Queer Characters to Lead Bridgerton Season 5

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

What It’s Like to Be a Romance Cover Model

File this under: we all contain multitudes. In 2019, Andrew Flanagan was a welder living in Franklin County, Alabama. Now, he’s the cover model on dozens of romance novels. It’s a transformation that began, as so many things do these days, on TikTok. Flanagan built an audience–now more than 1.7 million–by sharing short videos about his daily life. When he first received a message asking if he’d like to model for a romance novel, he thought it was scam. Flanagan has since quit welding, sold more than 100 photos directly to authors seeking cover art, and traveled to photo shoots and book events, where he’s sometimes asked to appear, around the country. Delightful.

Queer Characters Take Center Stage in Bridgerton Season 5

They’re coming to the manor. Netflix announced Bridgerton’s fifth season yesterday with a teaser that revealed the series’s first major queer story as Francesca and Michaela stand shoulder-to-shoulder on a balcony, reaching for each other’s hands as they share a knowing look. Per a release from Netflix, the season focuses on Francesca Bridgerton, the family’s quiet middle daughter, who is back on the marriage market–purely out of practicality–two years after losing her husband John. When John’s cousin Michaela shows up in London to manage the Kilmartin estate, Francesca’s very sensible plan suddenly starts to feel a lot less certain. Bridgerton season 5 will contain 8 episodes. Release date is TBA.

The Winner of the Inaugural Hilary Mantel Prize for Fiction

The Hilary Mantel Prize for Fiction, established to honor the late writer’s legacy, "aims to support unpublished and un-agented writers across the UK and Ireland." A judging panel led by Maggie O’Farrell conferred the first awards this week. Anna Dempsey won first prize, £7,500, for an unpublished novel titled This Is About an Alligator and Nothing Else. Second place went to Uduak-Abasi Ekong, who received £2,500 for her novel A Kind of Resurrection . Mantel’s longtime literary agency AM Heath provides financial backing for the awards and will offer both winners mentoring from an agent and connections to an editor. Always wonderful to see a celebration of writing that creates new opportunities for aspiring authors.

Alien Jazz Hands for Project Hail Mary

Book Riot’s managing editor Vanessa Diaz joined me on the Book Riot Podcast for a conversation about Project Hail Mary. We talked about what the filmmakers kept from the book and what they cut, how the science translated from page to screen, and the magic of an interstellar, interspecies bromance. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts.