Author Veronica Roth spent the past few years trying to rediscover her joy for the series that made her a bestselling sensation: Divergent. While the trilogy became a runaway hit that sparked spinoff short stories and a film adaptation during the 2010s dystopian YA boom, she became overly self-critical of the prose she initially wrote during undergrad.

Roth faced those feelings head-on by writing The Sixth Faction, a reimagining of the first Divergent novel, which hit shelves on October 6. But even as the sci-fi author ventured into adult fiction and challenged herself to reembrace Beatrice Prior’s world, her deep love for dystopian YA never wavered.

The Carve the Mark novelist tells Marie Claire that, as a young reader and still today, she was drawn to dystopian stories because they follow characters as they begin to see the world more clearly and decide what to do about that—along with the reader. “Now that ‘dystopia’ feels a little closer to my reality, I also appreciate when dystopian stories show characters carving out little spaces for the good things—friendship and romance, art and beauty, respite and hope—even in the midst of the bad,” she says, noting how that concept served as inspiration for her early 2026 novel Seek the Traitor’s Son.

Current events also influenced how she revisited Tris’s journey in The Sixth Faction. Roth says, “While writing The Sixth Faction, I found myself thinking about how young teenagers actually are, and how troubling it is to indulge the sentiment ‘the youth will save us!’ when we should be working to repair things for them, instead.”

“Collective action, not a single heroine, is what drives change in the world of this novel,” she adds. “It’s maybe not the political landscape that’s changed in this regard—it’s always been unfair to place the burden of change on young people!—but rather my awareness of the world around me.”

Because dystopian YA has long inspired Roth to not just “believe that there’s room for good even when the world is in tumult,” but that “the good things remind us of what’s worth preserving, restoring, protecting,” she curated a list of some of her genre favorites. See her recommendations of modern classics and recent climate fiction and romantasy favorites below.

Not even the drama surrounding Taylor Frankie Paul could derail The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. On November 12, Hulu debuted its first Mormon Wives franchise spinoff. In the new reality series, original cast member Jen Affleck moves to Orange County in Southern California and settles in with a new group of faith-based women. Like the inaugural series, Hulu dropped the full first season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County at once, and the finale left cliffhangers about many of the romantic relationships and friendships amongst the cast.

Hulu hasn’t officially renewed the series for a second season, but—given the Utah version's trajectory—more episodes may be coming soon (and have even already been filmed). Here’s what we know about The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County season 2, and when we can expect to check in with the cast next.

Every Update About 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County' Season 2 So Far

Is 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County' renewed for season 2?

Hulu dropped all eight episodes of Orange County season 1 on November 12, 2026, but hasn’t made any announcements regarding the future of the series. The first season finale ended with a “to be continued” card (just like the first season of the OG Mormon Wives), and fans are hopeful that indicates Hulu’s intention to order more episodes.

Orange County’s sister series, the original Utah-based SLOMW, was recently renewed for 20 more episodes, which will be split over two seasons. This doesn’t necessarily mean more episodes of Orange County are a shoo-in, but it does showcase Hulu’s commitment to this budding reality franchise.

When would 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County' season 2 come out?

Reality television has much shorter turnaround times than serialized shows, and the Mormon Wives franchise has churned out new seasons within months.

Season 1 of the original series debuted in September 2024, with season 2 arriving in May 2025. More recent seasons have truncated that timeline even more: Season 3 was released in November 2025 and season 4 arrived only four months later in March 2026.

If Orange County is renewed, we’d expect the same timeline as the original series’s first two seasons, meaning we’d have more episodes by summer 2027. And if the “to be continued” card acts similarly to that of Mormon Wives season 1, it’s likely that season 2 has already been filmed.

Who in the 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County' cast will return for season 2?

Aside from Jen Affleck, who starred in the original Utah series, the first season of Orange County employed a host of new faces. The cast also included Aspyn Ovard, Ashleigh Pease, Avery Woods, Bobbi Althoff, Jordan McClanahan, Madison Bontempo, McCall DaPron, and Salomé Andrea, as well as their respective partners.

Based on the events of season 1, all cast members are expected to return for season 2.

What will 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County' season 2 be about?

The season 1 finale left a few cliffhangers: Madison and Kyler discussed the future of their marriage; Aspyn was adjusting to her post-divorce life and co-parenting with her ex; and Salomé was working through a potential reconciliation with her partner Aaron.

A potential season 2 would continue exploring these storylines, as well as Jen’s adjustment to life in the OC and the shifting interpersonal dynamics between the women and their families.

This story contains discussions of violence and sexual assault. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault or harassment and would like help, visit RAINN.org.

20 years ago, sisters Samantha and Charlotte Quinn survived a traumatic event that shattered their lives. Now, another act of violence in their small Georgia hometown brings them back together—and forces them to confront the things still haunting them.

That’s the basis of Peacock’s The Good Daughter, a crime thriller based on Karin Slaughter’s novel of the same name. In this six-episode TV adaptation, Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) and Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) play the Quinn Sisters as they work together to solve a new mystery.

From the horrifying violence of their past to the questions that swirl in the present, there’s a lot to untangle. If you’ve finished watching The Good Daughter, read on as we break down everything that happened in both timelines.

What happened to young Sam and Charlie in the past timeline of 'The Good Daughter?'

The first episode of The Good Daughter opens with a shocking sequence of events that forever alters the lives of Sam and Charlie. The Quinn family patriarch, Rusty Quinn (Brendan Gleeson), is a lawyer known for taking cases for alleged criminals no one else would defend; in fact, he’s so notorious for this that someone burned down the family’s house.

As young Sam (Audrey Grace Marshall), Charlie (Drew Cheek), and their mother, Gamma (Olivia Williams), unpack in their new home, two masked men break in. Gamma is shot and killed trying to defend her daughters, and the two men take the girls into the woods intending to kill them too. Sam urges her younger sister to run. When she does, one of the men shoots Sam in the head and leaves her for dead in a shallow creek. She survives, but is left with a traumatic brain injury and chronic pain that follows her into adulthood. Enduring these horrors was worth it, however, because she believes Charlie escaped unharmed. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

One of the two masked men catches up to young Charlie in the woods and rapes her. When his accomplice returns, the men start fighting, and Charlie escapes. She manages to get to the house of a teacher—Judith Pinkman (Paula Malcomson), then the unmarried “Miss Heller”—who takes care of her until her father arrives. Traumatized, Charlie tells Rusty she doesn’t want anyone to know about the rape. He respects her wishes and says she can talk about it when she’s ready, so she never reported it to the police, nor told Sam.

At this point in the timeline, Charlie is also asked to identify her family’s assailants. She IDs one as Zach Culpepper (Thomas Watson)—part of a local family from the poorer side of town—and because the other man referred to Zach as “brother,” it’s understood that the accomplice was his brother, Daniel Culpepper. Zach is arrested and is still sitting on death row. The police kill Daniel, but the evidence corroborates Charlie’s ID: the gun used in the attack is found with him, and his sneakers are found in his burn barrel. Still, his family insists Daniel was innocent—another reason for the local animosity toward the Quinns.

Why does Sam come back to Pikeville in 'The Good Daughter?'

Adult Sam (Byrne) is a high-powered patent lawyer who left her hometown as soon as she could. Charlie (Fahy) stayed in town and followed in her father’s footsteps as a defense attorney. The incident that brings them all together and connects their past to the present is a shooting at the local high school, in which Principal Douglas Pinkman (Kovar McClure) and a young student, Emma Alexander (Olivia Hart), are killed, and 18-year-old named Kelly Wilson (Shayna Benardo) is found holding the gun.

Coincidentally, Charlie is at the school when the violence unfolds: She’s there to trade phones with teacher Mason “Huck” Huckabee (Jake McDorman), after they accidentally switched theirs after a drunken hookup the night before—during which he didn’t know she was a Quinn. Both go running when they hear the gunshots and come upon the crime scene.

Because Kelly is 18, the death penalty is on the table. But Rusty believes the young woman is a “unicorn” (a truly innocent defendant) and wants to take on her case. Unfortunately, he’s hospitalized after somebody stabs him, and Charlie can’t work on his behalf because she was a witness to the crime. So Rusty calls Sam and asks her to come down—both to help with Kelly’s defense and to encourage the estranged sisters to reconnect.

Why were Sam and Charlie estranged in 'The Good Daughter?'

When Sam comes to town, it’s been 10 years since she and her sister had a massive fight while Charlie was visiting Sam in New York. It came down to hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and buried secrets.

Sam was mad at Charlie for wanting to stay in Pikeville, go into business with their dad, and marry her then-boyfriend/future husband, Ben (Michael Dorman). Sam calls her ungrateful, saying she took a bullet so Charlie could get away and live the life their mother wanted for them.

Charlie stormed off during this fight and locked herself in the bathroom, which amplified Sam’s anger. But Charlie wasn’t just slamming the door on her sister out of anger: She was having a miscarriage. She doesn’t tell Sam about the miscarriage—or the rape from her childhood—until they have a no-holds-barred talk before Rusty’s funeral.

Who attacked the farmhouse in 'The Good Daughter,' and why?

Charlie was right that Zach Culpepper was one of the two men who broke into their home. But the Culpeppers were right that Daniel was innocent.

The other man involved in the attack is revealed to be Huck, who had his own motives for targeting Rusty: He successfully defended his sister’s rapist and got the charges dropped, which led to her dying by suicide. Seeking revenge, he paid Zach Culpepper to kill Rusty—and Zach also owed Rusty a hefty sum in legal fees, so disposing of him was mutually beneficial. They were intending to find Rusty at the farmhouse, not his wife and children. During the home invasion, Huck called Zach “brother,” which made Sam and Charlie assume he was his actual brother and led them to believe that Daniel was involved.

Huck finally confessed to Rusty a decade ago after discovering his parents had been bribing the Culpeppers to keep his involvement from coming to light. Not wanting to put his daughters through the trauma of another trial, Rusty made Huck turn over the money and write a confession, which he filed away in his office, vowing never to forgive him.

Who stabbed Rusty in 'The Good Daughter?' And who was sending him threatening letters?

Rusty had plenty of enemies in Pikeville, so suspects abound. But the answer is never explicitly revealed, and Rusty doesn’t name his attacker before he dies as a result of his injuries.

Two different names are floated, each with their own motives. One is the father of Emma Alexander, the young girl who died in the school shooting, because Rusty had signed on as Kelly Wilson’s defense attorney. The other theory is that Zach and Daniel Culpepper’s father, Cleet Culpepper (Lee Perkins), stabbed him for reasons tied to the money his family was being paid to stay silent about Huck’s involvement in the farmhouse attack.

That brings us to the payouts and threatening letters: Rusty put the Huckabees’s money into a trust under a pen name and continued the payouts after his parents died. Zach sent letters from death row to the nom de plume on the checks, threatening, “You owe me.” If Rusty’s involvement as the man behind the checks somehow came out, that could have led to his attack, too.

Was Kelly Wilson responsible for the school shooting in 'The Good Daughter?'

The circumstances that led Kelly to that hallway are tragic: She’s a vulnerable young woman with intellectual disabilities, a volatile home life, and is bullied at school. She’s also pregnant—which Sam discovers while visiting Kelly in jail.

The father of Kelly’s baby is revealed to be Douglas Pinkman, the school principal and one of the victims in the shooting. He had been abusing Kelly and expected his wife, Judith, to raise the baby after Kelly gave birth.

Sam spots Judith holding Kelly’s hands on the gun in the school surveillance footage, which is how they discovered her involvement. Charlie goes to Judith’s home, where she confesses to everything: Furious about her husband’s betrayal and decades of an unhappy marriage, she manipulates Kelly into believing Douglas will force her to have an abortion and convinces her to bring her father’s gun to school.

In the moment, Kelly froze—so Judith put her hands around Kelly’s and made her pull the trigger. Even though Judith was on the scene, the cops never tested her hands for gunshot residue; they never bothered to consider anything else beyond Kelly being the killer.

Emma Alexander’s death was unintentional: She walked down the hallway at the wrong time, and she was shot as Judith and Kelly struggled with the gun. Judith had intended to shoot Kelly so it would appear to be a suicide, but she ran out of bullets, which is when Charlie and Huck came upon the scene. After confessing all of this to Charlie, she pushes her out of the house and dies by suicide.

What happens at the end of 'The Good Daughter?'

The Good Daughter ends with both timelines's mysteries resolved. Given that Judith was the true perpetrator of the two murders, Sam pushes the police to offer Kelly a plea deal, serving minimal time. She’s given five years, and her mother (Jessica Miesel) agrees to raise her child while she’s in jail. And her abusive father (Mike Kaye) won’t be in the picture anymore: He’s arrested because he wasn’t supposed to own a firearm due to previous convictions.

Huck is arrested for taking and disposing of the gun used in the school shooting—which he did, thinking the lack of evidence might help Kelly’s case. For now, Sam and Charlie aren’t offering the police what they know about his connection to the farmhouse attack, but they decide to stop paying the Culpeppers. If they tell the cops Mason was involved, they’ll testify if asked, and then go on with their lives.

Charlie and Ben also reconcile. She admits she was hard on him because of her own pain and secrets she kept from him, including the rape, but also her belief that she couldn’t have children because of the assault. Once she opens up to Ben, he assures her that none of what she went through was her fault. With their marriage back on solid ground, Ben plans to take job interviews in Atlanta, and Charlie plans to follow him there, finally getting out of Pikeville for good.

Most importantly, Sam and Charlie reconcile too. One of the last things Rusty asked of them was to find a photo of Gamma that he took on their first date: a snapshot that exudes laughter and joy. In the show’s final moments, as they’re going through their late father’s things, the sisters realize it’s right there with them, hidden behind a different photo he had asked them to bring him to the hospital. Seeing it triggers happier childhood memories of their childhood, and sets the stage for the healing they finally seem ready to do together.

Six years after cutting ties with Alex Cooper and the "Call Her Daddy" podcast they created together, Sofia Franklyn is telling her side of the story in her new memoir, Daddy Issues.

"It was not a redemption. It wasn't revenge. It was very much just needing to tell my story because I was kind of frozen in time, like I was frozen as that girl from six years ago," Franklyn tells Marie Claire editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike on the latest episode of "Nice Talk." (Their conversation was recorded at a launch event for Franklyn's book at The Strand in New York City.)

