It is a truth universally acknowledged that the life of a romance novelist is far from easy, especially if she specializes in period pieces. Because on the one hand, her heroines are modest, wise, and kind, coming from the middle class – so that readers will easily identify with them – there needs to be an explanation as to how they get to be the ones to land an insanely rich and handsome husband, who also happens to have a host of other virtues.
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In "Romancing Mister Bridgerton," the fourth book in the Bridgerton series, on which the upcoming third Netflix series season is based, author Julia Quinn goes to great effort to give such an explanation. The protagonist –Penelope Featherington – starts out as a shy, insecure, and ineligible bachelorette living in the marriage-minded high society of 19th-century London.
She is, however, also Lady Whistledown – a popular and admired anonymous writer of a social pamphlet detailing the gossip of "the ton." Throughout her journey, she becomes more confident and stands up for herself and what she deserves as well as wins the love of Colin Bridgerton, the third brother in the Bridgerton family. A usual happy ending love story.
"I identify with Penelope," Quinn, 53, said in a Zoom interview with Israel Hayom, speaking from her home in Seattle, where she lives with her husband and two children. "A lot of it has to do with the way I felt as a girl. That feeling of knowing who you are inside but not knowing how to be that person on the outside. Penelope knows her worth, but she doesn't know how to project it outward. I think many women can relate to this. After the book came out readers said to me, 'Oh my God, Penelope is me!'"
Medicine was Quinn's first career choice, and she even began to study at the prestigious Yale School of Medicine but quickly realized that being a romance writer was a better fit for her. The risk paid off and Quinn is now a successful writer, having sold over 16,000 copies in the United States alone, with her works having been translated into 41 languages. But her greatest achievement has, of course, been the Netflix adaptation of the Bridgerton series, which has become some of the most viewed in the streaming service's history.
Although considered by some to be an "inferior" genre, the romance novels piqued the curiosity of no other than producer and screenwriter Shonda Rhimes, who is famous for the medical drama "Grey's Anatomy' and the political thriller "Scandal," among others.
Video: A very fabulous party - Hollywood strikers channel 'Bridgerton' in Los Angeles / Reuters
Rhimes came across the books while on vacation as she was going through an acute shortage of reading materials. She could not put the book down, and the rest is history. Rhimes immediately knew she was going to adapt the novels to the big screen, and indeed Bridgerton seasons one and two are in the second and third most-watched Netflix series ever.
"I was at Starbucks with my computer, I was working," Quinn recalls the fateful moment she was contacted about the adaptation "My agent called me and said, 'Do you know who Shonda Rhimes is?' And I immediately answered: 'Yes!'. He said, 'I just had an interesting conversation with her representatives, they are wondering if the rights to the series are available. Are you interested in selling them? And I screamed, 'I can't believe you actually thought you had to call me! Call them back right away and tell them yes, yes!'
"It was like thunder on a clear day. We didn't offer the books for sale, and why would we? After all, at the time, no one bought the rights to adapt romance novels, and there was no reason to think that this would ever happen. It was only 'Outlander' at the time and one can debate whether that's part of the genre at all. