Quinn grew up in a bookish household, mainly in New England, and wrote her first novel at 12 during the school summer holidays. Jane Austen, surprisingly, isn’t a key influence on her writing, rather Georgette Heyer. 

During an exchange year studying at a boarding school in Gloucestershire, Quinn devoured piles of Heyer’s mid-20th century Regency romances and continued to write through her teens. A ‘science geek’, she got her first publishing deal the month she was due to start medical school and never looked back. 

Does she never think ‘what if?’ ‘Not really. I’m married to a doctor. I know exactly what I’m missing.’ Paul Pottinger, her husband of 25 years and father of their two children, is an infectious diseases specialist so has been performing a crucial public service of a different kind this past 18 months.

In her 25-year career, Quinn’s written 47 books, including novellas and co-writes. Although many have been bestsellers, she’s acutely aware of the snobbery and sexism aimed at her genre: ‘Historical romance is written almost completely by women, almost completely for women. It gets looked down upon because it’s about feelings. 

One of the nicest compliments I ever got was, “She makes it look easy.” It’s not necessarily easy to make something look easy. And just because something is smooth to read doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. There’s incredible value in reading for pleasure.’

Besides, she’s too busy laughing all the way to the bank these days to care much for the barbs. ‘Obviously there’s a greater financial security than we’ve had before,’ she says. ‘It’s funny, my husband went into work after the show launched and his colleagues said, “Are you quitting? Are you guys going off to buy an island?”’ Is she? ‘I like Seattle, we’re good!’