from On Witness and Respair: Essays by Jesmyn Ward. Copyright © 2026 by Jesmyn Ward. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

Comedian Brooke Averick sees the humor in modern romance. But instead of being the butt of the joke about dating-app doldrums and messy relationship dynamics, she makes herself the punchline—and has developed a devout following doing so.

Much to the excitement of her 1 million TikTok fans, and the listeners who tune into "Brooke and Connor Make a Podcast" every week, Averick is bringing her signature wit to a new format. On May 26th, the rising star will publish her debut novel, Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It. Just as candid as her comedy, the romance novel follows a soon-to-be-30-year-old with crippling intimacy anxiety who is determined to find the right man to lose her virginity to. The charming read is sure to be on every rom-com fan's TBR list—and one of the most highly anticipated books of the spring.

Below, read an advanced excerpt of Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It, when Phoebe meets her crush, Finn.

Love at first sight.

I’ve read about it. I’ve dreamed about it. I’ve watched it happen in countless movies. I’ve always known it was out there, but I had started to give up on it ever happening to me.

Until now.

I stand so quickly that small spots begin to dance around the edges of my vision. My heart plummets to the base of my stomach as I shuffle toward the door, dropping so far down that I worry it’s going to fall out of my athletic skort and onto the alphabet-themed rug. I clench as a precaution.

“Hi,” I say, my voice sounding distant. I curl my fingers in a wave, though I’m not sure it does any good with my hand at my side.

According to the attendance sheet, we’re still waiting on one more kid to arrive, but there’s no way this is his dad. He’s too young and dressed too casually. The few dads that do morning drop-offs are always in suits and fall somewhere in the forty-to-sixty age range. The guy in front of me is wearing a checkered button-down over a white T-shirt, navy blue pants, and Vans. There’s no sign of gray in his sandy brown hair. He can’t be a day older than me. Maybe he’s a hot nanny?

He sticks out his hand.

I stare at the veins in his outstretched arm for a beat too long before I finally shake it.

“I’m Finn, the new fourth-grade teacher. You must be Phoebe?”

I nod.

“I was told this is the place to go for some colored pencils. Do you mind if I borrow some, for the day? I promise I’ll bring them back.” He smirks, and I feel my face warm.

“I’m Phoebe.”

I hear Cheryl’s footsteps coming up behind me just in time to save me from myself.

“Here you go.” She hands him a box labeled ext r a col or ed pencils, courtesy of my label maker.

“Thanks!” He reaches his arm out to shake Cheryl’s hand. I stay mesmerized by his veins while he introduces himself to her. “I just started over there.” He points out the window toward the Stone Building.

“Oh, that’s amazing!” Cheryl says, and while she talks to Finn, I will my gaze away from his arms and begin fixating on the small sliver of ankle that’s visible below his cuffed pant leg. I keep my eyes down while Cheryl introduces herself.

Get it together.

“Well, I’m Cheryl, and you’ve met Phoebe. We were all so sad when Becky retired, but I have to say, I’m glad we’ve got some more young blood around here. Poor Phoebe’s always been the youngest here by at least twenty years.” She chuckles and pats my back, which anyone watching would assume is an innocuous gesture. But I know Cheryl, and I know it’s her subtle way of encouraging me to say something.

“And if you need anything else, don’t be shy,” she adds while looking at me expectantly.

“I have a label maker if you need it,” I chime in.

He smiles. “I’m good with the colored pencils for now, thanks.”

I nod, knowing that at some point in the future, he’ll come back for the label maker. Everyone always comes back for the label maker.

“It was great meeting you both. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

He ducks to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe on the way out, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath this entire time. Just as I’m about to exhale, he doubles back, peeking his head through the open door.

“By the way, Phoebe, I love your shirt,” he says with a wink.

I beam, my smile extending from ear to ear. “Thank you!”

I watch him leave through our windows, and only when he finally enters the Stone Building does my heart find its way back to its normal resting place. I finally unclench.

As if she can sense it, Cheryl shakes her head and lets out a laugh.

“You and that damn label maker.”

The kids line up behind the line leader of the day, a sweaty and smiling Charlie, yelling and pushing each other happily as they make their way outside for recess. Cheryl follows closely behind them, and I split off from the group to take my first, and probably only, bathroom break of the day.

The second I lock the bathroom door behind me, I reach into the depths of my skort for my phone and pull up the “no backing out” group chat. My hands are shaking with excitement.

I check my unread texts to see if he’s responded. Usually by this time of day, Matthew would have already sent me his Wordle score, but still, there’s nothing from him. This is good, I convince myself. This is a sign. What are the odds that I make a detailed plan on how to lose my virginity, and the very next day, a gorgeous fourth-grade teacher with perfect ankles and strong, healthy arm veins comes knocking at my classroom door? It feels too much like fate to ignore, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all my romance consumption over the years, it’s that when the universe gives you a sign, you take it. And this is my sign that Finn is the one.

