Book lovers have plenty to look forward to on Prime Video, with bestselling novels and long-running literary franchises being transformed into television series.
From emotional second-chance romances and fake-dating stories to forensic crime dramas and new takes on Sherlock Holmes, these adaptations bring familiar characters and stories to the screen while expanding them into longer-form television.
Here are six book-to-TV adaptations worth adding to your watchlist.
Every Year After
Carley Fortune’s bestselling novel Every Summer After has been adapted into an eight-episode romantic drama starring Sadie Soverall as Percy Fraser and Matt Cornett as Sam Florek.
The story follows Percy, an obituary writer who returns to Barry’s Bay, the lakeside town where she spent her childhood summers, after being away for 10 years.
Her return for a funeral brings her face to face with Sam, her first love, who has since become a local cardiologist.
The series moves between two timelines, revisiting six summers from Percy’s adolescence while following a pivotal week in her present-day life.
The result is a story about first love, regret and the difficult emotions that resurface when someone returns to a place they once left behind.
Off Campus
Elle Kennedy’s viral Off-Campus book series comes to television with The Deal serving as the starting point for the adaptation.
Ella Bright plays music student Hannah Wells, while Belmont Cameli stars as Garrett Graham, the charismatic captain of the Briar University hockey team.
The pair enter a mutually beneficial arrangement: Hannah agrees to help Garrett with his philosophy studies so he can remain academically eligible to play hockey, while Garrett agrees to help Hannah make another student jealous.
What begins as a calculated deal soon becomes much more complicated as genuine feelings develop between them.
Prime Video has already renewed the series for a second season ahead of its premiere. The next season will move further into Kennedy’s books by adapting The Score, shifting the central romance to Allie Hayes and Dean Di Laurentis.
Scarpetta
Nicole Kidman takes the lead in Scarpetta, an adaptation of Patricia Cornwell’s bestselling crime novels.
Kidman plays Dr Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist who returns to Virginia to take up her former position as Chief Medical Examiner.
Her return quickly turns into a major investigation when a new murder scene appears to contain the same distinctive details as an unsolved case from earlier in her career.
The series also stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Scarpetta’s sister Dorothy Farinelli, alongside Bobby Cannavale, Simon Baker and Ariana DeBose.
With its combination of forensic investigation, cold-case mystery and personal drama, Scarpetta brings one of crime fiction’s established female protagonists to a new audience.
Young Sherlock
Sherlock Holmes gets a younger and more rebellious makeover in Young Sherlock, which explores the detective’s teenage years.
Based on Andrew Lane’s young adult book series, the eight-episode production is directed and executive produced by Guy Ritchie.
Hero Fiennes Tiffin plays a 19-year-old Sherlock Holmes, with Dónal Finn as James Moriarty and Max Irons as Mycroft Holmes. Joseph Fiennes and Natascha McElhone play Sherlock’s parents.
The story takes Holmes to Oxford, where he becomes involved in a murder investigation that grows into a much larger international conspiracy.
Rather than focusing on the legendary detective at the height of his powers, the series explores a younger Holmes who is still developing the deductive skills that will eventually make him famous.
56 Days
Catherine Ryan Howard’s psychological thriller 56 Days is adapted into a series starring Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia.
The story begins when Ciara Wyse and Oliver Kennedy meet by chance in a supermarket and rapidly become involved in a relationship.
Their romance accelerates so quickly that they soon move into a luxury apartment together.
Fifty-six days later, police discover a decomposed unidentified body inside the apartment.
The series then moves between the beginning of the relationship and the investigation that follows the discovery, gradually revealing what happened during those missing weeks.
The psychological thriller is developed by Karyn Usher and Lisa Zwerling, with filmmaker James Wan serving as an executive producer.
Cross
James Patterson’s hugely popular Alex Cross novels provide the foundation for Cross, a crime thriller starring Aldis Hodge.
Hodge plays Dr Alex Cross, a Washington DC forensic psychologist and homicide detective who uses behavioural profiling to understand the minds of dangerous killers.
Alongside his professional investigations, Cross is dealing with the death of his wife and trying to protect his children while pursuing the serial offender responsible for destroying his family.
Isaiah Mustafa plays Cross’s partner John Sampson, with Juanita Jennings, Alona Tal and Ryan Eggold also part of the cast.
The series turns Patterson’s extensive collection of crime novels into a television franchise, giving viewers a new way to follow one of the genre’s most recognisable detectives.
Why book adaptations keep dominating streaming
The appeal of these series is straightforward: successful books already come with established characters, built-in audiences and stories that have proven capable of keeping readers engaged.
Television can then expand those stories across multiple episodes, giving writers more room to explore relationships, backstories and mysteries than a single film might allow.
But that also creates a challenge. Readers often have strong expectations about how their favourite characters should look and behave, making every change to the original story a subject of scrutiny.
Prime Video’s latest adaptations show just how broad the trend has become. Romance, crime, psychological thrillers and classic detective fiction are all being transformed from page to screen.
For viewers who love comparing books with their television counterparts, these six series offer plenty of opportunities to see which stories remain faithful to the page — and which ones take a very different route once the cameras start rolling.
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