Mrs Quinn is the unlikely star of Britain’s favourite baking show, but could her newfound stardom cause her biggest secret to unravel?

Jennifer Quinn has a secret. Her love of baking has just won her a spot as a contestant on a primetime TV show. It’s only the second time in fifty-nine years that she’s kept something from her beloved husband Bernard.

She’s about to be whisked into an unfamiliar world of cameras, timed challenges and celebrity judges. She could be in with a chance of being crowned the best baker in Britain.

But, as Mrs Quinn’s quiet ambitions turn into unexpected stardom, the other secret she’s been keeping is in danger of resurfacing. It was supposed to stay hidden forever.

Will Mrs Quinn rise to the challenge? Or, will her success become a recipe for disaster?

In Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame, we meet Jenny Quinn who is in her 70s and has been happily married to her husband Bernard for fifty-nine years.

Jenny has such a passion for baking and loves to watch all the cookery shows on TV, especially Britain Bakes. She decides to step out of her comfort zone and do something different with her life and secretly applies for the TV show thinking nothing will come of it, and she certainly hasn’t told her husband Bernard what she has done.

When she gets the call to go for an audition and then gets accepted to appear on the show, Jenny very quickly is thrust into the limelight without any warning and this soon opens up old wounds, memories, and secrets that she has kept hidden since she was a young woman.

Can Jenny get her happy ending or has this stirred up things that were best left hidden?

Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame is such an enjoyable and beautiful story, especially as Olivia Ford has incorporated recipes in the chapters that were connected to Jenny’s past and secrets.

The characters were all relatable and it was hard not to fall in love with Jenny Quinn as we watched her grow and gain in confidence. Jenny reminds us that anything is possible at any age and you just have to go for it. This is a fabulous story that I enjoyed from cover to cover.

Olivia Ford has spent the last ten years in entertainment TV, most recently as a story producer. Olivia is a graduate of the Faber Academy where she wrote the beginnings of Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame, which was longlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize Trust’s Discoveries Prize. Raised in Lincolnshire, Olivia now lives in London.