In case you're out of the loop: Franklyn and Cooper were close friends and roommates who created the podcast together in 2018. It became very popular, very quickly, and in 2020, the co-hosts had a falling out related to contract negotiations for the highly lucrative podcast. Cooper still hosts the show today and has her own media company. Franklyn hosts her own podcast, Sofia with an F, but hasn't shared all the details of her split from Cooper until now.

So while the story of Franklyn and Cooper's split is related to their careers, multi-million dollar deals, and fame, at its heart, it's something many of us have experienced: a friendship breakup.

"That shit is hard," Franklyn says. "I think friendship breakups are tougher than romantic ones, because your friend functions as so many things. You know, your therapist, your safe space, your enabler ... And especially women friendships. It's like a blood oath. It is intense."

But Franklyn has a reminder for those experiencing the end to a friendship. "For anyone going through one, there are bridges sometimes that are worth burning," the 34-year-old says.

That said, she still believes that its worth giving a former friend a second chance in the right circumstances.

"I think they're worth a do-over if the friend in question is willing to have a real, honest, genuine conversation with you," she says.

Franklyn has long moved on from the podcast and her relationship with Cooper, but she still gets emotional when thinking about their listeners.

"I think a huge misconception is that I walked away, that I didn't want to be there anymore, and I didn't care about the Daddy Gang," she says of their fans. "And that was never the fucking case. I cared. I cared."

For more from Franklyn—including her current status with Call Her Daddy collaborator Muji Fricke and her memoir writing process—check out this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Teenage years are tough for everyone, but for the protagonists of The Body, it's almost perilous. In fact, Netflix's newest teen drama about a Catholic school dance team, the Lions, takes adolescence to new and terrifying places.

“I’ve always been interested in the idea of girlhood as a religious experience,” co-showrunner Quinn Shephard told Tudum. “This story is definitely my way of putting a playful spin on all the nightmares of my own teenage-dom.” The result is a dark, campy drama that explores themes of belonging, rebellion, and religion, while also leaving you guessing at every turn.

The season begins at a Halloween party in 2004, when the Lion's newest member, Grace (Sofia Wylie), dies after being forced to take ecstasy as part of an initiation. Team Captain Anya (Kristina Bogic) scrambles to cover up the death, accepting help from outsider and Lions-wannabe Lisbeth (Geena Meszaros). The two decide to take Grace's dead body home, tucking her in and hoping to keep the Halloween party a secret. The only problem is that Grace isn't actually dead. She begins breathing again shortly after they leave, but remains comatose.

Throughout the season, Grace's mysterious condition haunts Anya and the Lions, but for Lisbeth, it's an opportunity to get closer to Anya and finally snag a spot on the team. Meanwhile, Anya is juggling her intense guilt with her growing sexual attraction to her best friend, Elise (Sara Boustany), who is the only one not falling under Lisbeth's spell. After a few visions and medical miracles, Grace is being worshiped as a saint while Lisbeth takes over the dance team and Anya finally comes clean.

It's truly one hell of a ride (pun intended). Now that you've watched the season, it's time to break down The Body's ending and finally get to the bottom of what really happened to Grace.

How does 'The Body' end?

The Body ends with Grace waking from her coma after Anya confesses her sins to Father Franklin, Grace's uncle and the St. Marks's principal (Nnamdi Asomugha). Is it just a medical mystery? Has Anya's confession finally freed Grace from the bargain the Lions made with the Devil, sacrificing Grace for a place at Regionals? Or is it God? The community members gathered outside definitely believe it's the latter, including her classmates Leo (Jackson Kelly) and Maddie (Shirley Chen), who have gathered outside her home to pray to her.

Grace awakens in the finale when a mysterious moth settles on her unmoving body, suggesting potential divine intervention. And in the final scene, when asked if she remembered her name, Grace says, “I'm...God.” The finale ends with her uncle, her father (Motell Gyn Foster), her mother (Ashley Madekwe), Anya, and others surrounding her and putting reverent hands on her body.

What actually happened to Grace on 'The Body?'

The Body leaves it ambiguous what really happened to Grace. Though Father Franklin seems to believe that her comatose state was due to the ecstasy she took at the Halloween party, it's unclear whether medical professionals ever confirmed this. We also don't know the extent of her injuries—is her declaration that she is God a sign of brain damage? She did, after all, stop breathing on Halloween night.

Though The Body never explicitly confirms whether or not God and the Devil exist within the world of the show, it seems likely that, no, Grace was never actually possessed. Nor was she somehow imbued with saintly healing powers, as the townspeople begin to suspect.

Still, the ending leaves room for interpretation. “Everything that happens that has a supernatural theory in the show should always have a counterpart with a totally grounded medical or scientific explanation,” Shephard explained in an interview with Tudum.

Grace's dad also discusses this in the show. He reminds his brother that, regardless of what the Church decides, miracles are true miracles if people believe in them. Maddie, Leo, and Coach Shauna Miller (Gabby Windey) believe that Grace helped heal them and their loved ones, and while Grace's condition remains unexplained, who's to say they're wrong?

What happened to Anya on 'The Body?'

After spending the entire season terrified that someone might find out about her involvement with Grace's mysterious illness, Anya finally admits what she's done. She only does so after considering throwing both Elise and her boyfriend, Steven (Orlando Norman), under the bus. Once Elise forces Anya to see how selfish she's been, Anya rushes over to Grace's home to confess to Father Franklin.

The finale ends moments later, so we never find out what, if any, Anya's consequences are. Given her family wealth and the Church's desire to keep the myth of Saint Grace going, Anya may not face any repercussions for her actions. However, she did lose her best friend/lover and her boyfriend in one night, which might be the worst punishment she could face.

What happened between Anya and Elise on 'The Body?'

It looked like Anya and Elise might actually get to be together. After finally giving in to her desires and hooking up with Elise, Anya seemed committed to exploring the relationship—but her refusal to break up with Steven and her continued friendship with Lisbeth stopped Elise from going forward. Ultimately, after realizing Anya drove Grace home from the Halloween party, Elise made it clear she thought Anya was selfish. So it doesn't look like these two will be getting together in the future.

Were any of the visions of Grace real on 'The Body?'

Yes and no. While most of the girls on the Lions confess that their visions were fake, Maddie, who ends the series fully believing that Grace is a saint, stands by her story that she had a vision of Grace at Regionals. That said, her vision could have been a hunger-induced hallucination, as Maddie starved herself leading up to the big performance. Anya similarly maintains that she had visions of Grace, but hers could also have a non-spiritual explanation, as she was suffering from pretty extreme guilt the whole season.

What happened to Lisbeth on 'The Body?'

Throughout the entire season of The Body, Lisbeth never shows any signs of guilt over what happened to Grace—not for covering up her temporary death, her drug use, or the involvement of Grace's new Lions teammates. Instead, Lisbeth uses the Lions's weakness to her advantage, taking a spot on the team and eventually blackmailing Anya into letting her stay at her home.

In the finale, Lisbeth senses Anya is getting ready to confess, so she beats her to the punch. At a Lions cotillion event, she rallies the group to tell her version of the story, clearly intending to turn them all against Anya and turn herself into the hero. She tells the girls she was there the night of the Halloween party and implies that she resurrected Grace, asserting her spiritual authority over the group.

Unfortunately, the episode ends before we see their reactions, but based on Lisbeth's past manipulations, they'll likely follow her lead. That is, unless Anya disputes her account or Grace can remember how Lisbeth tried to cover up her death.

Assuming Lisbeth doesn't get in any legal trouble, she'll still have to find a place to live and a way to support herself. Anya's confession means Lisbeth no longer has anything to blackmail her with, so I'd guess Anya will throw her out. Furthermore, in the season finale, her mother (Louisa Krause) becomes convinced the rapture is coming and seemingly tries to die by suicide. Lisbeth might not have a home to return to.

Will there be a season 2 of 'The Body?'

No official plans for season 2 of The Body have been announced, but it sounds like Shephard would be interested if Netflix gives it the green light. Speaking to Tudum, the creator teased that the final moments—when hands reach out to touch Grace, and she smiles—“really foreshadows Grace’s perspective coming into the center.” Of course, Grace's perspective can only really come in a second season, so it's clear there's more story left to tell.

Co-showrunner Gina Gammell was even more explicit in an interview with Swoon. Speaking on the ambiguous ending of season 1, Gammell said that the uncertainty is “a tease and a setup of everywhere that we wish to go next season if we’re so lucky to get one.”

It's Halloween night in 2004—flip phones and AIM reign supreme while the war in Iraq rages on in the background and President George W. Bush fights for reelection. And, in a small Northeastern town, a group of Catholic school girls is about to make a pact with the devil.

This is the setting for The Body, Netflix's new psychological thriller/teen drama that follows what happens when a school dance team initiation goes wrong. After the team celebrates their newest member, Grace (Sofia Wylie), by taking ecstasy at a Halloween party, Grace gets a fever and suffers a seizure, leaving her unconscious and—for a moment—dead. Team Captain Anya (Kristina Bogic), who supplied the drugs, panics and makes an unlikely alliance with Lisbeth (Geena Meszaros), an outsider desperate for a spot on the dance team. What begins as a cover-up soon turns into a mysterious and spiritual event when Grace is found unconscious—and still breathing.

Things on The Body only get more complex, sexy, and spiritual from there. To help you keep track of all the twists and turns, we've put together a guide on the Lions (the dance team), their foes, and their potential saviors. With the series out on November 11, read on to learn more about the cast and characters of The Body.

What to Know About the Cast and Characters of 'The Body,' Netflix's Twisty Teen Thriller

Kristina Bogic as Anya Butler

As team captain, Anya is the queen bee of the Lions and of St. Marks School. A senior with rich parents, a boyfriend on the swim team, and a best friend who never leaves her side, Anya is living the teenage dream. At least, that's what people think, but behind closed doors Anya is struggling to square her sexual desires with the rigid Catholic faith.

Kristina Bogic is an Australian actress and singer who previously starred in the Australian series, Playing Gracie Darling. The Body is her first time doing an American accent on camera and her first major Hollywood break.

Kristina Bogic's Instagram: @___dawwn___

Geena Meszaros as Lisbeth Anderson

Lisbeth would do anything to be a Lion, so when she sees Grace unconscious at the Halloween party and Anya freaking out, she knows this is her chance. Desperate to be accepted and welcomed into Anya's world, Lisbeth tries to be one of the girls, but her complicated past and religious extremist mother threaten to ruin her shot at popularity.

Geena Meszaros is no stranger to Netflix. She previously appeared in Wayward, another psychological thriller about girlhood. Fans might also recognize her from Prime Video's High School, the show based on Tegan and Sarah Quin's memoir.

Geena Meszaros' Instagram: @geena_meszaros

Sofia Wylie as Grace Franklin

As the priest's niece, Grace is known at St. Marks as a devout Catholic who plays by the rules, which is what makes her decision to try out for the Lions all the more shocking. After earning a spot on the team, she is forced to take a walk on the wild side as part of her initiation, but what stars as an innocent night of fun might just be her end.

Unlike many of her co-stars, actor and singer Sofia Wylie has a long list of credits on her IMDB page. As a teenager, she starred as Gina on Disney's High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, and fans might also recognize her from Netflix's magical teen drama, The School of Good and Evil. Most recently, she starred alongside KJ Apa and Madelyn Cline in The Map that Leads to You and was featured in Adéla's “Machine Girl” music video.

Sofia Wylie's Instagram: @sofiawylie

Jackson Kelly as Leo Anderson

Leo is Lisbeth's soft-spoken brother. When Lisbeth is aggressive and proactive, Leo is meek and observant. He's a bit of a loner, happy to be alone drawing instead of socializing—except when it comes to his study partner Grace. Leo is obsessed with Grace, and when strange things start happening around him, his faith in his crush takes over.

Playing in the world of horror is not new for Jackson Kelly, who previously appeared on the tv show Chucky. He has appeared in a string of TV shows, from The Righteous Gemstones to Imperfect Women, but is probably best known for his role in season one of The Pitt, playing David Saunders, a troubled teen with rage issues.

Jackson Kelly's Instagram: @jacksonreidkelly

Sara Boustany as Elise Zakaria

Elise is Anya's best friend and her right hand with the Lions. When Grace falls into a coma, Elise, who pushed her to do drugs, takes the blame, causing friction in the group. Her relationship with Anya is further strained by Lisbeth's constant presence and Elise's maybe not-so-platonic feelings towards her BFF.

The Body marks Sara Boustany's first leading role. The actress made her TV debut playing Miranda in two episodes of PEN15 back in 2019, and most recently appeared in the film Hello Beautiful.

Sara Boustany's Instagram: @saraboustanyy

Shirley Chen as Maddie

After a broken foot and an eating disorder sidelines kindhearted Maddie for a major dance competition, the Lions are forced to hold auditions to fill her spot, and Maddie jumps at the chance to get her friend Grace in the group.

Shirley Chen has been working in Hollywood for over a decade, starting with background parts in Parenthood and Speechless, as well as short films. More recently, she's appeared in major movies, playing a young Sandra Oh in Quiz Lady and co-starring in Didi, the acclaimed Asian American indie film. This year, she starred in Slanted, a body horror movie about an Asian American girl who undergoes a procedure to become white.

Shirley Chen's Instagram: @shirleylchen

Orlando Norman as Steven Maxwell

Steven is Anya's boyfriend. A swimming star, Steven is the most popular guy on campus, but while Grace has a crush on him, he's too busy worrying about how to please Anya in the bedroom to notice.

Orlando Norman's credits only go back to 2020, but fans might recognize him from his supporting roles in Prime Video films The Map That Leads to You and Your Fault: London.

Orlando Norman's Instagram: @orlandonorman__

Nnamdi Asomugha as Father Franklin

Father Franklin, or as the Lions like to call him, “Daddy Franklin,” is the head of St. Marks. As a man of God and a concerned uncle, he's determined to find out what happened to his niece Grace, be it medical...or spiritual.

Nnamdi Asomugha is a former NFL player turned actor. As a professional football player, he played for the Oakland Raiders, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the San Francisco 49ers before retiring in 2013. He then shifted his career to Hollywood, with a few guest spots on shows like The Game and Friday Night Lights as well as a producing career. As an actor, he's best known for his leading role opposite Tessa Thompson in Sylvie's Love, and for being married to Kerry Washington.

Gabby Windey as Coach Shauna Miller

Coach Shauna is the Lions' well-meaning, but completely oblivious coach. As a woman in her third trimester of pregnancy, there's not a lot of dancing she can do, but she does make sure to follow the girls around with a camera so she can get all their rehearsals on video.

