It was a hot summer day in Cousins. Jenny Han sat inside a beach house, phone in hand, splitting her attention between a million emails and texts, and the torrents of teenage life and love playing out in front of her eyes.
She watched intently, searching for nuance in the scene before her. "So much of romantic stories is about the looks people give — sneaking looks at each other, being aware of them," she said as seabirds glided in the distance, the occasional motorboat rumbled across the water and characters she dreamed up sprang to life on playback monitors.
Han wasn't in the fictional Cousins Beach. It wasn't summer. On this balmy October morning, the author-turned-showrunner was on set in Wilmington, North Carolina, bringing the second season of her Prime Video series adaptation "The Summer I Turned Pretty" down the home stretch.
