Welsh author (born 1995)
Beth Reekles (pen name of Beth Reeks, born 7 June 1995) is a Welsh author of young adult fiction.
Biography
Beth Reekles was born on 7 June 1995[note 1] and grew up in Newport, Wales where she attended local primary school Mount Pleasant Primary and comprehensive Bassaleg School.[4] She graduated from Exeter University with a degree in physics.[5]
When Reekles was 15, having grown tired of stories of "vampires and werewolves", she wrote her first young adult novel, The Kissing Booth, publishing it chapter by chapter on Wattpad, a story sharing site.[4][6][7] The novel was immensely popular, winning the Wattpad 2011 prize for Most Popular Teen Fiction,[1] and when she was 17, she was offered a three-book contract by Penguin Random House.[8][9] The Kissing Booth was published by Penguin Random House in 2012, followed by Rolling Dice and Out of Tune.[10][11] A year later, she was named by Time magazine as one of "The 16 Most Influential Teens of 2013".[12][13]
She was named in The Times as one of the "Top 25 under 20 The new icons of a generation" in 2014.[14]
The Kissing Booth was adapted for film, also titled The Kissing Booth, which premiered on Netflix in 2018.[6] A sequel The Kissing Booth 2: Going the Distance was published in 2020 and a film adaptation, The Kissing Booth 2, premiered on Netflix the same year.[15] A third film The Kissing Booth 3: One Last Time accompanied by a book was released on 11 August 2021.[16] Reekles's first adult novel, Love, Locked Down, was published by Sphere Books in February 2022.[17]
