Two standout novels showcased at this year’s Book Fair Festival are headed for the screen, with adaptations of Hurricane Summer and Sky Full of Elephants now in active development. During the festival, Riverdale actress and author Asha Bromfield and American writer Cebo Campbell shared updates on the projects, with Bromfield revealing that location scouting for Hurricane Summer has already been completed in Jamaica, and filming is expected to begin towards the end of 2026. Campbell disclosed that Sky Full of Elephants is being adapted alongside Hollywood icon Laurence Fishburne.Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner following their appearances, the authors reflected on the reception their debut novels have received, the journey of adapting them for the screen and their involvement in the filmmaking process.Bromfield, best known for her role as Melody Valentine in The CW’s series Riverdale, said the idea for Hurricane Summer first came to her during an Uber ride as she found herself wondering what her dream acting role would look like. “I was in the back of an Uber during pilot season in Los Angeles. I had gone out to audition, and I was getting a lot of great auditions, but I wasn’t connecting to the material. I remember sitting in the back of the car and thinking to myself, if I could play any role in the world, what would be my dream role?”Released in May 2021, the coming-of-age story follows Tilla, who lives in Canada and longs for the approval and love of her father, who returns to Jamaica every few months. After her mother sends her to the island for the summer, Tilla must navigate questions of identity, transition into adulthood and learn forgiveness, all while a literal storm approaches Jamaica.Reflecting on the novel’s reception, Bromfield shared, “I hear a lot of really great things. It just makes me feel great because I know my book is polarising, but I’m really, really happy that the girls who get it, get it.” She said readers have especially connected with Tilla’s imperfections and vulnerability. “We deserve stories. The whole point for me of Hurricane Summer, yes, it’s healing and it’s cathartic, but it’s also entertainment. It’s also drama... To see people relate to Tilla’s vulnerabilities, her imperfections... that to me means everything because I feel seen,” Bromfield stated.Years after first imagining Hurricane Summer, Bromfield is now helping bring it to the big screen by adapting her own novel into a screenplay. “They really allowed me to be authentic with my work. I didn’t feel like I had to do anything too crazy to the screenplay for it to be a version of the book. I feel like it really represents it well,” Bromfield stated.Fox owns the project through Neshama Entertainment and MarVista Entertainment, with Lacey Duke attached as director. Duke also directed Skip Marley’s music video for the hit single Slow Down, featuring H.E.R. LOCATION SCOUTINGWith portraying Jamaica authentically on-screen as a top priority, Bromfield, who is of Jamaican descent, confirmed that a location-scouting trip in Jamaica took place last year and mirrored her own childhood memories of being “in the country”. The film will lean into lush outdoor environments juxtaposed with traditional Jamaican-Georgian architecture and homes, while featuring landmarks such as the Blue Lagoon.She also confirmed that she will appear in the film, although her role has yet to be finalised. “I’m definitely going to be playing something in the movie. I don’t know what yet... I definitely want to show my fans a merging of all parts of my career.”For fans who first met Bromfield as Melody in Riverdale, Hurricane Summer marks a full-circle moment. The series, itself based on Archie Comics, drew inspiration from Bromfield’s publishing journey. Her character Melody’s debut novel in the series, Summer Storm, was picked up for a film during Season Five. Now, with Hurricane Summer heading to the screen, fiction has come full circle.Although Hurricane Summer is entering its next chapter, Bromfield said many more stories are waiting to be told as she continues developing new novels, screenplays and music.DEBUT NOVELOriginally from Panama City, Florida, author Cebo Campbell released his debut novel, Sky Full of Elephants, in late 2024.The novel imagines an America where white people no longer exist. Charlie, a newly released black man, and his surviving biracial daughter, Sydney, must navigate this altered country while confronting their fractured past and the realities of a new world.Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner last Saturday at the Book Fairy Festival, where he was a featured author, Campbell said Jamaica felt immediately familiar to him. “I grew up in a place where everyone around you felt like your cousin, and it feels that way here. I’ve only been here for two days, and yet I could take the people, the smells, the seasoning, and go back to my home in the South, and it’s the exact same.”Discussing the success of Sky Full of Elephants and adapting it for film, Campbell shared that he wrote the screenplay himself, a process he described as an entirely different discipline from writing a novel. “When you write a novel, you create everything, every colour of every leaf. With a screenplay, it’s the opposite. You only create the DNA because it’s not your medium. It’s the director’s medium. It’s the actor’s medium.”The adaptation is being developed with Fishburne, who Campbell said transformed the project’s direction. Campbell initially envisioned it as a television series. “When I got on with Laurence, it was a game changer. He said, ‘We need to make a movie because I want black people to sit in a room together and meditate on what they’re seeing. People walk out of that movie theatre feeling like they went through something together’.”There are still active discussions about which major studios will become home to the film adaptation, with the focus remaining on a traditional theatrical release. As development continues, Campbell said it has attracted interest from a number of high-profile actors, with early packaging discussions already under way.He noted that many of the actors who expressed interest closely matched the fancasts readers had shared online. “A lot of people instantly started to send me a cast list. So they’d be like, ‘This is who I’d cast’. And when we did the early packaging... it matched a lot of what I was getting from readers,” Campbell admitted.On what readers can expect from the adaptation, Campbell reassured fans that the screenplay expands rather than diminishes the world they embraced in the novel. “I’ve kept the airport fully. The airport is extravagant and wonderful. And I added one element that when people see it, they’ll go – that should have been in the book.”Campbell’s sophomore novel, the literary horror Wells Without Water, is scheduled for release on February 9, 2027.

ruth-ann.briscoe@gleanerjm.com