Sylvia Day's steamy Crossfire series headed to TV

It's official! Sylvia Day's Crossfire series is headed to small screen. Lionsgate, the production company behind the new Netflix series Orange is the New Black, has optioned the best-selling erotic trilogy.

No network has yet signed on.

Day's books, which are often compared to E.L. James' Fifty Shades series, have sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. The most recent book in the series, Entwined With You, debuted at No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list in June.

The series centers on Eva Tramell, a young woman in the New York advertising world, and her steamy relationship with billionaire businessman Gideon Cross.

Day spilled the beans in an interview with Bookish in June, in which she talked about the big news. She said she'll act as an executive advisor, but will not write for the show. And of course, since it's a book known for its erotic sex scenes, Day addressed how they'll approach the subject for television:

"Usually, protagonists in erotic romance have difficult times communicating verbally, so the way that they get their feelings across--whether it's anger, happiness, love, lust, all of it--is during the sex scenes. You really couldn't do a PG version of Crossfire! It just wouldn't work. They have that in mind. We're all on board with the fact that it would need to be premium cable, on which recently we've seen a lot of wonderful book-to-film adaptations: Game of Thrones, Dexter, True Blood."

Day goes on to say it's expected that producers will follow the storyline as she wrote it.

"I'm sure we'll see a lot of that translated to film, which should be interesting and hopefully not too hard on the actors... I'm really excited. And of course, it's Lionsgate, which has The Hunger Games and Twilight; they're working on Divergent right now. This is a studio that is very familiar with book-to-film adaptations and doing them really well and staying true to the stories. I expect no less with the Crossfire series," she says.

"Sylvia has created an enduring, sexy and edgy story, and we're looking forward to working with her to create a show that both excites and connects with audiences as her books have done," said executive vice president Chris Selak in the studio's press release.

The first book in the series, Bared to You, reached No. 5 and has spent 65 weeks on USA TODAY's list, and Reflected in You made it to No. 2 and has spent 43 weeks on the list.

--

Follow @usatodaybooks and @lindsdee for more book news.