Bridgerton creator Chris Van Dusen is developing Elle Kennedy's Girl Abroad as a series for A24 and Pacesetter Productions, Deadline exclusively reported.

The team landed the rights after bidding against three other production companies.

The book was published in February this year. The story follows the daughter of a retired rock star. She eventually finds herself ensnared in a scandal and also a romance after she moves to London to study.

Nineteen-year-old Abbey Bly gets the chance to study in London for a year. She takes this as an opportunity to finally get out from her beloved but overbearing father, who happens to be a retired rock star.

Abbey readies herself to be free and discover herself to meet the girls who are going to be her roommates. When she arrives at her beautiful new flat, she finds out that her roommates are actually boys — all charmingly, funnily and insufferably beautiful boys. Unfortunately, they're all off-limits, due to an anti-fraternizing rules the housemates instituted due to the drama caused by a previous roommate who also happened to be a girl.

While she has never been a rulebreaker, Abbey finds herself lying to her father about who she's living with. On top of that, she's also falling for two of her housemates: the rugby player and the musician with a girlfriend. And then there's that other thing: school. Her research has her entangled in a hidden scandal of a noble family filled with secrets.

If Abbey is ever to find love, answers or a future abroad, she needs to decide which rules and which heart would be worth breaking the rules for.

Van Dusen will serve as executive producer through his CVD Productions. He will also be the showrunner. A24 will produce the series with Jessica Rhoades of Pacesetter Productions, and Allison Mo Massey. The project is part of Rhoades and Pacesetter's first look deal with A24. Author Kennedy will also serve as executive producer.

Girl Abroad is Van Dusen's latest project since he created period drama Bridgerton for Netflix. In 2023, he sold another series adaptation, They Both Die at the End, based on the 2017 YA novel of the same name by Adam Silvera. He executive produced it with Bad Bunny.

Van Dusen is a frequent Shonda Rhimes collaborator. He has done producer and writer credits on Scandal, Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, all part of Shondaland.

This is the first adaptation of Kennedy's work. She primarily writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels. She has also written an LGBTQ+ romance series with Sarina Bowen. Her most popular series are set in university: Off Campus, Briar U (an offshoot of Off Campus) and Campus Diaries (another Off Campus spinoff).

Kennedy has two books just released this year: The Dixon Rule, the second Campus Diaries novel and Girl Abroad, her first standalone novel.

This seems to be a trend in Hollywood, adaptations of popular novels. My theory is that studios are finally taking notice of how popular BookTok has become. Now they're taking advantage of a built-in audience ready to be excited and follow adaptations faithfully.