Friends to lovers. Enemies to lovers. Emily Henry has written it all.
And soon, those lovers will be coming to a screen near you.
Henry has become the master of the contemporary romance novel, publishing six New York Times bestsellers in the genre since 2020. Now, five are being adapted for the big and small screens.
Henry’s devoted fan base has grown and morphed with each release. Some have been obsessive readers of hers since 2020’s “Beach Read.” Others prefer Henry’s “People We Meet on Vacation” (2021) or “Happy Place” (2023) — angsty books full of longing and unrequited love. Another camp swoons for lighter fare like “Book Lovers” (2022) and “Funny Story” (2024).
The readers who have nicknamed her “EmHen” have probably read them all.
Henry grew up in Ohio with childhood aspirations to be a writer. She attended Hope College in Michigan on a creative writing scholarship and soon after completed a writers residency at the New York Center for Art & Media Studies. She published her debut novel, a young-adult book, in 2016 and wrote three more YA books before switching to romance.
“When I was younger, I was very much a romantic,” Henry told The Times. She gravitates to romance “to get back to that place of hopefulness, and affirm the beauty and magic and meaningfulness of life.”
Henry, now 34 and writing from her home in Cincinnati, affirms these values for her readers as well.
“I have continued to try to do the same kind of thing every time, which is write an authentic love story about two imperfect people,” Henry said.
For Henry, character is the most important thing. Intelligent and career-driven women serve as her protagonists and narrators. They all “have something about themselves they are afraid of and aren’t really able to accept,” Henry said. She wants to help readers interrogate labels and fears they place on themselves, “especially as women, of not being the ‘right kind’ of woman.”
Henry has a strong sense of this amorphous feminine figure.
“She’s good at her job, but her house is also really clean, and she’s really naturally kind of stylish. Her apartment is beautifully decorated and she has cool, interesting clothes, but she’s not trying hard. She’s fit, but again, she likes to eat, and she’s not working that hard to be fit, it’s just kind of happening …” and the list of impossible standards continues.
Coming from a proud romance writer the majority of whose readership is women, Henry’s work rejects this entirely. To Henry, reading about flawless characters “doesn’t necessarily connect with us on that deeper level. And then beyond that, I don’t know that we even find it that attractive.” Really loving someone means appreciating their idiosyncrasies, like “their little 11 line or a little crooked tooth — these little imperfections that become so beautiful to you.”
Henry’s lead male love interests are usually rougher around the edges. Whether the romantic leads start out as rivals, exes or full-blown enemies, they find themselves deeply in love by the end.
Henry’s books have connected with millions of people — and her soon-to-be cinematic universe is bound to reach millions more.
Henry’s ascendance, and her books’ adaptations, align with a changing publishing landscape. Sales of romances continue to boom, even as overall book revenues decline. At the same time, Hollywood has turned its back on romantic comedies. As the industry divests from the genre, those stories, including some of Henry’s, have migrated to streaming platforms.
Before “Beach Read” came out in 2020, a book scout approached Henry with an idea for an adaptation. “At that point, you know, my name didn’t have any kind of gravity to it. It wasn’t like I was going to go out into Hollywood and make a million dollars,” Henry said. That adaptation did not get made. But then “Beach Read” became a bestseller. The following year, the novel “People We Meet on Vacation” followed suit, moving 2 million copies in the U.S.
“People We Meet on Vacation” is the first of Henry’s movies in production. The film stars Emily Bader as Poppy and Tom Blyth as Alex, unlikely best friends living apart but anchoring their friendship with a vacation in a new beautiful destination each summer. The film, directed by Brett Haley and produced by Sony’s 3000 Pictures, will be released Jan. 9 on Netflix.
“I remember looking at [the story] and feeling like there were more locations than a James Bond movie,” said Yulin Kuang, who wrote the first draft of the script. Henry said a running joke on set was that “we have to make a James Bond movie with a romantic comedy budget.”
Kuang released her debut novel, “How to End a Love Story,” in 2024. The romance follows an author and screenwriter thrust together in a Hollywood writers room.
Kuang has come to adore Henry’s work, but unlike most of Henry’s fans, she didn’t discover the books organically. Instead, it was like Hollywood and the publishing world set the two up on a blind date. To Kuang, both industries seemed to say, “You two seem to have a similar vibe. You guys should meet.” When they did, Kuang realized that “there is something there that I feel a kinship to.” Kuang will also adapt and direct the film adaptation of “Beach Read” for 20th Century Studios. “I want to make something that feels smart, fun and romantic,” she said, “because I think that’s what the book is.”
The “Book Lovers” film from Tango Entertainment will be written by “Girls” writer and producer Sarah Heyward. Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions is adapting “Happy Place” into a Netflix TV series co-written and showrun by “Bridgerton” co-executive producer Leila Cohan. Lyrical Media and Ryder Picture Co. are teaming up to adapt “Funny Story”; Henry is writing the screenplay for the movie herself.
“It’s so fun adapting your own book because you already know it so deeply and intimately. It’s like you’re just thinking about your favorite parts,” Henry said. It has also been an exercise in rewriting — she’s able to slot in funnier jokes than she’d originally thought of years ago; sometimes, she tries to solve a problem in the script and realizes that she had tried that the first time. “It did give me a little bit of a bug,” Henry said, “I want to keep doing this.”
Henry said she would also like to write the screenplay for her most recent novel, “Great Big Beautiful Life.” The book, which came out in April, follows two journalists competing for a dream job. Despite its bestseller status, there hasn’t been a rush to set the story up for the screen. She’s hoping the release of “People We Meet on Vacation” will provide “leverage” when it comes time to adapt her latest book.
“Just it happening was not the goal. It happening and being good was the goal. And luckily, I think [‘People We Meet on Vacation’] is very good,” she said about the adaptation.
Henry’s main role in the development process is to act as a consultant on what her readers will and won’t like in the film, including their dealbreakers. EmHen readers are a vocal fan base — many share book rankings and casting opinions online. Sometimes, she said, her readers remember her work better than she does. Henry’s friends like to send her their favorite takes. “My friends are just obsessed with my readers,” she said, “and the feeling is shared. I feel that way too.”
Of course, Henry and her audience share a love of love, and a love of books. “I know my readers because they’re like me in some way,” Henry said.
It’s no coincidence that most of Henry’s female leads, and many of the love interests, are “book people.” Henry writes about novelists, literary agents and librarians. Generally, she said “my readers are just big readers. … I think they can see themselves in characters who love books because they love books.”
Having her novels adapted into movies like the ones she grew up watching feels like a dream realized.
Henry said she hopes “Happy Place” feels like a Nancy Meyers movie and “Book Lovers” turns out like “You’ve Got Mail.” Henry and Kuang agree that “Beach Read” should have a “Notting Hill” vibe. Overall, she wants to capture both the humor and heightened reality of a Nora Ephron movie.
Henry knows that dedicated readers tend to have high expectations for book-to-screen adaptations. She said she found peace in the fact that “readers who love the movie will now have the movie and the book, and the readers who don’t care for the movie will still have the book.”
From her home city of Cincinnati to readers around the globe — and now Hollywood — the EmHen universe is getting bigger by the day.
“Emily is so smart and great at what she does,” said Kuang. “It’s a really exciting time to be a romance fan in this town.”
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