Gabby Windey is a former Bachelorette lead. Though she did not, ultimately, find love on the ABC reality show, she did manage to turn reality TV stardom into a successful career as an influencer, podcast host, and TV personality. In the past two years, she won season 3 of The Traitors and hosted the dating show Love Overboard.

Gabby Windey's Instagram: @gabby.windey

Louisa Krause as Catherine Anderson

Leo and Lisbeth's mother, Catherine Anderson, is incredibly religious and spends her days watching old tapes of her dead husband's preaching. When Grace falls into a coma, Catherine becomes convinced that she's been possessed by the devil and she'll do everything to save her kids from this evil presence.

Louisa Krause is an American actress best known for her roles on The Girlfriend Experience and the acclaimed drama Billions. Last year, she appeared as Sapphire Stagg in a cameo role in Superman.

Louisa Krause's Instagram: @lounkrause

The Body, Netflix’s Y2K-set Catholic-horror teen drama, looks a whole lot like creator Quinn Shephard’s Tumblr. Moody photos of teenage girls in school uniforms, stills from Brian De Palma’s Carrie, and witchy ephemera are all on the showrunner’s old blog, crystallized in the early 2010s, as well as the lifeblood of her new show.

The showrunner enthusiastically logged into Tumblr for the first time in years and shared her screen while speaking to Marie Claire over Zoom ahead of The Body’s November 11 premiere. “People who knew me as a teenager will definitely see The Body and be like, ‘She is exactly the same,’” jokes Shephard, 31. “I am making the show for the Tumblr Era girls. Rise up.”

Shephard (who helmed the dark comedy Not Okay and the true-crime series Under the Bridge) actually wrote the first iteration of The Body—which follows a Catholic school dance team raptured by mass hysteria when a ritual coincides with one girl winding up in the hospital—nine years ago. That wasn’t long before she was an artsy teenager who reblogged images that would become her reference points and was so “committed to the aesthetic” that she even wrote a rosary and thrifted school uniform daily, despite attending public school.

Her digital and IRL curation clearly wasn’t for nothing, considering the extensive mood boarding she did for The Body. The must-watch show feels like teen divine intervention, where knotty female friendship, secrets, and shame are among the key sacraments—and because it’s set in 2004, Juicy Couture and AIM are, too. Some of Shephard’s favorite media from her own adolescence, clerical art, and more filled Pinterest pages and cork boards when she finally revisited the concept and brought it to Netflix.

But as campy as the queer coming-of-age psychological thriller is, it also explores how easily and harmfully exploited the human compulsion to believe in something can be. Shephard says, “The culture of 2004 is quite similar to now—politically and socially—the beauty standards, fashion trends, edge-lord slang, and the re-election of a president who was widely contested. We're making a show that's intended to be fun and hopefully seeds some things to make you think.”

She adds, “It's been incredibly freeing and healing to make the show; it has allowed me to laugh about so many things that used to feel so serious to me.”

Below, Shephard uncovers the references that flooded her mood boards for The Body, from the theater and erotic thrillers that spoke to her as a teen to outdated magazine advice columns.

Religious Paintings and Dance Team Photos

"The most influential image for me that was really inspiring from the very beginning—because I used to keep this on my wall—was these paintings of biblical women all lying together, [Édouard Debat-Ponsan's 'The Daughter of Jephthah']. I hung it with this image of a dance team lying together. I have a lot of that in my mood boarding, where I would take Catholic or religious painting tableaux of groups of women and then juxtapose them with images of dance teams."

'The Crucible,' 'Equus,' and Other Faith-Inspired Texts

"I was a theater nerd and did a production of The Crucible when I was 15, and got hyper-fixated on it. That play felt very tied to my coming of age. It was the first adult role I had ever played. That led me to a lot of self-discovery and discovery of themes that were fascinating to me.

I always had a complex relationship with religion because, growing up, one side of my family was quite religious; the other side of my family was raised Catholic, not practicing anymore. Religion was something I was involved in when I was really little, and it shifted as I got older, but I always had a curiosity around spirituality. So the discovery of literature and film not just about religion, but about religious hysteria [and] groupthink was incredibly fascinating to me as a teenager and still is.

Most of my teenagehood, religion represented a lot of shame. I associated it with the oppression of the queer community and politics that didn't align with my own. I gravitated towards stories and plays like Equus that are about somebody forming their own religion that is then incredibly frowned upon, but for this character, it means so much. To me, these stories were a perfect metaphor for the queer experience that I didn't realize yet—that the mixture of shame and ecstasy that would come out of religious experience was very much tied to themes of queerness and coming of age as a young woman."

Iconic Movie Dance Scenes

"I love dance and film, everything from Suspiria to Bring It On. The two very influential scenes for me as a filmmaker were “Sparkle Motion” in Donnie Darko and the cheerleading sequence from American Beauty. Every time I watched [the Donnie Darko] scene, I was like, “This is everything I want to be as a filmmaker." It’s absurd. It's camp. The dancing's silly, but then the scene is intercut with so much tension. [American Beauty], I can't really rewatch it now, but I loved how the dance and this realism were a bit funny, a bit sad, a bit serious, and it brought you inside the worlds of the characters.

For something that’s about groupthink, dance, and how a body is one and how everyone has to move in synchronicity was such a perfect metaphor. In a lot of ways, the show is about femininity and girlhood as religion. For me, [when I was writing] if I were to be like, If I'm Lisbeth, who's the head priest of girlhood? It's definitely the captain of the dance team."

Beloved 2000s Movies

"Initially, I was going to set it when I was in high school [in the 2010s], and then I ended up deep-diving with my co-showrunner Gina [Gammell] on so many films and references from the early 2000s. We would watch Mean Girls or Legally Blonde and be like, ‘What if you just took an element from one of these scenes that is this playful and the actor, the cinematographer, everyone treated it like they were in a drama and incredibly high stakes?’ That was so much fun for us, and unlocked so much in the writers's room. We loved bringing in that iconic, stylized playfulness that was in—as they used to call them—chick flicks of that era. They’re not necessarily at the root of what inspired the show, but they were the icing. Bringing that fun to a dark concept was everything I wanted and more."

Erotic Thrillers

"[The erotic thriller] was the first representation I saw of women being obsessed with other women. I was like, ‘Let them do murder. It's fine.’ In this show, something I really like doing is take a setting or trope of an erotic thriller and try to approach it from a character-driven or grounded lens to get there.

Episode 7 is a great example of, We're doing Wild Things, but I also wanted to understand the stakes and how everyone got here and the tragedy of Anya trying to justify her queerness. I loved getting to go back into scenes [from movies like Single White Female, Cruel Intentions, and Wild Things] that I watched a billion times when I was younger and then get to go, What is that from a real perspective? There's an irony to a lot of what we like to do in the show—wanting to do things that feel like you can take them quite seriously, but there's always a little wink to the audience, and a lot of the film references are a way to do that."

Vintage Y2K-Era Teen Magazines

"Everyone had a million vintage magazines—Cosmo Girl, Seventeen, Teen Vogue. We filled the writers's room, the art department, and wardrobe. We had a million Pinterests. Cosmo was extremely useful because there were a lot of articles like "How to Talk to Your Boyfriend About How You Really Want to Kiss Your Friends at Parties." Really good material for us. There was a great one: “Why Women Need Men.”I cut it out, put it on the wall in the writers's room. We were always trolling each other, putting the most ridiculous articles we found on the walls, but it did help."

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Harper was joking. She had to be.

It was funny when Gabriel pictured it—him, trying to date not just one but twelve different humans simultaneously, on camera, in front of millions of viewers.

But when he laughed, Harper didn’t laugh with him.

“I’m not joking,” she said patiently, an urgent fire in her

eyes belying her tone.

“You— I—” It wasn’t uncommon for Gabriel to find himself an object of desire, but humans were at once terrifying and tempting.

All that power, the risk of it. Somehow, humans thought vampires possessed the thrall. Meanwhile, each of them was born with siren song in their blood.

“No,” he said finally, because it seemed like he had to.

Twelve humans. When sitting next to Harper alone had Gabriel gnawing the inside of his cheek to keep from leaning over and sniffing her neck.

It was delicious torture to see her in what must be her house clothes: kelly green shorts with white piping on the side, and a rumpled T‑shirt that looked so soft his fingers physically ached with the desire to rub against the fabric.

Their bodies had drifted closer to each other on Lorraine’s couch over the course of the night, until Gabriel had felt sure that with the next episode, their legs would brush or their shoulders would press together.

He’d almost been holding his breath: scared that it would happen, scared that it wouldn’t.

Gabriel had enjoyed himself too much tonight already, watching Harper’s show, sharing wine and Chinese food, ask-ing questions about the set, her experience on the crew—wait.

“Harper, they fired you.”

“I know.” She grabbed the remote, turning off the TV and plunging the room into silence. “But that won’t matter any-more.”

Pinned by her gaze, Gabriel was a fish on a line, caught.

“Because you’re perfect,” she said.

“I can assure you, no one’s ever used that word to describe me.” He’d been tarnished since the day he was born.

Though, of course, Harper didn’t know the prophecy. If she did, she’d see the irony.

“You’re the rarest eligible bachelor in the world.” Her voice held a mix of relish and awe.

Gabriel would have thought she was drunk if he hadn’t watched her abandon wine for Diet Coke hours ago.

He got to his feet.

“I need to make tea.” Lorraine wouldn’t mind, and Gabriel knew where she kept everything from their Thursday visits.

He took the kettle down from the cabinet to the left of the sink and began filling it with water.

Harper hopped up on the counter beside him.

Part of him was scandalized that she was sitting on an area meant for the preparation of food; the other part was fixated on the way her shorts slid higher on her thighs with the motion. “Even if you weren’t a vampire,” she said, “which, frankly, will be enough of a fantasy for plenty of people all by itself, you’re handsome, royalty, and rarest of all: You’re a good guy.” Gabriel didn’t think she was trying to flatter him into submission, but it was heady to hear Harper call him “handsome,” to hear her call him “good.”

“You don’t actually know me very well.” He turned away from her and forced himself to take a deep breath in the opposite direction.

Years of relentless training meant he was normally difficult to ruffle. But with Harper, his body felt brand‑new.

“Are you saying I’m wrong?”

Gabriel set the electric kettle back in its base and flipped the switch.

“I’m saying it’s never going to happen.”

“Okay.” Harper kicked her heels back and forth, pounding the cabinets with her socked feet, adrenaline practically seeping from her pores. “Why not?”

Before Gabriel could answer, before he could start to enumerate the many, many reasons her suggestion was preposterous, she jumped back in.

“I know the promise of finding love and living happily ever after isn’t particularly compelling coming from a reality TV show—”

She was wrong. Or at least, Gabriel was more susceptible to the allure than most.

Before his mother died, his parents had a storybook love: the prince and the farm girl.

His mother was in charge of the underground greenhouses at the compound. His father would make up excuses to visit her, concerns about soil or irrigation that he told Gabriel he’d spent hours reading about in textbooks, just so he could have a ten-minute conversation with her.

In his early twenties, Gabriel railed at his father for not allowing him to court, to seek his own partner.

What do you think falling in love will do for you? Your responsibilities won’t change.

Gabriel didn’t know what falling in love would do for him.

Wasn’t that the whole point?

He’d wanted it the way a child wants things, without care for the consequences.

Now, as a man who should be king, that kind of wanting was a weakness he couldn’t afford.

Happily ever after. There was a distinctly human glamour to it. And like all things glamorous and human, it wasn’t meant for him.

“—but hear me out. You’re here on a diplomatic assignment to integrate and endear yourself to humans.”

That was what he’d told her, half the truth.

“You want to further your father’s legacy, to open doors for vampires in the human world.”

His mission sounded noble. It would have been, if he were pursuing it with any kind of real intent. Harper thought Gabriel was a better person, someone less selfish than he was.

“I can put you directly into millions of Americans’ living rooms. You’d like people to forget the stereotypes they think they know about you and see vampires as more relatable. Well, falling in love—or at least, giving the illusion of it—is one of the most universal and unifying experiences we have. Trust me. Humans eat that shit up.”

Gabriel had to give Harper credit. In the short time they’d known each other, she’d identified and collected the most valuable pieces of information he’d given her.

She wanted her job back. These arguments must have come as an afterthought. It was impressive how quickly she could deliver them with conviction.

“I could make you famous.” Her pretty hazel eyes were wide, imploring.

Ah, your first misstep.

“That won’t work on me.” Between them, the kettle bubbled, almost done. Gabriel pulled down his favorite rooibos and placed a tea bag in each of the two cups he found hanging on hooks by the pantry. The last thing either of them needed right now was caffeine.

“You forget, I’ve been famous my whole life.”

Harper didn’t flinch.

“Not like this you haven’t. You’ve got seven more years of your assignment left, right?”

If the council had their way, he might have much longer. Gabriel inclined his head.

“I can give you a platform, one that reaches way more than ten thousand people, to harvest however you want. You’re a TikTok fan editor’s wet dream.”

“I have no idea what you just said.” He didn’t have to. Not with the way her gaze slid from his face down to the open neck of his shirt, past his collarbones and down his chest toward his—Gabriel grabbed the screaming kettle.

Harper hopped off the counter to stand behind him as he poured them each a cup.

It was a blessing to have a moment to collect himself without her eyes on him, but then—he could still feel the heat of her, flushed all over, at his back.

“I can get you a fan base, set you up for brand sponsorships—the right ones—build a social media following for you, and even though I don’t personally think men should be allowed to have them, after the show airs, if you want, I’ll help you start a podcast.”

His shoulders shook as he laughed again, helplessly, splashing water onto the countertop before he put down the kettle and turned to her.

“Make the next seven years count,” Harper told him. “And then, go back to the compound with ten times the soft power you had when you left.”

“You sound so sure.” No wonder they fired you. Look how dangerous you are.

Harper picked up one of the mugs and pressed it gently into his hand.

“I am sure.”

Standing here looking at her, Gabriel could almost forget that going on a reality TV dating show was the Frankenstein’s monster of everything he avoided.

“Even if I wanted to—” He didn’t like disappointing her.

Harper cut him off again. “I know going on Rare Pair seems like a humiliation ritual that only someone deeply unwell would undertake—and it sort of is. I won’t lie. But you’d have a secret weapon, someone on the inside. I could protect you from most of it.”

