Tango, the producer of the Sundance pic Shortcomings, is continuing to set up its future slate as it has come on to adapt the subversive rom com novel Book Lovers, into a feature film based on the #1 New York Times Bestseller from Emily Henry, the hit author behind three other New York Times Bestsellers over the last three years. Sarah Heyward is attached to write the script, which will be produced by Tango.
Book Lovers tells the story of Nora, a cutthroat literary agent who, convinced by her sister to spend one August holiday in Sunshine Falls, North Carolina, keeps running into Charlie, a bookish, brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again — in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow — what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
The novle was published in 2022 by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and became an instant #1 New York Times and#1 USA Today bestseller, having already sold over one million copies in the US alone. In addition to being named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Oprah Daily, the novel earned the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance. Henry earned the same accolade in 2021 with her New York Times and Indie Bestseller People We Meet on Vacation — which is currently being adapted into a feature film directed by Brett Haley — and came second on the list in 2020 with her New York Times Bestseller Beach Read, which PopSugar named the year’s Best Romance Book. Henry’s next title, Happy Place, is slated for release in April, also from Berkley.
Heyward is best known for her work writing and producing HBO’s Emmy–winning Girls, for which she earned a WGA Award. She also worked on Modern Love, Amazon’s Emmy-nominated adaptation of the hit New York Times column as well as SKAM Austin on Facebook Watch.
As for Tango, Sony Pictures Classics recently acquired worldwide rights to Tango’s feature film Shortcomings, Randall Park’s feature directorial debut. The film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition and stars Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola, and Ally Maki, and features Tavi Gevinson, Debby Ryan, Sonoya Mizuno, Timothy Simons, and Jacob Batalon. Shortcomings is based on Eisner-winning cartoonist Adrian Tomine’s classic graphic novel of the same name, a landmark of Asian American fiction and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Heyward is represented by UTA. Henry is represented by UTA and Root Literary.