Romantic novelists take heart! By Tomorrow Studios is adapting another book series, this time with six swoon-worthy heroes to pick from for viewers. They’ve bought the rights to Penny Reid’s The Winston Brothers series, which includes many books about a rural Tennessee family, for television adaptation. “Multi-book contract,” Publishers’ Marketplace reports, indicates that the studio intends to give each of the brothers an opportunity. Publishers’ Marketplace sent out a tweet announcing the news to Reid’s followers, to the pleasure of her admirers. To date, the film has yet to find a home on any form of streaming service or network. Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements (Physical, Snowpiercer) will executive produce for Tomorrow Studios.
However, considering Adelstein and Clements’ previous work, it’s probable that the romantic series may land up at Apple TV+, with Ted Lasso and other similarly cosy favourites. After their mother dies unexpectedly when they are young boys in Green Valley, Tennessee (where their father is a biker gang leader), the seven Winston siblings must deal with the complicated and sometimes bizarre romantic relationships that develop in their small town, all the while dealing with the father’s illegal schemes and their mother’s early demise.
In the beginning, the books were a spinoff of Reid’s Knitting in the City series, which began with Neanderthal Seeks Human back in 2013, but the much-beloved Winston brothers (including Beau, Duane, Jethro, Cletus, Roscoe, and Billy) didn’t make an appearance until the series’ fourth book, Beauty and the Mustache, which came out in 2015. Reid was able to launch Smartypants Romance, a publishing imprint that allows new authors to write books set in the same universe as her books—Green Valley, the home of the bearded romantic heroes, as well as other universes, such as Knitting in the City and Dear Professor—in the same universe as her books. Titles by L.B. Dunbar and Nora Everly as well as the Donner Bakery novels and Green Valley Heroes, written by Kilby Blades and Juliette Cross, are among the other offerings. Solving for Pie, a series of murder mysteries, and Good Folk, a collection of modern folktales, are two additional Winston Brothers titles that Reid continues to produce. The Winston Brothers have yet to make any casting announcements or network announcements.