Are you dancing? Are you asking? Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne and Regé-Jean Page as Simon in the smash hit Bridgerton.
Leah McFall talks to the author who inspired the Netflix sensation, Bridgerton.
Imagine this. You're sitting in your usual spot in Starbucks. Your agent calls – he doesn't call that often, by the way – to tell you he's just had the strangest conversation. The superstar producers behind Scandal and Grey's Anatomy have been in touch to say they like something you published 17 years ago. As in, they really like it.
Let's be clear who just called: this is the powerhouse entertainment company Shondaland, helmed by Shonda Rhimes, the queen bee of the dramatic American TV series. And she wants to turn your book into a show. For Netflix.
Julia Quinn is a riot when she retells this dream-come-true story, over Zoom, from Seattle. She mimics picking up her mobile and talking to her agent: "He goes, 'Have you heard of Shonda Rhimes?' and I was like, 'Uh, yeah. What kind of question is that?'
"So, he was like, you know, her representatives had contacted him to see if the rights to the books were still available and if so, would I be interested and I was like, 'I can't believe you even had to check with me, but yes.' And so he goes, 'All right, let me call them back.'
"And that was the beginning of it. I had no idea how they'd heard of me. Often when books get adapted it's because agents are shopping them around and so a lot of people were like, 'How did you sell it?' I was like, 'I did nothing. It fell in my lap.'" She straightens. "It really is a Cinderella story, I guess."
To the degree that Hollywood had overlooked Quinn, the analogy fits. But before that life-changing call, the 51-year-old was already a big name in US romance fiction, with 18 consecutive New York Times bestsellers and more than 10 million copies of her books in print. Her historical romances are translated into at least 30 languages, including Thai and Hebrew, and she happens to be huge in Brazil. Many of her titles were considered classics among romance fans: it was only the rest of us who had no idea.
"A lot of it is just that romance novels have never been viewed as prestige pieces at all," says Quinn, a Harvard grad who quit med school in her 20s to write full-time. "People don't take them seriously. You always get more respect if you don't get a happy ending. And so, the entertainment world has not traditionally valued happiness as something worthy or artistic."
Jane Austen has literary cachet, Quinn goes on, so producers constantly remake those novels while snubbing the Regency love stories being written now. Yet these paperback period romances – blending historical settings with strong-willed, relatable characters, a surprising amount of explicit sex and a reliably satisfying love story – offer an audience more than their pulpy covers might imply.
Sure, the genre is larger than life. Its writers take liberties to service the story: "What I'm writing is not historically correct. If it was…you wouldn't have so many unmarried dukes in their late-20s, early-30s running around. They wouldn't all have beautiful straight teeth. They'd probably have syphilis – let's be honest."
But beyond the theatrics is well-structured storytelling. Today's Regency heroines don't merely swoon and give in but seize agency, taking control of their sexual and emotional lives. Plus, because the elites of early 19th-century London were as obsessed by fashion, gossip, celebrity, sex, money and power as we are now, readers were seeing themselves in these novels. The first person to notice this potential was Rhimes.
"I don't think it's surprising that it would be Shonda Rhimes and Shondaland that would suddenly say, 'Wait a minute. There's something here,'" says Quinn. Rhimes' series are known for complex female leads pursuing love, empowerment and success. But she discovered Quinn's novels by accident.
"Shonda was on vacation somewhere and ran out of stuff to read. Somehow, one of my books was where she was, and she read it," Quinn says. "She said she'd never read a romance novel before. She loved it so much she went on and bought the rest of [my] Bridgerton series and she said [to me], 'Not just the Bridgerton series – all your books.' "Apparently she was at Shondaland for a while saying, 'You've got to read these crazy romance novels; I think we can do something.'"
The book they wanted to adapt was a perfect series-in-waiting. The Duke & I is the first of eight novels about the sprawling Bridgerton family. It introduces beautiful debutante Daphne, whose search for a suitor is fortified by a secret deal she makes with the Duke of Hastings. He wants to avoid marriage, so squires her from ball to ball. She wants to marry well, so uses him to boost her profile in society. Inevitably they fall in love but while their story might climax at the end of the book, there remain seven other Bridgertons to marry off. The series runs and runs and, usefully, comes with an ardent fan base.
Quinn immediately agreed to relinquish her creative control. She knew it might be a dealbreaker and wasn't about to let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip.
"I trusted them. I'm not going to tell Shonda Rhimes how to make television. Come on! She knows what she's doing." Quinn was installed as a series consultant and invited to make comments on the scripts. "I still remember when I got that first script, I crawled into bed to read it on my computer, I was kind of giddy and my heart was beating, and it was so good. When they're that good? Easiest consulting job ever."
What happened next is entertainment history. When the eight-episode series premiered at Christmas, Bridgerton reached 82 million households – topping Netflix's viewing chart in 76 countries and ranking among its five most popular original series of all time. It even outrated The Crown.
