The much-anticipated second batch of episodes from Season 4 of Netflix’s Regency-era hit show “Bridgerton” was released on Thursday. Holding its place as one of Netflix’s most popular series, the period romance continues its tale of the lavish and lovestruck Bridgerton brood.
The fourth installment centers on Yerin Ha, who plays Sophie Baek, a maid whose encounter with Benedict Bridgerton at a masquerade ball sets in motion a Cinderella-esque love story with the rakish second son. Ha has since become a real-life breakout star, with her visit to Korea next month highly anticipated here as well.
In the weeks since her casting was announced, the Korean Australian actor has quickly become one of the season’s most talked-about newcomers. Earlier press junkets and interviews with Ha touched on several firsts for the series, including expanded East Asian representation within the franchise, a deeper exploration of class division, and her connection to the well-known Korean actress Son Sook, her grandmother.
Yet another detail about Ha surfaced repeatedly in interviews and behind-the-scenes features: her devotion to reading.
During a lighthearted interview game, when asked to guess her favorite hobby, her co-stars shouted “reading!” and “baking!” almost immediately. In another interview, Claudia Jessie (who plays Eloise Bridgerton) said that she, Ha and Hannah Dodd (Francesca) were most likely to be found with their noses in a book.
On set, amid 12-hour shooting days for “Bridgerton,” Ha said she always tries to keep a book nearby “to help step away from the world sometimes because it can get quite overwhelming.”
She has also described herself as “such an introvert,” someone who prefers to spend her days off “being horizontal,” watching films or reading. “That’s how I recharge,” she said.
In December 2024, midway through filming (which began in September 2024 and wrapped in May 2025), Ha shared an Instagram story from her room capturing a stack of paperbacks on a console. Several would later resurface in interviews. Here are some of the books worth noting from her stack.
Building Sophie
To build her character, Ha turned to literature. She said she undertook extensive research for the period drama, gathering a wide range of references to better understand the day-to-day life of a maid in the Regency era, and that she prefers books to films as source material.
One of the titles she singled out as “very helpful” was “Longbourn” by Jo Baker. The 2013 novel is a retelling of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” from the perspective of the servants at Longbourn, the Bennet family home.
It follows Sarah, an orphaned housemaid whose romantic entanglements unfold within the rigid hierarchies of early 19th-century England. She is drawn first to Ptolemy Bingley, a former slave working at Netherfield, and later to James Smith, a mysterious servant with a shadowed past. The novel’s focus on class hierarchy, legitimacy and reputation echoes the tensions that shape Sophie’s world in Bridgerton.
Another book from Ha’s stack was “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the story of Sara Crewe, a once-privileged boarding school student who, after losing her father and her fortune, is forced to work there as a scullery maid.
On the romance train
On a set filled with chandeliers, candlelit confessions and smoldering glances, it is perhaps inevitable that romantic comedies would find their way into Ha’s reading stack.
Ha said she had read several romantic comedies by Emily Henry, and a copy of “Funny Story” appeared among the books she shared. The novel follows librarian Daphne and Miles, whose exes begin dating each other.
In a recent interview, Ha named fake-dating-to-lovers as her favorite romantic trope -- a narrative device built on performance, pretense and the gradual collapse of emotional defenses.
Though she has said she is not typically drawn to fantasy, she has also admitted to jumping on the fervent fan train for “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros. The novel, the first installment in the "Empyrean" series, follows Violet Sorrengail, a reluctant cadet forced by her mother to join Basgiath War College, where she must train as a dragon rider. Ha said she is fully “on that train” and waiting for the next book, after the third volume, “Onyx Storm,” was released in January 2025.
Contemporary Asian literature
The books Ha read point toward a wider literary map.
In an interview filmed on set, she said she was reading “Butter” by Asako Yuzuki. Inspired by a real-life murder case in Japan, the mystery thriller follows a Tokyo journalist who interviews a woman accused of luring and possibly killing men by seducing them with her cooking.
Her stack also included several works by Han Kang, whom she was reading shortly after the author received the Nobel Prize in literature in October 2024. Among them were “The White Book,” a lyric meditation on grief and absence structured around the color white; “Greek Lessons,” about two people bound by silence and language loss; and “Human Acts,” a polyphonic account of the trauma and aftermath of the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising.
Also in her stack was “Yolk” by Mary H. K. Choi. The novel centers on estranged sisters in New York: the older, June, disciplined and responsible; the younger, Jayne, carefree and reckless. When June is diagnosed with cancer, their brittle dynamic is forced open.
And then there was “Violets” by Shin Kyung-sook. Set in 1970s Korea, it follows a young woman emotionally abandoned by her family and raised without the experience of secure love. Working in a photo studio, she moves through a world that treats her as invisible, exposed to indifference and predatory attention.
Celeb Reads explores how K-pop stars, actors and other public figures are reshaping the publishing world through heartfelt book recommendations that revive forgotten titles and create new bestsellers. The series highlights the books that shaped them — and may shape your next read. — Ed.
