The Reese's Book Club Pick That Became A Hallmark Channel Series

Reese Witherspoon has proved she has an uncanny knack for sniffing out stories that beg to be adapted, building her media empire out of her own good taste. That many picks from Reese's Book Club have made it to the big and small screen speaks volumes about her curatorial eye. Witherspoon's production company, Hello Sunshine, has become the natural home for these adaptations, carving out its niche turning stories by and about women into critically acclaimed projects. Delia Owens' marshy mystery, "Where the Crawdads Sing," for example, made the leap from bestseller to box office phenomenon. Elsewhere, on Amazon Prime, "Daisy Jones & The Six " dropped viewers in the shaggy, sepia-toned haze of '70s rock stardom.

Hello Production typically steers the adaptations of the best picks from Reese's book club. But one selection took a more homespun route, settling in as one of the under-the-radar picks from Reese's Book Club that you may not have heard of. KJ Dell'Antonia's "The Chicken Sisters," is a novel about two feuding fried chicken restaurants in a fictional Kansas town. It was plucked from Witherspoon's list and landed on the Hallmark Channel, where its blend of soft-focused family drama and fried food fit like a casserole dish at a church picnic.

The novel joins a century-long rivalry between two chicken shacks: Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's. Amanda Moore, a widowed daughter with a foot in both clans, signs the fowl foes up for a Food Network-style showdown with a $100,000 cash prize. Sending both families straight out of the frying pan and into the fire, what could possibly go wrong?

When Reese Witherspoon picked KJ Dell'Antonia's "The Chicken Sisters" for her December 2020 read, she called it "a charming, hilarious, feel-good story about the kind of bonds & rivalries only sisters can share." The adaptation, which premiered in September 2024, didn't argue with her. Leaning into all the book's best instincts, Hallmark certainly brought out its secret sauce.

The series cast Schuyler Fisk — actor, musician, and daughter of Sissy Spacek — as Amanda, the well-meaning widow trying to broker peace between Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's. "Back to the Future's" Lea Thompson brought steel as Nancy, the family fixer with a heart full of good intentions. "She starts one way, and even by the end of the first season, she's really changed," Thompson told Us Weekly. Meanwhile, comedy heroine Wendie Malick brought bite and backbone to the role of Gus, Amanda's no-nonsense mother, whilst Genevieve Angelson (known for her role in "The Handmaid's Tale") seasoned the ensemble with a welcome spark.

Viewers ate it up, and Hallmark quickly ordered another helping to be released in August 2025. As TVLine teased, the next chapter follows "the Moore-Hillier women as they rise above the roost, proving that family is the only prize worth fighting for." This small-town tale certainly has wings, and there's no doubt this second serving of the coop drama will be just as juicy.