Netflix quickly greenlit a second season based on the next Bridgerton novel The Viscount Who Loved Me. Last month (April) it confirmed two further seasons in what Quinn describes as an "unprecedented" announcement for the platform. There must have been tears of relief in the boardroom: Netflix is paying Shondaland nine figures for exclusive content, in a mega-deal which itself implied dramatic changes for the TV industry.
Season one made stars of Bridgerton's actors, igniting social media for its ground-breaking creative decisions and benchmarking lavish standards in production design. Everything about it screamed prestige – from its narration by Julie Andrews as the acerbic gossip-columnist Lady Whistledown, to the millions spent on stately locations, original music, artful lighting, floristry and tablescapes groaning with jellies, macarons and glazed hams. The costume department sewed more than 7000 garments and the wig budget must have blown executives' minds.
Showrunner Chris Van Dusen treated the romance genre as seriously as the Scandinavians took noir - and it showed. This was a TV confection, tied up in beautiful ribbons – an American visual fantasy of British history. Viewers binged on every episode, gobbling up the cakes as well as the box they came in.
So why was a show as seemingly light as pavlova such a global smash? Critics cited its inclusive casting, assigning lead roles to Black actors to a degree unusual in British period drama. Here were aristocrats, businesspeople and a monarch of colour, fully occupying their places within a multi-racial London elite.
Others noted the sizzling sex, shot under the guidance of an intimacy co-ordinator and featuring mostly male nudity. The first flash of exposed male buttocks comes three minutes into episode one and there's an eye-popping quantity of pecs, abs and quads to follow. The female gaze has never had this much to look at: plainly, if you had a dollar every time a sculpted man gets out of his breeches in Bridgerton, you could afford a deposit on a house.
In Quinn's view, Bridgerton is the first major TV adaption to stay squarely within the romance genre, respecting its conventions and dedicating itself to the central love story and its conclusion.
"Bridgerton is really set up as the way a romance novel series is set up and that each season is following a book … and you go through the same set of emotions you would have in a romance novel with your characters meeting and then their happy ending.
"You know, people would see the series and so many of them would say something like, 'Wow, I really enjoyed the feelings and the emotional arc I went through. I wonder if there's anything else like that?' And I felt like, that giant noise you heard was a thousand romance authors going, 'YES!'"
Timing was also key to its success, with Bridgerton landing as millions of viewers were locked down at home: "You had this television show which is really at its heart about connection with other human beings. Romantic connection, family connection, friendship connection," says Quinn, explaining that intimacy, kindness and loyalty are rewarded in the story. "I want to make clear that people don't behave perfectly all the time but it's about the power of all that, coming at a time when people are starved for connection."
The show also played unashamedly to women's desires – just as in romance fiction. It's not just about the spunk in the brocade waistcoat, the fashiony costumes and the mansions, although these things are lust-worthy to read about and aspirational to watch. While these stories are so easily laughed at, so endlessly overlooked, the real fantasy they offer women is control. In Bridgerton, Rhimes and Quinn hand women back their authority.
Every female character in the show is working the system to her advantage. Lady Whistledown uses her wits to control society with her anonymous, waspish gossip sheets. Dressmaker Madame Delacroix fakes a French identity to win clients. Queen Charlotte changes fortunes with a kiss or a frown. And Daphne comes into her sexual power to get what she wants: seizing the Duke's joystick, if you like, to dominate the game.
A favourite scene of Quinn's features Lady Violet Bridgerton thinking fast to save her daughter from the scheming Lord Berbrooke. To discredit him, she uses servants to spread an embarrassing story around town.
"I really like, in the series but not in the book, where Violet says, 'We're going to do what women do. We're going to talk.' It's basically like, we're going to weaponise this thing that men make fun of us for, for good. And she's turning it around. I love that."
Quinn could really be talking about herself. Romance fiction is bigger business than ever thanks to "the Bridgerton effect". Sales are skyrocketing and she knows from industry contacts that there's been an uptick in movie deals for contemporary romance. It's a hopeful time for romance writers as the culture industry wakes up to what it's missed: "I think people didn't realise what an audience there would be," she says. In retrospect, "It should have been a no-brainer."
Quinn anticipates "a banner year in my household" for sales. When pestered she confirms that her romance-writing career has indeed made her a millionaire. The Viscount Who Loved Me is a category bestseller in The New York Times and Amazon charts, despite being 20 years old. All her Bridgerton novels are newly reissued with redesigned covers. She's expecting to see the new season's scripts any day now and hopes to visit the set again when the show goes back into production. And everyone from Vanity Fair to Good Morning America is bugging her agent for interviews.
Ever alert to the arc of a good story, Quinn is squarely in the middle of one – and she wrote it herself. But, as in romance novels, the strange pull of destiny played a part. "It's kind of crazy to think my life was transformed because Shonda Rhimes didn't bring enough books with her on vacation."
Bridgerton is returning for season two, on Netflix. Fans may have to wait until 2022 to see what happens next.
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