After Bridgerton and Virgin River, Netflix might have found its next great romance series as it acquired the rights to Twisted Love and its three sequels. Written by author Ana Huang, Twisted Love hit bookshelves in 2021 and became an instant hit, spending 13 months on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Twisted Love and its sequels have been particularly popular on BookTok, a subcategory of TikTok where fans share their love of books. Just like many high-profile BookTok hits, the adaptation rights for Twisted Love became a must-have.
Variety reports that Netflix is paying seven figures for the rights to Ana Huang’s Twisted series of romance novels. The deal includes 2021’s Twisted Love and its three sequels, Twisted Games, Twisted Hate, and Twisted Lies. The plan is to adapt the four novels into a Netflix Original streaming series. The project’s logline describes the book series as “a steamy new adult series that follows the lives of four best friends and their brooding love interests, riddled with dark secrets from their pasts, as they overcome the obstacles keeping them apart to fall in love.”
Twisted Love is the second major BookTok phenomenon that Netflix has acquired the rights to in the past few months, with the other being the fantasy romance series Quicksilver. BookTok has become a major influence on Hollywood studios, as the titles that have become big hits on TikTok have become prized intellectual property that many studios hope to be the next big thing. Amazon MGM is developing Fourth Wing, the popular fantasy series that is number one on Amazon’s best seller list and spent 18 weeks as the number one title on The New York Times Best Seller list.
New Adult Fiction Might be the Next Gold Rush

Books like Twisted Love, Quicksilver, Fourth Wing, and the works of Colleen Hoover are part of the booming New Adult fiction genre. An evolution of the Young Adult genre, the New Adult genre’s audience is the grown-up version of those who read books like Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games in the 2000s. New Adult fiction typically deals with more nuanced topics that come with growing up, with popular topics being sexuality, gender identity, romance, and finding one’s career. Though the genre is somewhat broad, many of the titles have exploded in popularity and developed a massive following.

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BookTok refers to the book community on TikTok, which is sometimes key in helping a book reach high popularity (and even earn a screen adaptation).

At a time when it is difficult to find Blu-rays in stores like Target or Walmart, the number of books, particularly New Adult fiction, has increased. While much attention is devoted to the superhero movie genre and whether video game movies will become the next big trend, many overlook the studios seemingly stockpiling rights to popular books that have become TikTok sensations and could usher in a new era. The box office success of It Ends With Us shows a ravenous market for this type of story. Twisted Love could become the next big Netflix sensation in just a few years.

You can order a copy of Twisted Love wherever books are sold.