She always wanted to write.
“Ever since I was in elementary school, everyone knew,” she said. “I wrote stories for fun… our school district went on strike in the eighth grade, and we were home for six weeks. I went over to my best friend’s house, and we would write stories … every single day. We had these notebooks filled with stories that we would make up.”
Hilderbrand still writes long-form with pen and paper.
Having a book adapted to screen was a ‘goal.’
Netflix picked up “The Perfect Couple” and adapted it into a limited series in 2024 starring Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber. Next, Peacock is developing a show based on Hilderband’s novel “Five-Star Weekend,” starring Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer and Regina Hall.
“I waited a very, very long time to have something adapted to screen, and it paid off because I hit it so huge with ‘The Perfect Couple,’ ” she said. “(It) was so popular that after it came out, really, my phone started blowing up.”
“The Academy” has already been optioned for TV and six more projects are in development.
The working mom makes the most of free time.
In 2003, Hilderbrand wrote “The Blue Bistro” with a toddler and a baby at home, and her then-husband working seven days a week in finance.
“I had the kids full-time, and I would put them down for their nap, and then I would write long-hand in my notebook in the bed with them,” she said. “Like I would lie down with them, get them to fall asleep, sort of turn over and then I remember writing the novel. It was hard, but that was when I had time to do it.”
She writes to ‘escape.’
“I am very cognizant of the fact that some people read my books to be entertained, but a lot of people, probably more, read my books to escape,” Hilderbrand said. Readers have shared countless stories, be it a woman who made it through severe postpartum depression by reading her books or a woman who read one to her mother as she passed away in hospice.