Hello, love lovers! Today you can read about the new adaptation of Judy Blume’s Forever, the fan-favorite character who got their own YA romance from Tia Williams, the big trends right now in romance covers, and more. Let’s go!
Netflix Has a New Adaptation of Forever by Judy Blume
Forever, the Judy Blume young adult novel about first love and sex (and a frequent target of censorship) is 50 years old this year, and Netflix has a new adaptation! It’s set in the present day, about Black teens, Keisha (Lovie Simone) and Justin (Michael Cooper Jr.), as they explore dating in the technology era.
“Brock Akil set the timeless story against the sun-drenched backdrop of 2018 Los Angeles. “What better metaphor for this love story than what LA represents, for not only me, but for a lot of people,” she said. “You’re looking for a place to follow your dreams, and love is a part of that.””
The first season of Forever is streaming now on Netflix!
An Interview with Tia Williams about Audre & Bash Are Just Friends
Bestselling romance author talked to People about her most recent novel, Audre & Bash Are Just Friends. It’s a new young adult novel featuring Audre, a fan favorite character from Williams’s adult romance Seven Days in June. It’s about a teen, Audre, who is dealing with a LOT at the end of the school year, and Bash, who Audre hires to be her “fun coordinator” and help her try new things for a book she is writing.
From the publisher description: “It’s the last day of school at Cheshire Prep, Brooklyn’s elite academy—and Audre Mercy-Moore’s life is a mess. Her dad cancelled her annual summer visit to his Malibu beach house. Now? She’s stuck in a claustrophobic apartment with her mom, stepdad, and one-year-old sister (aka the Goblin Baby).
Under these conditions, she’ll never finish writing her self-help book—ie, the key to winning over Stanford’s admissions board.
Cut to Bash Henry! Audre hires him to be her “fun consultant.” His job? To help her complete the Experience Challenge—her list of five wild dares designed to give her juicy book material. She’ll get inspo; he’ll get paid. Everybody wins.
He isn’t boyfriend material. And she’s not looking for one. Can they stay professional despite their obvious connection?”
“I had no idea that people were going to respond so much to Audre,” Williams tells People. “There were tweets and DMs, like, ‘I want to be Audre when I grow up’ or, ‘Audre is lowkey my favorite character in Seven Days in June … so I decided it was time for an Audre story.”
Read on to the end for an excerpt of our featured story, “How to Read a Short Story (and Where to Find Some)!”
“The Fyre Festival of Books”: Let’s Gawk at This Story Some More
In case you’re still confounded by A Million Lives, the romantasy festival that was a complete bust, here is another story about it, this one from Entertainment Weekly. Basically, the organizer promised a huge gathering, full of events for romance readers and authors, but delivered…well, some folding tables, and not much else.
“”It felt like Fyre Fest of book festivals,” Kait Disney-Leugers, who’s written several books including Love Across the Tabletop, said on TikTok. “We were told there’s been over 600 tickets sold. I did not see those people. There were more authors at their booths than there were attendees, and I’m not exaggerating. It was that bad.”
She noted that “at every point of the last two days, everything was f—ed up, not delivered on, or just half-assed. There was no water there, even in the vending machine at the top of the stairs. Because, by the way, we were in the basement exhibit hall. Had no water. There was no swag bags for people who paid to go to this. No badges, wristbands.””
More like A Million Lies, amiright? Quick, somebody write a romance about two people falling in love at this fiasco.
Bestselling YA Author Dhonielle Clayton Has Started a YA Romance Series To Support Writers of Color
People talked to bestselling YA author and We Need Diverse Books CEO Dhonielle Clayton about the Love in Translation series. Clayton chose three authors to help pen three different titles about love. Clayton had the outlines and asked the authors to fill in the stories with details from their own lives.
For the first installment — Love Requires Chocolate (August 2024) — Clayton enlisted Black author Ravynn Stringfield, marking the writer’s debut.
“We really wanted this series to follow study abroad adventures for girls of color because we’ve seen the Kisses and Croissants, we’ve seen the Emilys in Paris, but we wanted to focus on girls of color who are going abroad and having these experiences,” Stringfield tells People of the series. “We experience these countries and these cultures differently. That’s what drew me in.”
Readers will next travel to Jaipur, India, for the second novel, Love Craves Cardamom, which will be released on May 20 followed by Tokyo, Japan for Love Makes Mochi, which will be released in February 2026. And while self-proclaimed “military brat” Clayton picked the locations, it was author Aashna Avachat’s connection to India and the culture that helped shape Cardamom’s story.
“I have really loved getting to bring aspects of my culture and India to life,” Avachat tells People. “My mom’s side of the family is from Jaipur, which is where Love Craves Cardamom is set. So I have spent summers in my childhood in Jaipur. And getting to write about a place that means so much to me and my family was really wonderful.”
New Trends in Romance Book Covers
To end our time together, here’s a roundup of the latest trends in romance book covers. I think I can sum up the trend in two words: Eye. Popping. But you don’t have to take my word for it. From cartoon Western covers with kissing cowboys to floral monster romances, Publishers Weekly has got them all.
“Until recently, the archetypal western romance cover featured a photo of a solo, brooding stud in a 10-gallon hat, shirt optional. But when Lyla Sage self-published Done and Dusted in 2023, the cover cowboy was lonesome no more: artist Austin Drake illustrated a kissing couple in a style inspired by romance comics of the 1950s–1970s. Dial picked up Sage’s Rebel Blue Ranch series and its cover artist; when the fourth and final installment, Wild and Wrangled, pubbed in April, it debuted at the top of PW’s trade paperback list.
Alexandra Sunshine, senior editor at Kensington, credits Drake’s Rebel Blue Ranch artwork with kick-starting a trend for “pop art nostalgia” in western romance visuals. She acquired Elliott Rose’s self-published Crimson Ridge series and says that, given Rose’s success as an indie author, it made sense “not to reinvent the wheel” when it came to the cover.
Sunshine worked with designer Sandra Maldo to enhance Maldo’s original cover illustrations, which foreground a longhorn skull adorned with blossoms in a “moody, muted design.” For the special edition of series opener Chasing the Wild (Sept.), Sunshine says, “we pumped up all the colors to a fun neon pink and added lots of purples and sprayed edges. It evokes adventure and danger, and certainly a western atmosphere, but it doesn’t scream that it’s a smutty BookTok book.”
That was fun! And if you love reading romance, be sure to check out 17 New Romance Books Out in May to Help You Through Spring Cleaning and The Romance Books Starter Pack: Where to Begin Based on Your Favorite Genre.
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The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk.
This week, we’re highlighting a guide to reading short stories! If you’ve been curious about what short stories have to offer and want to make them part of your reading life, get to know the form and learn where you can find some good ones so you can get started right away. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
May is Short Story month, so what’s on your reading list this month? Short stories are one of my favorite things to read right now. Life’s busy, and short stories are fiction that can fit into a hectic day. Instead of using the one-chapter-per-night method to work your way through a novel, what might it look like to read a short story each evening?
I love short stories precisely because they’re every bit as interesting, complex, and beautiful as longer fiction, but they’re more realistic to read when you’ve got a lot going on.
I have a confession: I used to hate short stories. Okay, okay, maybe “hate” is too strong a word. Let’s just say that I basically refused to read them. You might be wondering why I would have such a strong aversion to short stories.
Sign up to become an All Access member for only $6/month and then click here to read the full, unlocked article. Level up your reading life with All Access membership and explore a full library of exclusive bonus content, including must-reads, deep dives, and reading challenge recommendations.
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