A new book by Bustle chief content officer Emma Rosenblum is grabbing attention in Hollywood.
Rosenblum’s first book “Bad Summer People,” which goes on sale on May 23, has already earned the new author a two-book deal with a rumored seven-figure advance, as well as a TV deal with Amazon Prime that has a purchase price close to seven figures, The Post has learned.
The book — a juicy beach read about the bad behavior of the summertime inhabitants of a tony community on Fire Island — was inspired by the success of HBO’s “White Lotus,” Rosenblum told The Post.
“I loved that there’s a dark humor seeping into the culture and work,” she said, noting that like the hit HBO series, the story is about “a group of wealthy people enclosed in a place and someone dies.”
Inspired by the privileged inhabitants of Saltaire — a closed community on Fire Island where Rosenblum summers — the book is told from the first-person perspective of a handful of different characters who are cheating on their spouses while plotting ways to undercut each other as they climb the community’s gilded social ladder.
“I wanted to get through the vibe of living in a small town where everybody knows everybody and has a different perspective of the people and the events,” she said.
“It’s a pressure-cooker small-town vibe that’s particularly true in a place like Saltaire.”
Rosenblum wrote the satire two summers ago during the pandemic while working from Saltaire.
The book was sold the following spring and in June. Around that time, someone in Saltaire managed to get a copy of the manuscript, which was being shopped in Hollywood.
Tongues were wagging in the small elite seaside community, much to the chagrin of Rosenblum, who said people in town were already trying to figure out which characters were based on them.
“My hope is that the drama has subsided,” she deadpanned.
But that may be wishful thinking.
The options for the book were snapped up by Patrick Moran, the former ABC Studios head, who inked a TV development deal with Amazon Studios in 2019.
Although it is not guaranteed that the book will make it to the small screen, Rosenblum said Halley Pfiefer has already been tapped to be the showrunner for the project.
Pfiefer is best known for writing and showrunning season 12 of “American Horror Story.”
This story originally appeared on NYPost