“And would you?” The only person who’d ever tried to protect Gabriel was dead. “You’re asking me to take your word for it.”

“I would.”

He wished he could say yes. Just to see Harper try. “Look,” she said. “We both know I’m not presenting this opportunity to you out of the goodness of my heart. I won’t disrespect you by pretending that I am. You’re my golden goose—ticket—whatever.” She shook her head. “But, Gabriel, you can believe me when I tell you that I am a good producer. I know getting fired unceremoniously doesn’t suggest as much, but if you go on Rare Pair for me—with me—I will make it worth your while. I don’t think our goals are mutually exclusive.”

She might not be wrong if Gabriel were allowed to have goals. Right now, he was at the mercy of the council.

He’d spent the past three years celibate, practically hibernating, avoiding anything and anyone that might spike his thirst. This conversation, right now, was the closest he’d ever come to rebellion.

Imagine the council’s reaction if suddenly he wrote to them and said he was going to star on a human reality dating show. The compound didn’t have nearly the extensive access to hu-man programming as Harper did here in America, but they had satellite. Members of the council might have heard of Rare Pair, even if, like Gabriel, they’d never seen an episode.

If he suggested willingly throwing himself into such an environment, they might not know exactly what it meant, but they’d know enough.

A locked set that was highly stressful, almost endlessly surveilled, and emotionally manipulative by design.

Gabriel had just binged half a season with Harper providing behind-the-scenes commentary. The lead was somewhat spared direct humiliation over the contestants, but she’d told him point-blank her team was given a cash bonus from their showrunner if they could bring someone to tears.

There’s a direct correlation between crying on-screen and a ratings boost.

Gabriel’s insides iced over. It should have been impossible, but Rare Pair might satisfy, barely, the council’s directive. They’d demanded a display of restraint amidst provocation, proof of his ability to behave respectably under scrutiny. From a detached, industrial lens, the show was perfect.

A test with data and documented results. They’d accept nothing less.

If Gabriel went in front of the cameras and lost control for a second—if he lunged once—he would lose everything. The council wouldn’t have to wait another seven years to declare him unfit for the crown and make his secondment permanent. But if somehow he succeeded, ended the season smiling with a blond woman named Lauren on his arm, Gabriel would have his own advantage: evidence the council couldn’t censor or manipulate.

If humans made the show, if humans watched it—the council’s reach wasn’t that long. They couldn’t bury the evidence. Not if it was streamed to millions of households.

He’d have documentation of his impulse control, his rule following, his ability to form healthy attachments with humans. And most of all, he’d have proof he could suppress the violent impulses the council feared would cost them a kingdom.

Harper waited, watching him. She probably thought she’d shocked Gabriel silent.

He couldn’t agree without warning her. Gabriel admired manipulation as a skill set because he’d never mastered it.

“It would be a lot riskier to put me on TV than it is when you do it with a human lead.”

Harper thought it would be easy: dress him up, feed him lines like Cyrano de Bergerac.

There was so much she didn’t know. So much that he’d kept from her.

“I hear you.” She took a deep breath. “But I was thinking we could negotiate in your contract for extra security to protect you. And we could try to get questions added to the screening process for casting, to weed out bigots and fetishists. Delilah will want conflict and to make you uncomfortable, so I can’t guarantee how successful my efforts will be, but I’ll use whatever leverage I can muster.”

“Thank you.” He hadn’t gotten that far, but of course she was right. There would be danger from more than one direction. “But that’s not what I meant. I’m trying to say making me the lead would be risky for you.”

“For me?”

A lifetime of lessons in control kept Gabriel’s tone light, his breathing even.

He didn’t trust Harper—why would he?—they’d just met, and she’d spent half of tonight explaining to him how easily she talked people into acting against their best interests. But this was the only way forward that he could see, the only path that might lead him home.

“It would be easier to show you. Will you come with me back to my place?”

From VILLAIN EDIT published by arrangement with Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2026 by Rosie Danan.

Another year of Love Is Blind has come and gone, leaving fans a bit shell-shocked. Season 11's Boston couples had similar trajectories to season 10's Ohio bunch, with enraging villain arcs, major offscreen developments, and a married couple split up by the reunion. Netflix's biggest dating show has been on a dour trajectory for a while, but with just eight couples still together after 11 seasons, it's clear its promise of "love sight unseen" has been statistically unfulfilled.

Despite this, it seems Love Is Blind still isn't ending anytime soon. Netflix keeps putting out international spinoffs—Love Is Blind: Canada and Love Is Blind: South Africa are the latest on the way—and fans still can't stop watching the flagship program. Below, read on for everything we know about Love Is Blind season 12 so far.

What to Know About 'Love Is Blind' Season 12, From the Spring Release Date to the Possible Locations

Has 'Love Is Blind' been renewed for season 12?

Not yet. Netflix hasn't given any official word on the fate of Love Is Blind, but it's impossible to imagine the streaming giant dropping its landmark reality show. Netflix didn't renew season 11 until two months after season 10 aired, so fans should expect a season 12 announcement in the next several weeks.

When would 'Love Is Blind' season 12 come out?

New installments of Love Is Blind release like clockwork, so it's easy to guess when another one will arrive. Since February 2022, Netflix has tried to release a season in mid-February and another in September or the first week of October. Unless something major changes, season 12 will likely arrive around Valentine's Day 2027.

Where is the 'Love Is Blind' season 12 location?

Love Is Blind's ubiquity also means it's gotten harder and harder to keep future locations secret. The reigning fan theory for season 12 is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after production was spotted filming in the area last March.

As for possible locations, the show's producers have posted casting notices for cities including Detroit, Michigan; Miami and Tampa, Florida; Austin, Texas; St. Louis, Missouri; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Charleston, South Carolina.

Love Is Blind may change its location strategy for 2028 and beyond. Last July, producers put out a new set of casting notices, led by the biggest metropolitan area the series has floated so far: N.Y.C. (We'll see how their "no actors or influencers" rule holds up.) The July post also includes its first notices for Las Vegas and Orlando; its second notice for Phoenix (the first was shared back in 2024); and new statewide flyers for Georgia and Tennessee.

“I want to tell you about my mom” could be the subtitle for everything I’ve ever written and probably everything I’ll ever write.

When she was living, she was too good a character not to include. Now, I feel myself trying to keep her alive through the movies I make.

My mom died very suddenly of a brain aneurysm in the fall of 2024. I was in my hometown of North Little Rock, Arkansas, for the first stretch of time since I left for college at 18. My partner Alex and I were there making the feature film Mouse, which I had written back in 2019, but had taken five years to get into production.

Mouse is a movie about mothers and daughters. It draws on a specific time in my teenagedom when anything my mom did made me want to scream. It’s a well-worn road: teenagers being wired to seek independence and autonomy while not having a fully formed prefrontal cortex and moms being wired to, annoyingly, try to keep them safe.

My mom’s name is—was Eileen O’Sullivan. Past and present tense still fuck me up.

In my first film, Saint Frances, there is a character based entirely, exactly on her. I didn’t think the movie would ever get made, let alone seen by people, so I didn’t bother disguising her. Her character delivers one of the most quoted and, dare I say, beloved lines in the film: “When you were a baby, and you would scream and scream and there was nothing I could do to get you to stop, I’d imagine taking you by the ankles and swinging your little head into the wall over and over again until it was a bloody pulp.” Beat. “But then I’d feel so guilty from imagining it that I wouldn’t actually do it!”

That’s pure Eileen.

When my parents saw the movie, I had neglected to tell them that characters who very much resembled them were in the film. I remember my mom coming out of the theater wide-eyed. “It’s just so odd to see myself up there…”

In Mouse, the protagonist is a 17-year-old girl named Minnie, and she is deeply embarrassed by her mother, Barbara. Barbara is stretched thin, harried, uncouth. She has some lines taken directly from my mom: “What’d I say? You have to tell me so I don’t say it again!” She’s the messy heart of the film.

Whenever people talk about “God’s plan” or “the universe’s intentions” or some such justification of motions to everything, I get squirmy. But the making of Mouse, the timing of it, is the closest I’ve come in my life to thinking there might be some kind of synchronicity at work.

There were many different versions of the movie that came together and fell apart in the five years it took to get it into production. Each time, some stroke of bad luck—a union strike, a loss of financing—and all our hard-earned plans would crumble. It began to feel as if the movie was cursed and would never be made at all.

Throughout all of these versions, partner and co-director Alex Thompson and I wanted to shoot in North Little Rock, Arkansas, where the story is set. Many producers said no. There wasn’t a strong enough crew base there, no filming infrastructure; was there even a tax credit? On and on. We scouted New Orleans, Shreveport, even suburban Chicago to stand in for Arkansas. Eventually, when all our financing fell through (again), we decided to make the movie our own way—for as little as possible, with actors who were best for the roles even if they weren’t household names. We went to Arkansas.

My parents still lived in my childhood home there. During prep and production, Alex and I would drop off our 10-month-old son, Milo, at my parents’s house for twelve hours at a time. I saw them nearly every day for two months. My dad later told me my mom would regularly say, “I’m just so happy. It’s like Kelly is living at home again.”

With a week and a half left of shooting, we had a night shoot. Milo was staying with my parents. When we finished at 3 a.m., I went back to my parents’s house to sleep. Milo woke up at 5:30am and after a few minutes of trying to get him back down, I woke up my mom and asked for help.

Even at 5:30 a.m., she was delighted to take care of her first grandchild (she had been pressuring me to have a baby for years- see the scene in Saint Frances). I handed him over and went back to bed. At 8:15 a.m. my dad came into my room: “Something’s wrong with Mom.”

I won’t go into the details because those last few moments of her being her are private. And sacred. And so fucking sad. She was 68 and in perfect health. Don’t tell me that was the universe’s plan.

And yet.

How do I metabolize the nearly impossible happenstance that I was there? In my hometown. In my childhood home. With my parents and my child at 8:15 a.m. on a random Saturday morning when I have not lived at home for nearly 25 years. Because of this movie, I got to spend what we didn’t know would be the last two months of my mom’s life with her. She got to spend her final three hours with her grandson. And two days later, back on set, I got to bring my dad and brother with me. We needed a place to go, together. This story could hold our sorrow and love.

At the end of Mouse, the teenage protagonist finds her way back to own mother. She realizes her imperfect, messy, deeply embarrassing mom is exactly who she needs and wants. I was lucky that, as I became an adult and a parent, I realized the same about my mom. So much is inspired by her: “No one wants to talk to you more than your mom.” I really, really wish I could talk to her. She’d be floored at how this movie is being received. She’d probably be both bashful and moved that it’s dedicated to her. In press or in Q&As, simple questions feel impossible to answer: “How was it making this movie?” “What did you learn about grief?” I never know whether to tell the whole story. Now, when I rewatch the film, I can’t help but think: My mom was alive when we shot this scene. By this scene, she had died. Before and after. All wrapped up in a movie about life before and after a sudden death. Synchronicity or something. I don’t know.

The last words written in the movie are my mom’s name. “For Eileen O’Sullivan.” I imagine her saying, “It’s just so odd to see myself up there…”

I’ve since written and co-directed another movie, and her influence is all the way through. In the heartbreak and sharp wit of the characters, the ferocity of their love, the outlandish, hilarious, heart-stoppingly honest things they say. Every idea I have for a new film begins and ends somehow with her. I worry I’m repeating myself, that people will tire of these stories, these characters. People will sometimes say, “You write so much about grief.” But grief is just love, and I am teeming with it. For her. I want to tell you about my mom.

The 2026 midterms brought left-leaning and progressive voters a feeling that’s been sorely missing for the past several years: collective hope. As the closing polls on November 3 confirmed, the anticipated blue wave proved to be a “blue-nami”—inspiring celebrations at watch parties across the country, while social media was filled with gleeful voters “libbing out.” Historic wins by female, POC, queer, millennial, and Gen Z candidates were a nationwide rebuke to the current administration. So now, looking forward to 2028, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, the euphoria of the blue wave can't be eternal. With healthcare premiums expected to skyrocket and more harmful provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill coming into effect in the new year, things are expected to get worse before they get better.

Over the past year, I’ve leaned into my love of reading as an alternative to doomscrolling and despair. While citizens need to stay politically engaged to understand the state of the world, we also must not get overwhelmed by the unjust systems and cruel elites that influence the direction of the country. This Nonfiction November, we’ve put together a reading list to remind readers of the collective power the average person has to change society for the better.

Hopeful Nonfiction Books to Read After the Midterms

Hopeful Novels to Read After the Midterms

This November, there’s so much to be thankful for when it comes to new book releases. A screed on jealousy, a sexy road novel about a burlesque dancer meeting her estranged mother, and a feminist superhero psycho-thriller? We’ll load you up with book recommendations to make you the person everyone’s most grateful for at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Ahead, find the must-read books coming in November 2026, featuring the best in fiction, translated fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and poetry.

The Best Novels Coming in November 2026

The Best Translated Novels Coming in November 2026

The Best Nonfiction Books and Memoirs Coming in November 2026

The Best Poetry Books Coming in November 2026

The latest season of the Netflix hit Love Is Blind has come and gone, leaving another batch of couples (and countless viewers) reeling in the wake of the show's failed experiment. Though six Bostonian couples got engaged in the Love Is Blind season 11 pods, viewers spent more time counting the many red flags onscreen than rooting for any of the pairs to make it to the altar. The November 4 finale ended with its last standing couple trading "I do"s... before a shocking reunion trailer hinted that the pair's happiness didn't last long.

Below, read on for everything you need to know about the upcoming Love Is Blind season 11 reunion and the drama set to unfurl.

How to Watch the 'Love Is Blind' Season 11 Reunion

When will the 'Love is Blind' season 11 reunion air?

Netflix has confirmed that the Love Is Blind season 11 reunion will hit the streaming giant on Sunday, November 8, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT. Based on previous installments, the pre-filmed special is expected to run for one hour and 30 minutes of revelations, crash-outs, and (hopefully minimal) tears.

Netflix will also host a Love is Blind Season 11: Exclusive Reunion Watch Party, where eager fans can watch the special a day early on Saturday, November 7 at 1 p.m. PT. In addition to the reunion, the streaming event will include a live chat, interactive games, and never-before-seen bonus footage from the season.

Is there a trailer for the 'Love is Blind' season 11 reunion?

