Julia Quinn

Julia Quinn is an American author widely credited with helping define the modern historical romance genre, best known for the Bridgerton series, which follows the eight adult children of a wealthy Regency-era London family as each finds love across a linked sequence of novels beginning with The Duke and I in 2000. The series became a global phenomenon after Netflix and Shondaland adapted it as Bridgerton, beginning in 2020, introducing Quinn's Regency world — witty banter, matchmaking mothers, and the anonymous gossip-sheet writer Lady Whistledown — to a vastly larger television audience. New readers can start either with The Duke and I, which the Netflix series' first season adapts, or pick up any Bridgerton sibling's book largely independently, since each is built around its own romantic pairing while sharing the same family and social world. Quinn had already established herself as a bestselling romance novelist for years before the adaptation, with other series including the Smythe-Smith Quartet, and continues to write new Bridgerton-world fiction, including books following the family's next generation.