Friends for lovers. Enemies to lovers. Emily Henry has written everything.
And soon, those lovers will reach a screen near you.
Henry has become the master of the contemporary romance novel, publishing six Bestsellers in the New York Times genre since 2020. Now, five are being adapted for large and small screens.
Henry's devout fans has grown and transformed with each launch. Some have been obsessive readers of her since “Beach Read” of 2020. Others prefer the “people of the people we know” by Henry (2021) or “happy place” (2023) – Angusticated books full of longing and unrequited love. Another camp clings to lighter food such as “book lovers” (2022) and “Story Funny” (2024).
Readers who have nicknamed “Emhen” have probably read them all.
Henry grew up in Ohio with childhood aspirations to be a writer. He attended Hope College in Michigan in a creative writing scholarship and shortly after completing a residence of writers at the New York Art and Media Studies Center. He published his debut novel, to Young-Ault, in 2016 and wrote three more books before changing to romance.
“When I was younger, he was very romantic,” Henry told Times. She gravitates to romance “to return to that place of hope and affirm the beauty, magic and meaning of life.”
Henry, now 34 years old and writing from his home in Cincinnati, also affirms these values for his readers.
“I have continued trying to do the same type of things every time, which is to write a real love story about two imperfect people,” said Henry.
For Henry, the character is the most important. Intelligent and driven women serve as their protagonists and narrators. Everyone “have something about themselves that are afraid and can't really accept,” said Henry. She wants to help readers interrogate labels and fears that place themselves on themselves, “especially like women, if not the” correct type “of women.”
Henry has a strong sense of this amorphous female figure.
“She is good in her work, but her house is also really clean, and it is really a bit elegant. Her apartment is beautifully decorated and has interesting and interesting clothes, but she is not trying to do a lot. She is in shape, but again, she likes to eat, and she is not working so difficult to be fit, it is only happening …” and the list of impossible standards continues.
Emily Henry lives and writes from her home in Cincinnati.
(Jared Wickerham / for Times)
Coming from a proud romantic writer, most whose readers are women, Henry's work completely rejects it. For Henry, reading about impeccable characters “does not necessarily connect with us at that deeper level. And then beyond that, I don't know if we even find it so attractive.” To really love someone means appreciating their idiosyncrasy, such as “their small line of 11 or a small crooked tooth, these little imperfections that become so beautiful for you.”
Henry's main love interests are generally harder at the edges. Whether romantic potential clients begin as rivals, former enemies in full rule, they are deeply in love at the end.
Henry's books have connected with millions of people, and their future film universe will surely reach millions.
Henry's rise, and the adaptations of his books, are aligned with a changing editorial panorama. Romance sales continue booming, even when the general income of books decreases. At the same time, Hollywood has turned its back on romantic comedies. As the industry emerges from the genre, these stories, including some of Henry's, have migrated to transmission platforms.
Before “Beach Read” came out in 2020, a book explorer approached Henry with an idea for an adaptation. “At that time, you know, my name had no severity. It was not as if he were going to Hollywood and win a million dollars,” said Henry. That adaptation was not done. But then “Beach Read” became a sales success. The following year, the novel “People we know on vacation” did the same, moving 2 million copies in the United States.
“People We guming on vacation” is the first of Henry's films in production. The film stars Emily Bader as Poppy and Tom Blyth as Alex, the best probable best friends who live separately but anchor their friendship with a vacation in a new beautiful destination every summer. The film, directed by Brett Haley and produced by 3000 Pictures of Sony, will premiere on January 9 in Netflix.
“I remember looking [the story] And feeling that there were more locations than a James Bond movie, “said Yulin Kuang, who wrote the first draft of the script. Henry said a joke on the set was that” we have to make a James Bond movie with a romantic comedy budget. “
Kuang released his debut novel, “How to End A Love Story”, in 2024. The romance follows an author and screenwriter pushed in a Hollywood writers room.
Kuang has come to worship Henry's work, but unlike most Henry fans, he did not discover the books organically. Instead, it was like Hollywood and the publishing world established both of them in a blind event. For Kuang, both industries seemed to say: “You two seem to have a similar atmosphere. You should meet.” When they did, Kuang realized that “there is something there to what a kinship feels.” Kuang will also adapt and direct the film adaptation of “Beach Read” for the study of the twentieth century. “I want to do something that feels intelligent, fun and romantic,” he said, “because I think that's the book.”
The “Book Lovers” of Tango Entertainment will be written by the writer and producer of “Girls” Sarah Heyward. Nuyorican Productions by Jennifer López is adapting “Happy Place” to a Coescrita and Showrun Netflix television series for the Cohan of the executive co -producer of “Bridgerton” Leila Cohan. Lyrical Media and Ryder Picture Co. are joining to adapt the “funny story”; Henry is writing the script for the movie itself.
“It is very fun to adapt his own book because you already know him so deeply and intimately. It's as if you're thinking about your favorite parts,” said Henry. It has also been a rewriting exercise: it can place in funniest jokes than I had originally thought years ago; Sometimes, she tries to solve a problem in the script and realizes that she had tried the first time. “He gave me a little mistake,” said Henry, “I want to keep doing this.”
Henry said he would also like to write the script of his most recent novel, “Big Beautiful's great life.” The book, which came out in April, follows two journalists competing for a dream job. Despite its sales success status, there has been no hurry to configure the story for the screen. She hopes that the launch of “People We Gets On Vacation” provides “leverage” when the time comes to adapt his latest book.
“Only what happened was not the goal. Being happening and being good was the goal. And fortunately, I think [‘People We Meet on Vacation’] It's very good, ”he said about adaptation.
Henry's main role in the development process is to act as a consultant on what his readers will like and not in the film, including his breaks. Emhen's readers are a base fans base: many share classifications of books and online launch opinions. Sometimes, she said, her readers remember her job better than her. Henry's friends like to send their favorite shots. “My friends are obsessed with my readers,” he said, “and the feeling is shared. I also feel that way.”
Of course, Henry and his audience share a love for love and a love for books. “I know my readers because they are like me in some way,” said Henry.
Emily Henry says she gravitates romance books “to affirm the beauty, magic and meaning of life.”
(Jared Wickerham / for Times)
It is no accident that most of Henry's female protagonists, and many of the love interests, are “book people”. Henry writes about novelists, literary agents and librarians. In general, she said: “My readers are just great readers … I think they can see themselves in characters who love books because they love books.”
Having his novels adapted to films like the ones he grew up watching he feels like a dream made.
Henry said he hopes that “Happy Place” feels like a Nancy Meyers movie and “book lovers” turns out as “you have mail.” Henry and Kuang agree that “Beach Read” should have an “Notting Hill” atmosphere. In general, she wants to capture both the humor and the greatest reality of a Nora Ephron movie.
Henry knows that dedicated readers tend to have high expectations for adaptations from book to screen. She said that she found peace in the fact that “readers who love the movie will now have the movie and the book, and readers who do not care about the movie will still have the book.”
From his hometown of Cincinnati to readers from around the world, and now Hollywood, the Emhen universe is getting bigger every day.
“Emily is so intelligent and excellent in what she does,” Kuang said. “It is a really exciting moment to be a fan of romance in this city.”