Netflix's teaser for the Love Is Blind season 11 reunion teases the opposite of a Happily Ever After for its only successful wedding. The clip that auto-played after season 11's finale shows host Nick Lachey asking an unseen man, point blank, "Did you cheat on your wife?" Though season 11's only husband, John, isn't shown onscreen, it teases a brief glimpse of what appears to be a crying Sarah as she's comforted by the other cast members.

Most of the pre-reunion discourse has been, understandably, focused on Sarah and John's post-filming split. However, the trailer shows that all five of the season's remaining couples attended the reunion. So viewers can also expect updates on Michaella and Rob's offscreen breakup, whether Aneha and Cam stayed together after that awkward wedding, and whether Jax and Stew were actually the season's most compatible pair all along.

What do we know about the 'Love Is Blind' season 11 reunion so far?

The biggest news of the Love Is Blind season 11 reunion became public the day after the finale, when TMZ reported that Sarah had filed for divorce from John earlier this year. According to the outlet, Sarah and John had been living separately since mid-April, a little over a year into their marriage. The official news was preceded by a post from reality TV insider Rikkii Wise, who revealed in a spoiler-filled breakdown that John had been caught sexting an escort that he met on a night out with Rob.

According to Wise, John got very emotional about the split during the reunion's taping, though it's unknown how much of the footage will make it to air. Wise also claimed that there was a moment where John's father yelled at Sarah for "going out every night," despite Sarah being clear throughout the season that she has a second job working at a bar.

Wise also spoiled some big news about Michaella's love life following filming. According to the influencer, Michaella ended up reconnecting with her other connection from the pods, beekeeper Matt. Wise claims the pair dated, but it did not end well, and that Michaella and Matt went "back and forth" about it during the reunion's taping. Fans will have to wait and see whether their conversation makes the final cut.

The popular Netflix spy thriller Black Doves returned for its second season on November 5, 2026—and if you’ve already binged the six new episodes, you may be eager to see what follows its gripping cliffhanger. The series stars Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw as undercover British spies, Helen and Sam, who are paired together after Helen’s secret lover is assassinated. In season 2, the political stakes of Helen's double life get even higher when her husband Wallace (Andrew Buchan) ascends to Prime Minister.

If you're eager for answers to what comes after the cliffhanger, we're breaking down everything we know about Black Doves season 3 so far.

Everything We Know About 'Black Doves' Season 3

Is 'Black Doves' renewed for season 3?

Netflix hasn’t officially renewed the spy thriller for a third season, but showrunner Joe Barton is already hopeful for a potential renewal. On the "Pilot TV" podcast, Barton confirmed that a writers’s room is already open and that the streamer has expressed enthusiasm for more. “Netflix are really behind it; they’ve said that thing, ‘We’d love to re-commission it'…I’m like, 'No one’s stopping you, you can!' We have a writers room for it,” he said on the podcast. “They’ve been really supportive; I think everyone’s at the whims of market forces, etc. So we hope so.”

While Netflix had already ordered a second season a few months before Black Doves’s December 2024 premiere, they may be waiting to see season 2's viewership numbers before greenlighting a third. The regime change at Netflix may also play a role, as Chief Content Officer Bela Bejaria ordered seasons 1 and 2. The company let her go and replaced her with Peter Rice in October. But if the show's popularity is any indication, more Black Doves is likely in our future.

When would 'Black Doves' season 3 come out?

Despite the early renewal for season 2, it took two years for it to hit Netflix, which could indicate the production cadence for the series. That said, once season 2 went into production in November 2025, the new episodes turned around within a year for the November 2026 release. If we consider that timeline and the series is renewed quickly, we expect the new episodes to arrive in fall 2028.

Who in the 'Black Doves' cast would return for season 3?

The show’s main trio is Keira Knightley as Helen, Ben Whishaw as Sam, and Sarah Lancashire as Reed, so we’d expect them to continue leading the spy series. Andrew Buchan as Helen's husband Wallace will surely play a role in season 3 as her secret life unravels.

Fellow Black Doves Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) and Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy) will likely return in a future installment— both as spies and as lovers. Dani (Agnes O'Casey), on the other hand, won't, since she was discovered to be a traitor and killed in the finale.

Neve Campbell (Cecile Mason), Ambika Mod (Laila Joshi), Babou Ceesay (Mr. Conteh), and Sam Riley (Patrick) joined the cast in season 2, and all except Campbell’s Cecile survive the explosive finale. So they could return going forward. The same can't be said for Sylvia Hoeks's Katia Chernov and Molly Chesworth's Molly, as they died in the season 2 finale showdown.

Even without the official renewal, Barton is already considering who might populate season 3. He told Esquire that he’d love Tom Hanks and Elliot Page to make cameos in the potential next season. “He sent me an email saying he liked the show after series 1," Barton said of Page. "So Elliot would be amazing, and I've worked with him before.”

What would 'Black Doves' season 3 be about?

Season 2 ends on a cliffhanger for Helen’s marriage. Worried her children are in danger, Helen tells her husband Wallace that she hasn’t been honest about her past or who she’s been in their relationship. She doesn’t give him the full details, but her admission that there’s more to her story will be crucial in season 3—including how Wallace reacts.

Sam and Helen also say a difficult goodbye, as Sam looks to live a quieter life in Italy. But if Black Doves gets picked up for season 3, we can assume some emergency will pull him out of his idyllic villa life and back into the gritty spy world in London.

When Jordan Firstman wrote his directorial debut, Club Kid, he envisioned each character as rich and eccentric enough to lead their own movie. Set in N.Y.C.’s queer nightlife scene, the film—about a promoter named Peter (Firstman) who becomes responsible for a young son (Reggie Absolom) he never knew he had—is a revolving door of personalities, from a lovable, freeloading roommate to party fiends whose lexicons are made up of memes.

But arguably the biggest scene-stealers with more than enough main-character energy for their own star vehicles are the trio of women—Alaska Riley, Miss Benny, and Saturn Risin9—who play the downtown It girls on the list or behind the decks at Peter’s parties. They bring a natural magnetism to the screen, in part because they’re real nightlife fixtures. Riley is a writer, model, and N.Y.C. scenester; Miss Benny is a cult-loved actress and screenwriter; and Saturn Risin9 is a legendary L.A. recording artist and filmmaker.

Originally, the three were very whatever when Firstman, a longtime comedy writer (The Other Two, Search Party), tapped them for his “little movie”—now considered an awards frontrunner. “I got a DM from some gay guy in Brooklyn, like, ‘Do you want to be put up for this?’” Riley (who once went viral for throwing shade at Firstman on X) tells Marie Claire over Zoom. Several weeks later, she ran into the filmmaker at the notorious New York club Basement, and after they spent the night out together, he parted with, “Bitch, send in your tape!”

She recalls, “I was like, ‘You just watched it!’” When the casting call’s final deadline came, she actually sent it in.

The same goes for Saturn Risin9. The DJ explains, “It starts with me leaving a club at 5:00 a.m. and hearing Jordan saying, ‘Saturn, I wrote a role for you in my film! Will you be in it?’ I'm like, ‘Yes, girl, leave me alone. I don't know where I'm at!’” She forgot about the interaction until a year later, when—as she was recovering from facial surgery—casting and Firstman hounded her to submit an audition. She did her hair and makeup for the first time in weeks, and shot a clip with three hours to spare.

Miss Benny similarly thought, “That’s sweet! I’ll do you a favor,” when Firstman tried to tap her for a role when they sat across from each other at a dinner in L.A. “Then he sent all the material over, and I was like, Oh, this is actually amazing.”

Before summer 2025 ended, the I Love L.A. star had found his Hana, Saffron, and Alma; production was in full swing in October, and they made their Cannes debut to instant acclaim in May 2026. The lead-up to the film’s November 6 release (and the awards campaign that’s sure to follow) has been like a party that keeps peaking for the trio—but they explain what’s resonated most is the LGBTQ+ project's universality and what it means to be part of it.

Below, Riley, Miss Benny, and Saturn Risin9 tell Marie Claire why Club Kid spoke to them, how they bonded on set, and what they thought of child star Reggie Absolom’s instantly iconic “Are you dolls?” line.

Marie Claire: Jordan Firstman scouted you all for the film, but did you ever have reservations about signing on or feel nervous about whether it would represent the queer nightlife scene authentically?

SaturnRising: I know Jordan from partying, so I knew that he could only tell the truth. I knew that he would because he loves to give it up like that. I didn't know if I was going to have to do a drug on camera—that was my only concern. But I did one without being asked. I was like, “Give me the Vitamin C!”

Miss Benny: When I read [the screenplay], I was like, This is going to live and die on if the parties feel right. But the thing that I knew about Jordan was that he has excellent taste. I was like, He's going to take this seriously. The first night we had a party shoot was when I felt like all my concerns had completely dissipated because I was like, I would actually show up to this party and see all these people.

Alaska Riley: I did have reservations because I didn't know Jordan. I was also hesitant about what it could mean for an L.A. gay to tell a New York nightlife story. But after I ran into Jordan [the night he asked me to audition], I took him to another party, and we ran around all night. The next week, I got sent a script revision, and I saw conversations I heard him having, or that were happening around us, written into the script, and that flipped my perspective.

MC: How familiar were you with each other before shooting? How did you foster such a tight-knit on-screen friendship?

MB: I met Saturn in L.A., and then Alaska and I had so many mutuals that I had known of [her]. So when Jordan texted me once I was attached, he was like, "Here's the rest of the gang," and sent me everyone's Instagrams. I was like, "Oh, I know these girls. These girls are fierce." That was a moment where I was like, We're going to be okay. These are really cool people. The first time we all were together, I was like, It feels like I've known everyone.

AR: I knew a lot of the extras, and then a few of the people on the production team are some of my good friends. As soon as we were all connected to the project and Benny reached out, it immediately opened up the doors of friendship because I felt like it was being handed to us on a silver platter. Our scenes were literally just us hanging out.

SR: [The scene with us] running into the house was a moment for me because I was scared shitless in general. Like, I don't know how I said yes and how I got here. So when we were running in—that's how I am with my friends.

Everyone was connected to Jordan or to each other, so one person's comfortability led to another person's comfortability. We had so much time on set to sit with each other and laugh, and somebody's doing something silly that you want to be a part of. It was like summer camp.

MB: It didn't make it into the movie, but [the three of us] had to learn a dance number. That bonded us because we were all so scared that, on our first day, we were going to have to dance for the whole crew. That was an immediate, "We're family now.”

SR: Rumors are circulating that they're threatening [to release footage of the dance]. I need to approve the angle.

MC: Did you get to have any input on your dialogue or your character’s wardrobe?

SR: Absolutely. I got pitched makeup mood boards, fashion mood boards. They didn't really listen to me on the first look because I was like, "No, I wouldn't wear that.” Literally, I got a text [from Jordan] saying, “I love this one.” I was like, “So, they told you I hated that one? Why are you bullying me?" But then I was like, Oh, this is what these DJ girls are wearing these days. I'd prefer to show up in a gown like Naomi, but we're not me right now. That was my initial energy, but we had so much input. There are lines that I said. Jordan was writing lines on set. It was super creative.

AR: The tweet that I tweeted shading Jordan, he wrote that in.

MB: Afterwards, my friends were asking, "How much are you in the movie? What's the vibe for your character?" And I was like, "I have no idea." In one party scene, we had two pages scripted. We did none of it. He really wanted us to show up, be talkative, have input on our wardrobe. At one point, I was stressed about an outfit I was wearing because I was like, “I like to have a little bit more skin showing." I went to the costumer, who was like, "Amazing. Jordan said anything you want.” When I saw Jordan, he was like, "You look fierce." It was so freeform.

MC: What was your reaction when you read in the screenplay that Peter’s son Arlo asks you, “Are you dolls?”

S: I lived! That's when I knew it was real.

MB: When you read that there’s going to be a real kid, you're like, What are the optics of this? There are real people involved. When I read that scene, I remember laughing and being like, We're going to be fine. We're getting it out of the way that it's funny, and also that this kid is weirdly aware of nightlife.

Filming it was funny because we were working with him for the first time, and we were dressed the way we were dressed. So in the scene, I'm covering myself a bit. There's such a real moment that's happening because we are gagged hearing Reggie say that. When you read it, it's one thing, but then when you hear an actual 13-year-old kid say, "Are you dolls? My mom loves dolls." I was like, "Oh, my God!”

MC: The film is special because it’s a very human story and doesn’t feel compelled to be a symbol, but it is coming out as queer rights are being encroached upon. How have you balanced that dichotomy?

SR: It couldn't be more kismet. The film is so real that it's not a sanitized fluff piece involving trans people or this controversial experience in the world. It's very much like, You've been to the club, sweetie; you've had some shit happen in your life, and these are the people around you during this time. It can't help but normalize and remind us of the normalcy we grew up with, which was accepting each other and loving each other.

Also, we have to accept Peter. That's one of my biggest things as a trans person: I have to accept you too. I'm not here to be accepted. I have a very high moral code, and you have to meet that, as well. I think the film holds a great space for people being able to show up as themselves, but also, you need to show up as yourself and come out of it as yourself, so it can only leave the audience with that energy.

MB: My biggest takeaway from the people that we've met who've seen the movie is, because of the verite way that the movie was shot, it's not making the scene seem like anything other than what it is. It’s educating people about it without being condescending. At festivals, a wide demographic has come up to us and been affected by the movie because of the human elements of it. I remember when we were shooting it, I was like, I have no idea if people are going to see this as something outside of themselves or relate to it at all. People come up to us crying about the family element. I feel like that right now is the most humanizing thing we can put out to people who maybe don't know queer people or a trans person.

MC: One universal theme is how Peter’s journey ends up being about self-love and learning to like himself. How did that resonate with you?

MB: You build so many coping strategies for the pain that you have, whether it's identity or value. The question that I always come back to personally is: I know I'm capable of being praised and valued, but am I worthy of being loved? Am I worthy of caring about myself? Is that something that I'm even owed to myself? Watching Peter's evolution, I sobbed like a baby when I watched it because I identified with him so much. There's sometimes a natural resistance to queer things when you're a queer person because there's an “I don't want to see myself” thing. And yet with this, people see it, and they're like, "Yeah, I feel that way about myself." To see that it's possible and that you are worthy of all of that is really special.

AR: When I saw the film for the first time, I was so moved because the places we shot at, some of these stories, and a lot of the people in the background of the scenes—that's my real life. I was able to see myself through Peter because I live a lot of that life on my own time. The reality check felt very near and dear to my heart because I saw the stakes, and I also saw how special it is to give yourself grace for needing one thing at one time in your life and needing another thing at another.