Excerpted from PHOEBE BERMAN’S GONNA LOSE IT by Brooke Averick. Copyright © 2026 by Brooke Averick. Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Carley Fortune is on a roll. The Canadian author’s last four novels have been smash hits on the New York Times Best Sellers list, and her 2026 release, Our Perfect Storm, was no different. It even debuted at the top of the chart. So, it's no surprise that her beloved romance novels are starting to receive the adaptation treatment.

In June 2026, Prime Video released the on-screen adaptation of her first book, Every Summer After, as Every Year After. And her 2024 beach read, This Summer Will Be Different, won’t be far behind. Netflix announced in March 2026 that it's adapting the popular, sun-soaked rom-com into a 10-episode series, to be shot in Toronto and Prince Edward Island off the Eastern Coast of Canada.

“We couldn’t have found better partners to bring this love letter to both Toronto and Prince Edward Island to the screen,” directors of content for the streaming giant’s Canadian branch, Danielle Woodrow and Tara Woodbury, said in a statement.

While we’ll undoubtedly have to wait a while to see Fortune’s characters of Lucy, Felix, and Bridget come to life, we’ve done as much snooping as humanly possible to tide you over with all the information we could find. Read on for everything we know about the This Summer Will Be Different series.

What is 'This Summer Will Be Different' about?

This Summer Will Be Different is a "sweeping love story" that especially hits for anyone who's ever had a crush on their best friend's sibling.

But make no mistake: This is no vanilla romance. “If I had to rate This Summer Will Be Different on the chili scale, so, like, one chili being not so steamy, and five chilis being, ‘You need a cold shower,’ I think I would rate it a 3, although I think other people might rate it a 4,” Fortune has said. “It’s my steamiest book yet.”

The book follows two BFFs, Lucy and Bridget, who are headed on vacation to Canada’s picturesque Prince Edward Island together. Bridget has given Lucy three rules for their beach holiday: eat oysters, leave her cares behind in the city, and don’t fall in love with her hunky younger brother.

When Bridget misses her flight, Lucy falls in lust at first sight with Felix, a strapping young man with one heck of an oyster shuck, with whom she shacks up for the evening. But Felix is the one man she was supposed to stay away from, and now she’s got a secret she needs to keep from Bridget…for the next five years. It’s a task that gets harder and harder each summer that they return to the island, and Lucy returns to Felix’s charms.

Who is involved in Netflix's 'This Summer Will Be Different' series adaptation?

Have no fear that the show won't live up to fan expectations. Like Every Year After, Fortune will serve as a co-executive producer on the project.

“I see my role as being a voice for the readers—advocating for what they love about the worlds and characters,” she told Downtime about her involvement.

She's hardly the only name involved, though. This Summer Will Be Different is helmed by several Canadian TV veterans, including show creators Dane Clark (One More Time, Suze) and Linsey Stewart (Working Moms, North of North, Suze), as well as executive producers Jennifer Kawaja (Sort Of, Wayward) and Elise Cousineau (Cardinal, Small Achievable Goals).

Fortune has also sung the praises of the team at Netflix Canada. In a July 2026 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she said, "Danielle [Woodrow] and Tara [Woodbury], who [head] up Netflix Canada, we had had a drink together before they had even read it, and I loved them...Their view on TV and film just aligned so much with how I saw things." That being said, we should be in good hands!

What has Carley Fortune said about Netflix's 'This Summer Will Be Different' series adaptation?

Fortune opened up about the inspiration for her third romance novel in a statement to Netflix when news of the adaptation was announced. “I fell in love with Prince Edward Island first in the pages of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and again when I visited with my best friend in my early 20s,” she said. “That vacation, the beauty of the island, the warmth of its people, and the friendships that sustain us are the foundation of This Summer Will Be Different.”

When will Netflix's 'This Summer Will Be Different' series adaptation be released?

Netflix has not yet announced a release date for This Summer Will Be Different. But it's possible the series won't hit the small screen until 2028 at the earliest, considering it's still in pre-production. We got the biggest update from Fortune herself in early July 2026, when she told THR how things are coming along.

"I've read the first episode script, and it’s great. It’s all moving very, very quickly, but it felt like it was almost like matchmaking, where you can see that this is the perfect fit," Fortune told the outlet. "We’re casting now, which is very exciting."

It took roughly two years for Prime Video to deliver the series of Fortune’s first novel, Every Summer After. Deadline reported it was in the works in July 2024, and it premiered on June 10, 2026. While Prime Video is a different streamer from Netflix, that two-year timeline is a good indication of how long it may take for This Summer Will Be Different to get off the ground. With casting underway as of summer 2026, filming may begin in 2027 (likely in spring or summer, considering the summertime setting), and then episodes could debut in 2028.

It could be even longer, though. For example, Fortune’s novel Meet Me at the Lake, which was picked up by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Productions, is still in early development. The project was announced in 2023, and few updates have come out since.

“That is moving along really nicely behind the scenes,” Fortune assured Swooon of the project in June 2025. “There’s a beautiful script. It’s moving along.”

We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully Netflix can pick up the pace, and This Summer Will Be Different hits our screens sooner rather than later.

Who has been cast in Netflix's 'This Summer Will Be Different' series adaptation?

