Talk show host and actor Sherri Shepherd is making her adult fiction debut in a novel co-written with author Jayci Lee, People magazine reports.
MIRA will publish Life Is a K Drama next year. It calls the book “a sweeping, cinematic love story that glows with humor, heart, and hard-won hope.”
Shepherd is best known as host of the daytime talk show Sherri; she previously co-hosted The View and Dish Nation; she also acted in sitcoms including The Jamie Foxx Show and Less Than Perfect. Her previous books include Permission Slips: Every Woman’s Guide to Giving Herself a Break and the children’s book The Sunshine Queens, illustrated by Tanisha Cherislin.
Lee is the author of romance novels including Booked on a Feeling, That Prince Is Mine, and Give Me a Reason. Together, Shepherd and Lee co-host a podcast, Auntie & Ajumma, in which they “laugh, cry, and bond over all things K-drama and life.”
Their novel will also focus on K-dramas, the South Korean television programs that have risen in popularity in the U.S. in recent years. MIRA says the book will follow Keisha Thomson, a Harlem restaurateur and K-drama aficionado, who falls in love with South Korean business executive Han Seojun. “Part escapism and part self-discovery, it’s for anyone who’s ever rebuilt themselves from scratch and for readers who crave joy that feels earned and real,” the publisher says.
Shepherd shared news of the novel in an Instagram video, saying, “We’ve been working on this for a year, to bring you something that…you could get the background of Seoul, Korea, and you could get the Harlem soul.”
Life Is a K Drama is slated for publication on April 6, 2027.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