SR: Shooting as Saffron, it was so easy for me to understand her journey with self-love because all my personal art has been about self-motivation, self-love, and finding myself. I didn't realize, though, that Peter struggled with that. When he talks about it, it hit me in such a way that I didn't realize I had been performing my own togetherness for so long. Now that I'm in this different place in my life, I'm realizing I need to relax and let myself receive because I push through as if I don't need anything, and I need everything. I need the world; I need love. I think that's a lot of survival that happens as a person in this walk of life. Like, "No, I'm good. I'm okay,” when it's okay to not be okay and to want more. It is the thing I work on most. I am so happy to be a part of this—it’s shifting my brain as well.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Hulu's highly anticipated K-drama The Remarried Empress is finally here to delight fantasy-romance fans. Based on the global-hit web novel and WEBTOON of the same name, the series follows the titular ruler of a magical kingdom (played by Shin Min-a) as she finds new love with a foreign prince after her husband, the emperor, leaves her for a runaway slave (Lee Se-young).

At the center of this soapy love square are two women determined to take control of their destinies, with the fate of two realms on the line. Ahead of the series's premiere on November 3, actresses Shin Min-a and Lee Se-young sat down with Marie Claire in Seoul, South Korea, to tease their roles.

Shin Min-a is beloved among K-drama fans for leading rom-coms like Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha and No Gain No Love, playing strong women who hide their vulnerability behind ambition and charm. Shin tells Marie Claire that her new titular role, Empress Navier, is no different.

"I found her range very appealing," she says. "She really is the most composed and the most careful character, and holding her emotions in was difficult. But Navier also shows a very human side later in the series, so I had some hope that the character could come across as multifaceted."

Meanwhile, Lee Se-young is stepping into the role of a villainess, though she's best known for playing a strong-willed queen herself in The Red Sleeve. "The web novel portrayed her so well as someone who expresses her desires so purely, someone so infuriating and yet impossible to hate," Lee says of Rashta, the runaway slave that catches the eye of the emperor. "I developed the desire to bring that conflict to life through myself—to create tension in the work and to portray her in a really compelling way."

Ready to dive into this breathtaking world? Read on for everything to know about the main cast and characters of The Remarried Empress.

Everything to Know About the Cast of Hulu's 'The Remarried Empress'

Shin Min-a as Empress Navier

Navier Ellie Trovi is the beloved empress of the Eastern Empire, who has helped her husband Sovieshu lead the kingdom to prosperity. Despite being renowned as wise and benevolent, Navier has been unable to give the emperor an heir. When Sovieshu asks to take a mistress out of the blue, Navier remains poised and elegant in public as she explores a mysterious new romance behind the scenes.

Shin Min-a, 42, is one of Korea's most famous actresses. Since her 2000 debut, she has starred in beloved K-dramas and movies including A Love to Kill, Lucifer, Gyeongju, Oh My Venus, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Diva, Our Blues, and No Gain No Love. Last year, she and her longtime partner, actor Kim Woo-bin, married after 10 years of dating.

Shin Min-a's Instagram: @illusomina

Ju Ji-hoon as Emperor Sovieshu

Several years into Sovieshu's reign as emperor, he seems to be a faithful husband, though he is troubled by his lack of an heir. But everything changes when he comes across a beautiful maiden in the woods. Soon after, Sovieshu shocks the palace by instilling his new love as a mistress, with plans to have a child with her.

Ju Ji-hoon, 44, became an international star with his lead role in another manhwa adaptation, the 2006 rom-com Princess Hours. He has since appeared in acclaimed dramas like Kingdom, Hyena, Light Shop, and Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, as well as the blockbuster film duology Along With the Gods.

Ju Ji-hoon's Instagram: @_jujihoon

Lee Se-young as Rashta

Runaway slave Rashta was fleeing the household of her sadistic owner, Viscount Lotteshu (Park Ho-san), when Sovieshu rescued her. Though she appears naive and helpless, Rashta

Lee Se-young, 33, has starred in acclaimed historical K-dramas since 2003, when she drew praise in Dae Jang Geum (also known as Jewel in the Palace) for her role as a child actress. Since then, she's appeared in The Gentlemen of Wolgyesu Tailor Shop, A Korean Odyssey, The Crowned Clown, The Law Cafe, The Story of Park's Marriage Contract, and The Red Sleeve.

Lee Se-young's Instagram: @seyoung_10

Lee Jong-suk as Crown Prince Heinrey

Crown Prince Heinrey of the Western Empire is a talented swordsman and a known playboy. He also has the ability to transform into an enchanted bird, which he uses to strike up a flirtation with Navier. (She believes she's exchanging notes with the bird's anonymous owner.)

Lee Jong-suk, 37, worked as a model (and briefly trained as a K-pop idol) before his breakout roles in the dramas School 2013 and I Can Hear Your Voice. Since then, he has starred in hit shows like Doctor Stranger, Pinocchio, W, While You Were Sleeping, Romance Is a Bonus Book, and Law In the City. He was previously in a four-year relationship with fellow actress IU.

Lee Jong-suk's Instagram: @jongsuk0206

The Gilded Age is back for season 4 with all the amazing costumes, love stories, and high society scheming that viewers have come to expect from the HBO series. And if you're a Peggy fan—and really, how could you not be?—she has a lot going on this time around, too, from her engagement to Dr. Kirkland (Jordan Donica) to becoming a published author.

Peggy has certainly evolved from her time as Agnes van Rhijn's (Christine Baranski) secretary, and that's thanks in large part to the actor behind her, Denée Benton. Not only does Benton make Peggy such a lovable character while playing her, but she also influenced just how big Peggy's storylines could—and should—be in conversations behind the scenes.

"Even from the moment I got the audition sides in 2019, I was like, 'Oh, this is what it was all leading towards.' I've been in corsets on stage from Great Comet to Hamilton," the actor says on the latest episode of the "Nice Talk" podcast. "It was really special to have Peggy come and be like, 'Oh, this is for me' ... I was like, 'I have to protect her with my life.'"

While many period pieces feature only white characters, The Gilded Age is set apart thanks to its focus on Peggy and other Black characters living in 1880s New York City, in addition to their white counterparts. And this isn’t colorblind casting: The show is interested in how life actually differed for Black people in this era, while still allowing for a little TV magic, like Peggy’s romantic ballroom proposal scene.

"We've never seen this on screen before, and it was a real journey, like really righteous, satisfying fight to get her to where she is now. I feel like it's been a lesson in patience and planted seeds. We're both very relentless about what we want," Benton says of herself and her character.

"Behind the scenes, me and [producer and historical consultant] Erica Dunbar and [director and producer] Salli Richardson-Whitfield, when we first got cast, were the only Black people anywhere connected to the production," the Tony nominee goes on. "So a lot of the things that were falling through the cracks around Peggy's character and her world and her arc, it was really on Erica and I at the beginning to try to give those notes. And me, with no power, really, trying to be like, 'Okay, how can we make this something that I know audiences will eat up like sugar. Like, they will be obsessed.'"

Clearly, Benton's notes were taken seriously.

"Now we're all such a team," she says. "And we're seeing the payoff in season 4. What people will see, it's like a blossoming garden. The idea that those conversations led to someone like Phylicia Rashad being on our show, led to learning about the first Black newspapers in our country. Like, none of that was intended in 2019, and so to see what it's become, I am now like, 'Oh, you showed the wrong Capricorn what's possible.'"

For more from Benton—including what fans can expect in The Gilded Age season 4 and her experience starring in School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play on Broadway—check out this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

It's tiiiime! Halloween has passed, and the 2026 holiday season is officially upon us. If you thought it would take a couple of weeks for the festive cheer to set in, think again: Netflix's holiday releases begin rolling out as early as this first week of November.

This year, the streaming service has teased a varied selection of new original movies joining its library of Christmas classics and wintertime watches. Below, we're rounding up every Christmas movie and TV special arriving on Netflix in November and December for the 2026 holiday season, from a star-studded baking special to adaptations of BookTok's favorite holiday romances.

Every Holiday Movie Coming to Netflix in 2026

'A Dog's Perfect Christmas'

Release date: November 4

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Milo Ventimiglia, Brooke Lena Johnson, Mary Steenburgen, Jennifer Tilly, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Ethan Loomis, and Thomas Haden Church

The holiday story: Move over Santa—this adaptation from the author of A Dog's Purpose follows a canine companion's mission to save a family's holiday. Basset hound Winston (voiced by Thomas Haden Church) teams up with Corgi pup Ruby to bring Christmas cheer to a grandfather (Dennis Quaid) and granddaughter (Brooke Lena Johnson).

WATCH IT

'Tyler Perry's The Gospel of Christmas'

Release date: November 11

Starring: Tank, Fantasia Barrino, Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, Smokie Norful, Ann Nesby, Pastor Shirley Caesar, Hezekiah Walker, Jacky Clark Chisholm, Twinkie Clark, Dorinda Clark, Karen Clark Sheard, CeCe Winans, and Vanessa Bell Armstrong

The holiday story: Tyler Perry's latest Netflix release is an inspiring church story for the holiday season. When a struggling preacher (Tank) inherits an N.Y.C. church headed towards foreclosure, he and his wife (Fantasia Barrino) find it will take a miracle (and a cast full of gospel legends) to regain his faith and save the community.

WATCH THE TRAILER

'The Christmas Switch'

Release date: November 12

Starring: Felice Jankell, Happy Jankell, Christian Fandango, Celie Sparre, and Anastasios Soulis

The holiday story: If you've rewatched The Holiday or The Princess Switch one too many times, this Swedish film offers a new take on the Christmas life-swap story. When sisters Mathilda and Freddie (played by real-life sisters Felice and Happy Jankell) are forced to swap lives for the holidays, each "finds love where they least expect it," per Netflix's description.

WATCH THE TEASER

'Guarding Stars'

Release date: November 18

Starring: Leighton Meester, Jared Padalecki, Andie MacDowell, Walker Hayes, Noah LaLonde, Toby Sandeman, Rachael Ancheril, Phil Brooks, Ava Max, and Shaun Johnston

The holiday story: Netflix is gifting us a Christmas-ified adaptation of Katherine Center's bestselling novel. Jack Stapleton (Jared Padalecki) is a movie star. Hannah Brooks (Leighton Meester) is his new bodyguard. When Hannah's assigned to protect Jack over the holidays, she's recruited for her toughest mission yet: fake-dating.

WATCH THE TRAILER

'In a Holidaze'

Release date: November 18

Starring: Maddie Ziegler, Rob Lowe, Graham Phillips, Elias Kacavas, Jackie Sandler, and Patton Oswalt

The holiday story: BookTok can't get enough of Christina Lauren—A.K.A. the combined pen name of writers Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings—and their holiday romance is coming to life this year. Maddie Ziegler stars as Mae, who gets stuck reliving the same family Christmas until she solves her love triangle between two brothers.

WATCH THE TRAILER

Every Holiday Special Coming to Netflix in 2026

'The Great British Baking Show: Holidays'

Release date: November 23

Starring: Alison Hammond, Noel Fielding, ​​Paul Hollywood, and Prue Leith

The holiday story: Every year, a new batch of holiday-themed Great British Baking Show episodes arrive in the U.S. to ring in the season. This installment—the last with former judge Prue Leith—welcomes beloved British celebrities (including Oscar winner Olivia Colman!) and fan-favorite alumni back into the tent.

WATCH THE TRAILER

'Salish's 12 Games of Christmas'

Release date: November 28

Starring: Salish Matter, Jordan Matter, Angelo Bahu, Payton Delu Myler, Txunamy Ortiz, Giovanni Siciliano, Elliana Walmsley, Markell Washington, and Nidal Wonder

The holiday story: Popular teen YouTuber Salish Matter landed a creative partnership with Netflix earlier this year, and, after launching her lifestyle series with her dad (Salish & Jordan Matter), she's sharing a holiday special. The four-episode series leans into the challenge aspect of many of her videos, as she and seven friends compete in Christmas-themed games while one of them hides as a bit of a Scrooge, stealing gifts and meddling in the challenges, in a Traitors-like twist.

WATCH THE TRAILER

After the Golden State Valkyries defeated the Atlanta Dream at Game 7 of the 2026 WNBA Finals, the MVP trophy went to the winning team's Gabby Williams. However, after watching Angel Reese score style slam dunks all season long, I'd say the Atlanta Dream athlete deserves an honorary MVFP (Most Valuable Fashion Player) award for her top-tier tunnel looks.

The Atlanta Dream said "goodbye" to the 2026 season with a 30-14 record, but Reese's pre-game picks from Chanel, Gucci, and Bottega Veneta didn't need scoreboards to say they were winners. At one of the first matches in May, the 24-year-old set the highest standard for her WNBA attire, wearing Bermuda shorts and heeled flip-flops, both by Gucci, and a Hermès Kelly instead of a locker room-ready duffle.

It wasn't long before Reese started showcasing her Chanel by Matthieu Blazy collection courtside. Ahead of the fifth game of the season, she traded basketball shorts and sneakers for itty-bitty beige bottoms and a charm-laden belt with Chanel's interlocking Cs. From there, the Chanel looks just kept coming. Reese, of course, sourced the Métiers d'Art 2026 show that she attended for a surplus of showstopping It bags. (More on those later.)

All this to say? The 2027 season—and Reese's third return to the tunnel style scene—can't come soon enough. While we await the next Atlanta Dream game, give a standing ovation to Reese's 16 best tunnel looks from the 2026 WNBA season. And yes, they're just as strong as her basketball skills.

Angel Reese in Gucci and Hermès

Before the Atlanta Dream defeated the Dallas Wings on May 12, Reese looked every bit a champion in denim shorts with a Gucci-branded waistband, a beige bomber jacket, and the Gucci flip-flops that Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and Vittoria Ceretti couldn't stop styling this summer. (Fashion search engine Lyst also named the sandals the fourth-hottest find of Q2 2026.)

For her finishing touches, Reese styled slim sunglasses, gold hoop earrings, and a brown Hermès Kelly bag.

Angel Reese in Chanel

For a game against the Phoenix Mercury on May 24, Reese paired the same Gucci sandals with an almost identical jacket, micro-mini shorts, and a suede Chanel tote that looked like it could carry a WNBA-approved basketball. Her classic Chanel waist chain was the outfit's MVP, though.

