Emily Henry has been dubbed the Queen of the Beach Read and has helped redefine the

romance genre. She is in New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of funny story,

happy place, book lovers, people we meet on vacation, and Beach Read. She turned

out five consecutive number one bestsellers, and it's no surprise that all of her novels are being

adapted for the screen. Emily grew up with the great love of books, but didn't discover romance

until she was in her 20s.

Beach Read was the first romance novel she wrote, which was published during the pandemic,

and was a smashing success. Everyone was looking for light and the darkness,

and reading her novel gave people a sense of hope. She's known to her passionate and dedicated fans as M-Hin and her romance novels have helped

a new generation of readers embrace the romance genre and celebrate being authentic to yourself

by reading what brings you joy. I'm Jenna Bush Hager. Welcome to my podcast, Open Book

With Jenna.

Emily, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

You know, I'm such a fan of yours and everything you've done.

I want to hear about how you were as a reader. Do you remember the first book you loved when you were young? Yeah, I do. I mean, there were so many because I did

grow up in a family of readers and my parents were really avid about reading to us even before we could

read. But the first book I remember reading

by myself that really changed my understanding of what a book could be and do was The Giver by Lois

Lowes Lowry. I love that book. Yeah, it's so good. And I think it really holds up too because

there's, you know, I feel like you can't spoil the Giver. It's like if you haven't read it at this point, like I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, maybe mute this for a few seconds and then come back in. But there's that moment where the main character sees someone throwing an apple and sees this weird flicker and he's trying to explain what the flicker is. And you don't know the flicker is as a reader and then when you get further on in the book you realize like oh he hasn't

been seeing color until this moment like he's started to see the color red and that blew my mind because

I was probably eight years old and I had gone into this book with all of these assumptions about

...