Our Lucy is here! In mid-July 2026, Netflix unveiled the first major casting for This Summer Will Be Different with a press release. Yellowjackets star Sophie Nélisse has joined the series in the leading role. No stranger to Canada, the actress was born in Windsor, Ontario, and grew up in Montreal, Québec, and also had a role in the Canadian series/international phenomenon Heated Rivalry.

No word yet on who will star opposite Nélisse as Felix and his protective sister, Bridget. We suspect they should be announced soon, though, considering Fortune told THR that casting is underway and one can assume Nélisse had chemistry reads with the other actors.

It's unclear how involved Fortune is with casting. She previously told Lara Spencer on Good Morning America that it’s hard for her to visualize the characters she puts on the page. “For me, they’re very, very blurry,” she said while discussing her Every Year After adaptation. “I can see the places much better than I can see the characters.”

But one unconventional character who will be very much a part of This Summer Will Be Different’s storyline? Fortune’s beloved Prince Edward Island. She told Netflix: “I’m thrilled to…transport audiences to the glittering shores and windswept beaches of PEI.”

As we wait for more information to come out, you may as well start fantasizing about your ideal fan cast to deliver the summer romance of your dreams.

Queen Elizabeth II spent an impressive seven decades on the throne, a feat which deserves to be celebrated. According to a new press release, King Charles has decided to honor his late mother by commissioning an official and authorized royal biography of the former monarch.

"The royal household today confirmed that Dr. Anna Keay OBE has been appointed to write the official authorized biography of the late Queen Elizabeth II," the press release explained. "The biography has been commissioned by His Majesty The King and, in accepting the role, Dr. Keay will be given access to the late Queen's extensive personal and official papers held in the Royal Archives."

While writing the new book, Dr. Keay "will also be able to talk to those who knew [Queen Elizabeth] well throughout her life and service," which includes her relatives, per the press release.

Dr. Keay's credentials speak for themselves. Described as "an award-winning historian, biographer, and curator," the scholar has held positions with Historic Royal Palaces, the Royal Collection Trust, and the Landmark Trust, while also being a member of the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee.

Sharing her excitement regarding the project, Dr. Keay said, "It is a profound honor to have been asked to write the official biography of Queen Elizabeth II. She was our longest-reigning monarch and an extraordinary woman, whose life spanned a century of great change."

The author continued, "I am deeply grateful to His Majesty The King for entrusting me with this responsibility and for granting me access to her papers, and will do all I can to do justice to her life and work."

Shop Books About Queen Elizabeth II

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

The national divorce rate might be down, but you’d never know it. From TikTokers confronting their cheating partners and Bravolebrity breakups setting the internet on fire, divorce seems to be en vogue these days. Despite the fever-pitch that celebrity drama garners, break-ups certainly aren't reserved for the elite. In fact, commitment, divorce, and separation might be some of the most common topics bubbling up in your group chat—which may be daunting or comforting, depending on your sitch.

Like everybody else, authors aren’t immune to the spectacle or shock of divorce, either. As such, they’ve been recording the hideous and heart-wrenching details of marital collapse for years—nay, centuries (looking at you, Henry James). But recently, a crop of new books has pushed the subject into the heart of conversations and is, in the words of Bethenny Frankel, "mentioning it all." Whether these divorce books mine personal history or imagine fictional scenarios, many have shot to the top of best-seller lists, as readers can't seem to get enough of learning about what goes down when people part ways.

From thrillers about the divorce from Hell to hilariously unhinged novels and memoirs that require multiple boxes of tissues, these divorce books totally qualify as must-read material. Below, check out some of the best divorce books to add to your TBR.

Though many know her primarily as the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, the 1985 instant classic is only one of Margaret Atwood’s seemingly endless list of published works, many of which have garnered prestigious literary awards and nominations. To date, she’s churned out 17 novels—plus another, Scribbler Moon, that’s set to be published in 2114 as part of a global project—as well as nine short fiction collections, more than 20 poetry collections, several children’s books, and quite a few nonfiction works, too, including her 2025 “memoir of sorts,” Book of Lives.

If that’s not enough of Atwood’s writing for you, she joined Substack in 2022 and has sent out periodic updates and musings in newsletter form ever since. Her body of work has also influenced countless other writers, meaning there’s even more Atwood-inspired writing to add to your shelves—like 2016’s The Power, a must-read from one of the prolific author’s mentees, Naomi Alderman.

Key to Atwood's decades-long position as a beloved and acclaimed author are several qualities. Not only do many of her stories feature imaginative, fast-moving plots, but they're often set in dystopian, near-future worlds that look uncomfortably similar to our own. She also has a signature darkly funny voice and, of course, focuses on themes of feminism, power struggles, gender dynamics, and identity.

With so many published works, it can be difficult to know where to start with Atwood’s books. Though you really can’t go wrong with any of them, we’ve rounded up 10 of her best and most beloved novels here to guide you on your journey into the Atwood-verse. Read on for the best books by Margaret Atwood, ranked.

Margaret Atwood's 10 Best Novels, Ranked