“This is kind of a crazy story,” Sarah Reasons said when asked about her forthcoming screenplay-to-novel adaptation The Crest. A passion project that Sarah started in 2020 and spent the next three years perfecting, The Crest came to her in a dream. “I had a dream about this story, and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy. I think this could be something really cool.'”
An actor and dancer who recently graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in fashion, Sarah saw screenwriting as another way to be involved in the entertainment industry. “I feel like screenwriting was the best way to move forward in, you know, taking my story from just an idea in my head to on paper and pushing it to other people and getting it to other people in the world,” Sarah told us. Between the dream and Sarah’s now award-winning screenplay—The Crest was named quarter-finalist in the 2022 ScreenCraft Sci-Fi & Fantasy Screenwriting Competition and a semi-finalist in the 2023 Outstanding Screenplays TV Pilot Competition—was a lot of reading and watching videos to teach herself the ins and outs of screenwriting and “many, many, many rewrites and revisions.”
The Crest is an eight-episode screenplay that Sarah said “started as a hobby and really kind of developed into a serious passion of mine. Alongside developing The Crest and it’s novelization, Sarah has also filmed a sizzle reel for The Crest and is preparing to pitch it to networks to take her story to the screen. Oh, and in the meantime? She has a clothing brand with her sister and has written screenplays in a variety of other genres including comedy, drama, and an in-progress horror project.
The novelization of Sarah’s dream-turned-screenplay follows 16-year-old James Dunlan as she digs into the secrets of the Families ruling her home, Mercer Island. The Crest is a sci-fi that is equal parts Sarah—”There’s a lot of myself in James.”—her favorite dystopian stories like The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner, and the real world places familiar to her like Mercer Island, Washington. This is Sarah’s passion and her world. Along with bringing James to life on the page, Sarah hopes to one day play her on screen. If there’s a difference between Sarah and her protagonist (mind powers aside), it’s that “James is definitely more of a bookworm than I am. She’s really into her books.”
At 16, James Dunlan has a life most teens would envy—one of glamour, prestige, and privilege. She is a member of the Families, a class of rulers on Mercer Island who are responsible for the rest of the world’s way of life. All she has to do is follow the path the Society has chosen for her, and everything will be perfect. When she meets a mysterious boy from Fall City, secrets come to light, and she begins to see the cracks in the Society’s façade. Why is she haunted by dreams of an unknown danger? What are the beasts that lurk in the darkness? Why does it seem the very people she thought she could trust most will stop at nothing to keep the Society strong? The more James uncovers, the more she realizes that everything is not what it seems, and only she has the power to save the people she loves.
Lucky for us, The Crest is just the start. While the book is just weeks away from being on shelves and Sarah has perfected her pilot, she has “tons of cool ideas” that she shared she “would love to get out there for a Season 2, Season 3” and sequels to the novel as well. Her world of mind-reading, Society secrets, and love triangles is only just getting started. For now, she’s excited for people to read the book. “There is a cliffhanger at the very end of the book that I think people are going to freak out over, and it is super cool. That is definitely my favorite part.”
Another of Sarah’s favorite details is the cover. No spoilers, but she did share that the cover is an Easter egg for the plot of The Crest. “I think that’s super cool, so you kind of put things together once you read the book.” She’s also excited to see her name on the front cover of a published book. Go, Sarah!
The Crest is available for pre-order now from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and we get to dive into Sarah’s world July 31.
