Colleen Hoover: Who is she and how the American author rose to fame and popularity for her romance novels including It Ends With Us, Verity, Ugly Love, and more | Explained

You would have to be living under a rock if you hadn’t heard of author Colleen Hoover.

The US-based Hoover has sold more than 35 million books, and two of her tomes have been turned into movies, with more on the horizon.

So who is Hoover – whose bestseller It Ends with Us was turned into a Hollywood movie starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni that is now the subject of a legal stoush – and how did she become so popular so quickly?

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Margaret Colleen Fennell was born on December 11, 1979, in Texas. She married Heath Hoover when she was 20 years old and together they went on to have three sons.

She earned a degree in social work from a state university before going on to work as a social worker and teacher.

In 2011, Hoover began writing her debut novel, Slammed, drawing inspiration from the Avett Brother song, Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise, and especially the lyric “Decide what to be, and go be it.”

Hoover claims she never planned to publish the book, but decided to self-publish it in January 2012 so either her mother or grandmother, depending on which report you believe, could read it on their Kindle.

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Hoover told Maryse’s Book Blog in 2012 that writing was a “far-off, unattainable dream”.

“I would write stories when I was younger, but have never attempted a novel,” she said.

“I met my husband when I was 16. We married when I was in college and had our first baby when I was 20.

“By the time I was 25, I had three kids and was working on my Master’s in social work.

“My focus was school, work and raising my boys. When I started writing Slammed, I still wasn’t sure what my purpose was.

“I just fell in love with the characters, so I continued writing and I suddenly had two chapters in my hands.”

Just one month after its release, she self-published a sequel, Point of Retreat.

Sales of both books skyrocketed after a book blogger gave Point of Retreat a five-star rating, and by August that year, both books had made The New York Times Best Seller list.

She self-published another novel, Hopeless, in December 2012, which became the first self-published novel to go to number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Her second book in the series, Losing Hope, followed just months later, while another book was also published in between.

By then, Hoover had quit her job as a social worker to become a full-time writer. Publisher Artia Books came on board and re-released her first two books.

In 2016, Hoover released her most famous novel, It Ends with Us.

It was inspired by Hoover’s personal experience growing up in a household marked by domestic violence.

The author started using her own social media early on to publicise her books. 

In 2021, attention from the so-called BookTok community of TikTok saw interest in the novel surge.

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As a result, it went to number one on the The New York Times Best Sellers list in January 2022 – almost six years after its release. A sequel to the book, It Starts with Us, was published in October 2022, and became its publisher’s most pre-ordered book of all time.

That year, Hoover held six of the The New York Times Best Sellers top 10 spots.

As of September last year, It Ends with Us had been on the The New York Times Best Seller List for 168 weeks.

It wasn’t long before Hollywood came calling, and production on the film adaptation of It Starts with Us began in May 2023, with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in the starring roles.

The film was released in August 2024 to mixed reviews but had great commercial success, grossing more than $US350 million ($558 million) worldwide.

Three of her books, Verity, Reminders of Him and Regretting You, are now in the process of being made into movies, with a different studio at the helm of each.

Regretting You, starring James Franco and Mckenna Grace, will be released in October this year.

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Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and John Hartnett are set to co-star in Verity.

Not much is known yet about Reminders of Him, but it has already been slated for release on Valentine’s Day 2026.

Hoover has now published 26 books, including three she co-authored, and is one of the world’s best-selling authors.

In September last year, publisher Simon & Schuster announced sales of It Ends with Us had reached 10 million copies.

According to Simon & Schuster, it was social media, and most notably TikTok, that had largely driven sales of Hoover’s books.

“With nearly 4.5 million fans across her social platforms and over 35 million books sold globally, Hoover’s viral novels have driven demand to groundbreaking levels since 2020,” the publisher said.

“The #ColleenHoover hashtag has over 2.4 billion views on TikTok.”

Time named Hoover one of its 100 most influential people of 2023.

Hoover, now 45, has a net worth of about $15 million.

She continues to live in the same small Texas town where she grew up. She shares a home with her husband and three sons.

She and her two sisters run a non-profit bookstore, the Bookworm Box, in town and host the Book Bonanza literary festival for up-and-coming writers. 

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