Is Netflix’s Guarding Stars Based on a Book? Meet Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard

Leighton Meester and Jared Padalecki star in Netflix’s holiday adaptation of a 2022 novel whose Texas ranch becomes a Montana Christmas setting on screen.

Yes. Netflix’s Guarding Stars is based on The Bodyguard, Katherine Center’s 2022 romantic comedy novel. The film stars Leighton Meester as professional bodyguard Hannah Brooks and Jared Padalecki as Jack Stapleton, the action star she’s hired to protect. It premieres on Netflix in the United States on November 18, 2026.

Both versions send Hannah to a family ranch posing as Jack’s girlfriend. If you read the book first, expect a different state and a different season. Here’s how the setup works in Center’s novel and what the film’s director has revealed about the adaptation.

What Is Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard About?

Hannah Brooks works in executive protection, and her latest client is a movie star with a stalker. Jack has already retreated from public life after a family tragedy. When his mother gets sick, he heads to his family’s Texas ranch and wants to keep the threat from his relatives. That means Hannah has to stay close enough to do her job while convincing the people who know Jack best that she’s there as his girlfriend.

What makes the fake-dating setup funny is that Hannah and Jack bring opposite skills to it. He’s spent his career getting people to believe what they see. She’s trained to look for what they miss. Every time the family buys the story, Hannah’s cover gets stronger and the relationship gets harder to treat as just another assignment.

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Want to meet Hannah on the page first? Find Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard on Amazon.

What Does Guarding Stars Change From the Book?

The biggest confirmed shift is the setting. Center’s novel takes Jack home to his family’s Texas ranch because his mother is ill. In the movie, Hannah accompanies Jack to Montana over the Christmas holidays. The fake relationship and the stalker storyline carry over, and Andie MacDowell plays Jack’s mother, Connie.

Rosenbaum also told Swooon that the filmmakers rewrote country singer Walker Hayes’s role as a singing sheriff. He and Padalecki share a song on a float in the town’s Christmas parade. That detail gives a sense of how the adaptation uses the season. A job that depends on Hannah blending in now puts her alongside a celebrity in the middle of a town’s holiday festivities.

Should You Read The Bodyguard Before Watching?

Read it first if you’re curious about Hannah’s side of the story. Jack gets recognized everywhere, but the premise works because the person everyone overlooks is the one paying the closest attention. The book also lets you meet the Stapletons in Texas before seeing how the movie reworks the ranch visit for Christmas.

If you’re starting with the movie, you can go straight in. The central setup is simple enough to follow from the first assignment. A movie star needs protection, and his bodyguard needs a believable reason to be at his family’s ranch. Guarding Stars arrives November 18. Look for the novel under its original title, The Bodyguard.

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