If you’ve been missing the kind of rom-com that actually makes you laugh out loud in between moments of real tenderness, Ash Perez is making a case for its return.
Best known for his BuzzFeed work and recent projects with The Try Guys, Perez is stepping into fiction with Speak Now, a queer rom-com about second chances, first loves, and finally saying what you mean. The full-cast audiobook, led by Jena Malone (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Saved!) and Arienne Mandi (The L Word: Generation Q, The Night Agent), drops March 31, timed with International Transgender Day of Visibility.
Speak Now asks what would you do for a second chance at your first love?
Alex (Mandi), a rising chef on track to lead a top Big Sur restaurant, has built her life around work, not love. That changes when her former best friend, Genevieve (Malone), reappears after twelve years, newly engaged and asking Alex to cater her wedding. Faced with cooking the wedding of the woman she once loved or risking her career, Alex is forced to confront the past and decide what she wants now.
Perez, who half-jokingly calls himself a “Queer Nora Ephron,” treats romance as anything but lightweight. He’s part of a broader push to bring back character-driven, emotionally honest love stories, arguing that joy and intimacy still belong at the center of how we tell stories.
Perez joined News is Out’s managing director Dana Piccoli for a candid discussion about Speak Now, breaking into audio drama, working with Speak Now‘s talented cast and what’s next.
You can find Speak Now wherever you get your audio books.