Angel Reese in LaPointe and Bottega Veneta

On May 29, Reese was a vision in white. She paired her chocolate Andiamo Intrecciato Clutch from Bottega Veneta with an ivory, ankle-touching top from LaPointe covered in isolated plumes.

Angel Reese in Helsa and Chanel

Before a game against the New York Liberty on June 11, Reese paired a stark white shirtdress from Hella with the aqua blue trend. The cool-toned color appeared on a peekaboo feather petticoat, identical tights, and pointy metallic blue pumps. Reese completed the look with the coveted Dalmatian-dotted bag from Chanel's 2026 Métiers d'Art collection.

Angel Reese in Chanel

Channeling her team's signature burgundy shade, Reese wore a braided leather bomber jacket with a preppy polo shirt and cropped shorts, all in rich shades of red. Even her patent leather boots and East-West Chanel bag got the monochrome memo.

Angel Reese in Hanifa

On July 4, Reese twisted the cobalt blue trend into a courtside statement with a sold-out, bubble-hem dress by Hanifa. Her feathered black bag and polka-dotted, lace-up sandals added whimsy finishing touches.

Angel Reese in IKSENTRIC LAB

Reese's pre-game dress code has always favored high fashion, but on August 5, it reached a new level of elevated. Before defeating the Phoenix Mercury, the "pink princess" posed in a satin bandeau top, a matching court-sweeping column skirt, and feather-trimmed shoulder pads, all from the Atlanta-based brand IKSENTRIC LAB.

Angel Reese in Naked Wardrobe

For a tribute to The Nanny on August 10, Reese went full office siren in a black blazer, complete with a fur, leopard-print collar to match her spotted mini skirt. Naked Wardrobe, one of her favorite California fashion brands for striking tunnel styles, supplied the two-piece.

Angel Reese in Chanel

This season, capri pants played a major part in Reese's WNBA wardrobe. On August 16, the athlete stacked a glossy, funnel-neck jacket over black, form-fitting capris. She then accessorized with Chanel's take on the T-strap shoe trend, a fuzzy Maxi Flap Bag, and black biker gloves.

Angel Reese in Gucci

Before the Atlanta Dream defeated the Chicago Sky (Reese's previous professional team), Reese scored a courtside slam dunk in a full Gucci outfit. First, she tucked a form-fitting white T-shirt into a monogrammed, belted pencil skirt. To finish, she accessorized with pointy horsebit pumps, a double-G charm necklace, and slim sunglasses.

Angel Reese in Thom Browne

Taking a dark academia turn on September 27, Thom Browne loaned Reese a cropped, charcoal-colored jacket, a pleated tennis skirt, and the New York brand's best-selling Mrs. Thom Baguette. Crew-length socks, platform Mary Janes, and glasses committed to the preppy bit.

Angel Reese in Chanel

For her next Métiers d'Art 2026 find, Reese arrived at Game 1 of the WNBA Semi-Finals in a little black dress, knee-high boots, and Chanel's lava-looking Flap Bag. Lipa and Cardi B are also fans of the fiery red-and-yellow print.

Angel Reese in Chanel

Once the WNBA Finals rolled around, Reese looked calm, cool, and collected at Game 1 in an ivory velour tracksuit. To dress up the sporty set, the athlete carried one of her quilted Chanel Flap Bags as a crossbody.

Angel Reese in Chanel

Reese might be the WNBA's most faithful Chanel fan. Case in point: Ahead of Game 3 on October 21, she continued her Chanel series in a cropped bra top, a leather maxi skirt, and another gold, multi-tiered belt by the brand.

Angel Reese in Versace and Chanel

Before Game 4 on October 24, Reese looked ready for business in a striped, magenta skirt set from Versace, which matched her burgundy Chanel bag. Meanwhile, her satin headband added a pastel shade of purple to the color story.

Angel Reese in Woods by Jordyn

Reese saved one of her best bags for last: Before Game 5 on October 26, she sported a "Protect Black Women" T-shirt and Jordyn Woods's "lucky" New York Knicks bag. Sadly, the orange clutch didn't have the same game-winning effect on the Atlanta Dream, but she certainly won the hearts of Knicks fans.

The past year has been rough on the average American’s wallet. Despite experts claiming that the country’s actually doing just fine, reports of mass layoffs, sky-high consumer prices, and stagnant wages reflect the immense strain on the bottom of the K-shaped economy. It’s hard not to feel hopeless when money anxiety takes over, when you want to take control of your financial life but aren’t sure where to start.

Thankfully, many great personal finance books speak to the real-life money struggles women face. Instead of offering unreasonable maxims like cutting out lattes and living off rice and beans, these books help readers reexamine their relationship with money and form a financial practice that sustains their ideal life. Read on for a list of must-read books to help you level up your finances, from gentle roadmaps on where to start to examinations of how to navigate our country’s flawed systems.

Two of our absolute favorite book genres here at Marie Claire are romance and thriller. Across the board, novels in both categories (and their extended families of niche subgenres) are addicting, exciting, and guaranteed to get you out of even the deepest reading slumps. Fortunately for fellow lovers of both romances and thrillers, you never have to make the near-impossible choice of one or the other, thanks to the romantic thriller.

Romantic thriller novels combine key elements of both genres, with an often spicy romantic entanglement layered on top of—and sometimes further complicating—a core mystery or suspense-filled plotline. Ultimately, in the words of one of our finest scholars: You get the best of both worlds.

Here, we’ve rounded up a dozen of the best romantic thriller books, including entries from certified queens of the category, like Nora Roberts, along with crossover offerings from beloved genre writers like Liane Moriarty and Nicholas Sparks.

The Best Detective Romantic Thriller Novels

The Best Espionage Romantic Thriller Novels

The Best Heist Romantic Thriller Novels

The Best Murder Mystery Romantic Thriller Novels

The Best Psychological Romantic Thriller Novels

The Best Supernatural Romantic Thriller Novels

Sophia Bush has been in the public eye for a long time, coming to massive fame on the teen drama One Tree Hill when she was just 21 years old. Now, after spending over half of her life in the spotlight, she's telling her story in her own words.

In her new memoir, And I Will Tell You Mine, the actor writes about her early life, her acting career, her love life—including with wife Ashlyn Harris—and her activism in politics and women's rights. Turns out, it took a lot of introspection (and literally burning some pages!) to get to the final product.

"It was this excavation, and it required uncomfortable light being shed, accountability, honesty, and then it required this patience and tenderness and mothering in a way," Bush tells Marie Claire editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike on the latest episode of "Nice Talk".

Writing a memoir means editing as you go, and Bush realized that she didn't need to include every detail to get across the points she wanted to share. Instead, she could "whittle" certain stories down and "wrap it in what I realize it taught me."

She explains, "What was the lesson here? When did I ignore myself because it was more convenient for other people that I listened to them? When did I have the aha moment of 'I don't need to keep proving I can do this?' ... When were those moments?"

To remove the parts of her book that she decided not to include, the 44-year-old did something that sounds a lot more therapeutic than pressing the backspace key.

"We see ourselves when someone tells us a story that is true and that is detailed and that is all the things: the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful," she says. "And as I wrote this ... I did the full accounting, and then I said, 'This is for the burn pile.' And I did. I did actually physically pull pages out of the book and burn them."

Bush's memoir is for readers, obviously, but as she worked on it, she had to focus on writing it for herself, as opposed to using it as a chance set any stories straight or change people's minds about her. (Aside from the usual opinions and comments celebrity provokes, Bush has received hate for her political views.)

"It really was a personal journey, because I know there's nothing I'm going to do that's going to change anybody's minds or opinions," she says. "The public is not my job, and as I say that, I can feel my chest closing up. It makes me want to die, because all I want to do is be like, 'Here's the truth.' But, by the way, if that shit worked, Donald Trump wouldn't be the president again. If the facts mattered, we would not be behaving against our own interests as a human group."

The Grey's Anatomy star goes on, "If I could just put the facts on Instagram and not have another bully ever or people in my DMs telling me to un-alive myself, I would do it. But it's never going to change because they enjoy it. So it can't be for them."

For more from Bush—including how "falling in love with a mother" changed her—check out this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun has spent their career making stories about characters losing themselves in the glow of a screen. From the sinister online challenge in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair to the slasher-influenced sexual fantasia of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Schoenbrun has drawn in countless devoted fans with their intimate, Lynchian stories that explore how media affects our collective psyche. Their latest project trades the screen for the page, but it’s no less expansive.

Schoenbrun’s debut novel Public Access Afterworld is a feat of worldbuilding, split into 10 sections, or “episodes,” spanning seven decades and narrated by varied characters—an anxious housewife in 1940s New Mexico, two A.V. club kids in ‘90s suburbia, and a trans content moderator at a modern-day streamer, to name a few. Their only connection is the titular subterranean TV network, a mysterious realm where shows are extracted from “crooked” people's minds. The novel is a masterful sci-fi epic that turns the advent of television into a horrific, multi-dimensional conspiracy.

Though Schoenbrun first thought of the title in 2019, inspired by a lyric from Nirvana’s “Pennyroyal Tea” (”Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld”), they describe the novel as “picking up where I left off with TV Glow.” While their first two films were inspired by what they call the “egg crack” moment of realizing they were transgender, PAA draws from the self-upheaval that comes after.

“I was very aware when I first sat down to start writing this that World's Fair and TV Glow were movies that didn't actually take you into transition,” they say. “They were movies that came from the process of early transition and of realizing that I needed to transition, but that as texts, they kind of end before the process of becoming actually begins. I think one of the reasons why [PAA] has to be such an epic is that there's just a lot to say about that.”

To write this opus—the first in an expected trilogy—Schoenbrun put their typical nonfiction reading on hold and took inspiration from “a strange mix between literary and nerd.” The writer also dove into creepypastas, or the “crowdsourced campfire stories and urban legends” that populate certain corners of the internet.

“I think [creepypastas are] part of this long tradition that I do count myself a part of, which is digging into the depths of what's glowing in front of you,” they say. “Looking for the thing that you know intrinsically must be in there, which is something that's going to be even more beautiful and a whole hell of a lot darker than what is initially broadcasting through.”

To coincide with the release of their highly anticipated new book on October 27, we asked the author to share the reads that inspired Public Access Afterworld, from acclaimed short stories to foundational LGBTQ+ novels to historical tomes.

Peacock’s American version of The Traitors became a runaway hit thanks to its expert casting method—assembling teams of familiar faces from reality TV and pop culture. As it turns out, fans are excited to tune in when they recognize the contestants. Now, Hulu is following suit with its own celebrity-starring competition show, The Mob.

Indie film icon and White Lotus alum Parker Posey hosts the new reality series, which premieres on October 26, 2026, and the streamer describes as being “built around power, loyalty, and survival.” Each episode, contestants compete in challenges inspired by jobs from classic mob movies, with the cast deciding who gets to stay in “The Family” of The Mob. The cast includes faces you’ll recognize from the Bravoverse and hit franchises like The Bachelor, as well as scripted series. Ahead, we break down the stars vying for the cash prize and bragging rights to the ultimate Don in The Mob season 1.

Aida Turturro, 64

Instagram: @turturroaida

Where you know her from: Turturro is best known for playing Tony Soprano’s sister, Janice, on the acclaimed series The Sopranos. She has also appeared in episodes of Nurse Jackie, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Blue Bloods, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

What to know about her: Turturro is no stranger to complicated mob families from her role on The Sopranos. She also comes from a family of actors, including her cousins John and Nicholas Turturro.

Bella Palk, 22

Instagram: @belluhlou

Where you know her from: Palk starred on Hulu's Love Overboard and made waves when she decided to exit the show after realizing she didn’t have a connection with any of the male contestants.

What to know about her: Palk is from Kansas City, Missouri, and worked as a line dance instructor and bottle service server before being cast on Love Overboard. In addition to being a digital creator and reality star, Palk works as a creative marketing specialist.

Bruno Tonioli, 70

Instagram: @brunotonioliofficial

Where you know him from: Tonioli has been a professional dancer on Dancing With the Stars since 2005. He also competed on the 2008 series Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann, with Dancing With the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba.

What to know about him: Tonioli was born in Italy and has lived in London since 1975. In 1980, he competed in a U.K. competition to select an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest with his group “Duke and the Aces.”

Chelsea Lazkani, 33

Instagram: @chelsealazkani

Where you know her from: Lazkani has been a cast member of Netflix's real estate series Selling Sunset since season 5, though she is rumored to not return for season 10.

What to know about her: Lazkani is British-Nigerian and learned the ropes of real estate from her architect father. She had an explosive beef on Selling Sunset with co-star Bre Tiesi that peaked in season 8.

Debi Mazar, 62

Instagram: @debimazar

Where you know her from: Mazar has been acting since the early 1990s, appearing in a supporting role in Goodfellas, Malcolm X, and Batman Forever. She is best known for her roles on Entourage and Younger.

What to know about her: Mazar is a N.Y.C. native and was a dancer who appeared in many Madonna music videos, including “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Music.” She was also a B-girl and appeared on the short-lived hip-hop TV show Graffiti Rock in 1984.

Demi Engemann, 32

Instagram: @demilucymay

Where you know her from: Engemann rose to prominence via MomTok and was a cast member on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives before exiting the series at the end of season 4. She then appeared on Vanderpump Villa and the Unwell Winter Games.

What to know about her: Engemann has been a digital creator since the early days of blogging in 2012, and she has been open about fertility struggles and endometriosis. She uses her platform to advocate for female reproductive health advancement.

Harry Jowsey, 29

Instagram: @harryjowsey

Where you know him from: Jowsey has made a name for himself by competing on various dating reality series. He first started on the New Zealand series Heartbreak Island before winning the first season of Too Hot to Handle. Later, he appeared on Perfect Match and recently starred in his own Bachelor-style show called Let’s Marry Harry. (He lived up to the show’s name and got married, but the marriage did not last.)

What to know about him: Jowsey is Australian and has largely been known for his public romances. Though he’s primarily appeared on reality TV, Jowsey seems to be shifting his career focus towards scripted acting. He starred in the 2025 romantic comedy film The Wrong Paris and is set to appear in forthcoming films like Horrified and Billy Knight, the latter of which will also star Al Pacino.

Joe Gorga, 52

Instagram: @joeygorga

Where you know him from: Joey Gorga rose to prominence by appearing on The Real Housewives of New Jersey alongside his wife, Melissa Gorga.

What to know about him: Gorga told Good Morning America that the show's mob theme felt personal. “I grew up this way,” he told GMA, mentioning that his “uncles, cousins” are somehow mafia-connected.

Maria Georgas, 32

Instagram: @maria.georgas

Where you know her from: Georgas was on Joey Graziadei’s season of The Bachelor and was eliminated in week 8. She then appeared on Vanderpump Villa. But Georgas’s first on-screen performance was almost 20 years before in the 2005 Vin Diesel film The Pacifier, where she appeared as “Firefly #1.”

What to know about her: According to her Bachelor Nation wiki, she has a black belt in Taekwondo, loves spaghetti, and is “obsessed” with watching horror movies.

Shane Parton, 29

Instagram: @shane_parton

Where you know him from: Parton was slated to appear on the highly publicized canceled season of The Bachelorette, which would have centered on Taylor Frankie Paul.

What to know about him: According to Bachelor Nation, Parton is a private wealth planner from Georgia. He describes himself as a “massive Uno enthusiast” and is extremely close with his family.

Willam Belli, 44

Instagram: @willam

Where you know her from: Willam is a drag queen who competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 4. She was the first queen disqualified from the competition after production alleged she broke the show’s sequester rules.

What to know about her: Outside of her drag career, Belli has acted in series like Nip/Tuck and the 2018 film A Star Is Born. She's also found viral success with comedy music, with her 2015 solo comedy album Shartistry in Motion debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Comedy Albums chart.

Romeo Miller, 37

Instagram: @romeomiller

Where you know him from: Miller is a musician, rapper, and occasional actor. He gained prominence as a young rapper with the 2001 hit “My Baby” and later appeared on his own eponymous Nickelodeon show, Romeo!. Miller has also appeared in films like Jumping the Broom and Madea’s Witness Protection.

What to know about him: Miller played basketball on scholarship at the University of Southern California from 2007 to 2010. He is the son of rappers Master P and Sonya C, and the nephew of rappers C-Murder and Silkk the Shocker.

Believe it or not, you might belong to a cult and not even know it. Many "cults" are harmless: Built on a shared love for an author (Sally Rooney, I'm looking at you!), a workout studio, or a boy band, there’s nothing quite like geeking out over your obsession with people who get it. But then, of course, there are the groups where "cult-loved" gets its namesake. These—often shrouded in secrecy, centered on an enigmatic leader and eccentric beliefs or systems—have enraptured the public for decades (what with all the true-crime documentaries on your streaming services).

Whether they're driven by a zealot or someone who’s collected Beanie Babies since childhood, these groups have inspired many novels. After all, they exist as collectives, but countless individual characters make them up—often hailing from different backgrounds yet drawn together by the same message. Simply put: Books about cults offer authors ample opportunity to explore the darker side of the human psyche and need for connection.

From unraveling a leader's mind to a follower trying to break free, the subgenre has more than a few compelling titles. From forthcoming titles to cult classics in their own right, we've rounded up the best cult novels to read right now.

When it comes to bringing #BookTok-beloved romance novels to life, Prime Video has been on a truly impressive tear. After its The Summer I Turned Pretty series took pop culture by storm in recent years, 2026 alone has seen the debut of the first seasons of Off Campus, based on Elle Kennedy’s best-selling series, and Every Year After, adapting Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After, as well as a movie version of Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis. Meanwhile, page-to-screen takes on Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series and Meryl Wilsner’s Cleat Cute sapphic soccer rom-com, plus a sequel film to 2023’s Red, White & Royal Blue are still to come.

But wait, there’s more! Prime Video is adapting Lucy Score’s Knockemout series into a TV series: Things We Never Got Over, named for the first book in the trilogy. While we count down the minutes until the release, here’s a refresher on the book series and a roundup of everything we know so far about the on-screen adaptation.

Everything We Know About Prime Video's 'Things We Never Got Over' TV Series Adaptation

What is 'Things We Never Got Over' by Lucy Score about?

Small towns, evil twins, and grumpy-but-secretly-sweet love interests, oh my! This 2022 book, the first in a three-book series, is full of delicious drama and steamy romance. It centers on Naomi, who abandons her wedding to return to her hometown of Knockemout, Virginia, at the request of her estranged twin sister Tina. Soon enough, Tina skips town—with her sister’s car, phone, and purse in hand—leaving Naomi stranded, homeless, and responsible for the 11-year-old niece she only just met.

That’s (of course) when she meets gruff bad boy Knox, who reluctantly steps in to help after witnessing the implosion of Naomi’s life. Their connection makes for a very sexy enemies-to-lovers slow-burn romance that grows deeper as Naomi and Knox face some of the trouble Tina was running away from.

The next two books in Score’s Knockemout series follow other pairs from around the rough-around-the-edges town, to similarly spicy effect. Things We Hide From the Light follows police chief Nash (Knox’s brother) and his flirty new neighbor Lina, while Things We Left Behind delves into the love story between ruthless businessman Lucian and local librarian Sloane.

Who is in the cast of the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV show?

The show’s first casting announcements arrived in September 2026, with Deadline reporting that Molly Griggs will play the dual role of Naomi and Tina, while Matthew Noszka and Tommy Martinez will play brothers Knox and Nash, respectively.

Griggs, 32, has starred in shows including The Residence, Dr. Death, and Servant. She made her Broadway debut in Hello, Dolly! in 2018 and also appeared in John Proctor is the Villain in 2025. Noszka, 33, got his start as a model and has since scored main roles in Star and All’s Fair, while Martinez, 34, recently appeared in Disclosure Day and in shows like Laid and Good Trouble.

A month later, Deadline announced another flood of casting announcements. Rounding out the three couples are Lili Simmons (Power Book IV: Force, Ray Donovan) as Lina, British actor Sean Teale (Skins, Doctor Odyssey) as Lucian, and Sarah Jeffery (Charmed, the Descendants franchise) as his love interest, Sloane. Building out Naomi and Nash’s circles, meanwhile, are Megan Stott (Little Fires Everywhere, Penelope) as Tina’s daughter Waylay, Anthony Keyvan (XO, Kitty, Love, Victor) as Naomi’s longtime best friend Stef, and JoBeth Williams (Poltergeist, Kramer vs. Kramer) as Nash and Knox’s grandmother, Liza J.

Who is involved behind the scenes of the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV show?

Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder are serving as showrunners and executive producers of Things We Never Got Over. They previously co-wrote the 2018 psychological horror film The Perfection and co-created the CW series Ringer in the early 2010s. (Interestingly, Ringer also starred one actress, Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played estranged twin sisters!)

“Things We Never Got Over has everything we love in great television: an irresistible enemies-to-lovers romance, quirk, comedy, and a community you never want to leave,” Charmelo and Snyder said in June 2026. “Lucy Score built a wildly passionate fanbase around these characters, and we’re excited to introduce the world of Knockemout to Prime Video audiences everywhere.”

Gina Girolamo, whose executive producer credits include You, Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, will also serve as an EP on the new show, as will Lucy Score herself. Actress/director Jennifer Morrison—who you may recognize from House and Once Upon a Time—has also joined as an executive producer and is set to direct the first two episodes of the series.

When will the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV series be released?

No official release date has been set, but Prime Video gave the show a series order in June 2026, and production was underway when the first cast announcements came out in September 2026. Filming reportedly kicked off in Vancouver that month, with plans to wrap in mid-December, per the Vancouver Sun.

Time for some girl math: If we consider Off Campus' production-to-release schedule as an example similar to Things We Never Got Over, the show’s first season filmed in Vancouver from July to October 2025 and hit Prime Video the following May. By that logic, we can likely expect Things We Never Got Over to reach our TV screens in mid- to late summer 2027.

What has Lucy Score said about the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV series?

Score has shown enthusiastic support for the adaptation since the beginning. In 2024, shortly after the initial announcement (which included a different showrunner), the author expressed excitement in a Deadline interview, calling it “another one of those pinch me moments.”

When asked about page-to-screen adaptations in general, she said, “I’m really excited about it because I’m a storyteller at heart, so I’m always fascinated with how other people and how other mediums can tell a story. For me to sit down and write a book, it’s me alone in a room, voices in my head, of course, and I tell a story. There are very few layers that get added to that story. I have editors who will look at it and make suggestions. But other than that, that’s pretty much it. If it goes to TV or movie, you are adding so many layers to each story. You have cast, you have the director, you have wardrobe, music, location, there’s just so many ways to subtly add to the story, and I cannot wait to see someone else’s vision for the characters that I created.”

Score also weighed in on some of her own "wish list" items for the show. Though she didn’t offer up any dream cast members—saying that she just wanted "people who can make the characters feel real"—she did say that she’d “melt into a puddle” if any songs by The Killers made it onto the soundtrack.

The writer added that the core thing she’s hoping to see make it from the page to the screen is the banter. “I want it to be lot of funny banter back and forth, especially between the brothers,” she said. “I just want the characters to connect in a similar way that they did on the page, and I want viewers to connect to the story the way readers connected to it. That’s my wish list.”

Since People We Meet on Vacation debuted on Netflix in early 2026—marking the first adaptation of one of Emily Henry's beloved romance novels—EmHen fans have been clamoring for more. And we’re in luck: All but one of her other adult romances are currently being adapted for the screen, and even the one holdout, 2025’s Great Big Beautiful Life, technically has a Henry-penned screenplay already completed.

Beach Read, Funny Story, Book Lovers, and Happy Place are in development. Happy Place was announced in 2024 and initially slated as a Netflix series, with Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions on board as producers. At the start of 2026, however, the streamer confirmed the switch to a feature film format for Happy Place, with J.Lo and her partners still on board. Even more exciting? Henry herself is writing the screenplay.

Here’s everything else we know so far about the page-to-screen adaptation of Emily Henry’s Happy Place.

Everything We Know About the 'Happy Place' Adaptation

What is 'Happy Place' by Emily Henry about?

The 2023 novel, Henry’s fourth adult romance, is a second-chance love story with a hint of fake dating. It centers on Harriet and Wyn, who recently broke up after nearly a decade together but decide to keep their split a secret as they join their friends for an annual group trip to a cottage in Maine.

The story shifts back and forth in time, tracing back to the start of Harriet and Wyn’s relationship and their ups and downs over the years. As they reflect on their shared history and individual wants and needs, they find they can be more honest than ever about what's most important to each of them separately and together. Inevitably, being in a much healthier place leads them to figure out what their futures hold—whether that means going their separate ways or giving their love story another try.

When will the 'Happy Place' Netflix film adaptation be released?

Neither Netflix nor Henry has revealed a release date for the Happy Place film yet. The first page-to-screen take on an EmHen book, People We Meet on Vacation, was announced in late 2022 and premiered in January 2026. Applying that same timeline to Happy Place, which was announced as in development in mid-2024—albeit as a series rather than a feature film—could put a release date around the end of 2027 or early 2028 at the earliest. Of course, that will depend on casting and the shoot, but rom-coms tend to be relatively low lift.

Fortunately, to tide us over, we’ve got another adaptation to look forward to: The movie version of Beach Read, starring Phoebe Dynevor and Patrick Schwarzenegger, is set for a theatrical release in May 2027.

Who is involved behind-the-scenes of the 'Happy Place' Netflix film adaptation?

A director isn't publicly attached to Happy Place yet, but the producers include J.Lo and her frequent collaborators, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina, through their Nuyorican imprint. The film should be in good hands: Jenny from the Block is a rom-com queen, and Nuyorican has helmed several popular romance films, from Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding to Office Romance.

Henry will write the script. A team of screenwriters penned People We Meet on Vacation, while director Yulin Kuang wrote Beach Read, so Happy Place will be among the first times Henry is involved beyond a producing credit.

When the Happy Place and Funny Story films were confirmed, the author shared a statement. “I genuinely couldn’t be more excited to work on the adaptations of Happy Place and Funny Story with Netflix,” she said. “The entire team there has been so passionate about, dedicated to, and supportive of People We Meet on Vacation from the jump, and getting to do it all over again—this time writing the scripts myself—has been a thrill. I feel so lucky to have found this home for these films, among people who believe deeply in the necessity and power of this kind of story.”

Who is in the cast of the 'Happy Place' Netflix film adaptation cast?

That’s another thing we don’t yet know. But the rom-com’s fans, of course, have plenty of ideas. Back in 2024, when Happy Place was first announced as a Netflix series, Henry posted the news on her Instagram account, noting in the caption that while no cast members were attached yet, they’d all be “actors in their late 20s to early 30s,” and inviting fans to comment their dream casting decisions.

Fans' requests for the headstrong, perfectionist Harriet include The Pitt’s Supriya Ganesh, Margaret Qualley, Hailee Steinfeld, Isabela Merced, and Simone Ashley. For the charming but self-doubting Wyn, meanwhile, they’ve dream-cast Lewis Pullman, Drew Starkey, Leo Woodall, and The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Christopher Briney, to name just a few.

Henry herself has actually joined in on the casting suggestions. In a 2025 interview with PEOPLE, she noted that while she typically stays out of chiming in about specific fancastings, she does "take those names that come up a lot into conversations with these teams."

She also admitted she had one suggestion for one character across all her books—and it just so happens to be for Happy Place. “For Harriet in Happy Place, I think Eve Hewson would be wonderful,” the writer revealed. “And usually, when I am thinking of casting, I’m not actually thinking of someone who looks like that person. I’m just thinking of someone who has that same vibe. But she actually does look more or less how Harriet is in my head.”

Only time will tell if the rest of the world gets to see the Disclosure Day and The Perfect Couple star in the role, too!

When it comes to menopause, most people know about hot flashes and mood swings, but it's still a pretty mysterious stage for a lot of women, even though we all will go through it. Thankfully, the conversation around perimenopause and menopause is changing. Women are becoming more outspoken about this stage of life, including experts like Ritual CEO Katerina Schneider and Parsley Health CEO Dr. Robin Berzin, who chat about the topic on the latest episode of the "Nice Talk" podcast.

While the length of perimenopause—the time leading up to menopause, which is defined as 12 months without a period—differs from woman to woman, Dr. Berzin suggests viewing this time of life as an "era, not a condition."

"For the Era's Tour of our lives, this is the perimenopause menopause era," she says. "For most women, it starts around 40, and the vast, vast majority of women will be in perimenopause by 45 to 47. Everyone's timeline is a little bit different. Some women go into perimenopause as early as their late 30s."

Dr. Berzin explains that thinking of perimenopause and menopause as an era better conveys the extent of the changes and how long this time can last for a lot of women.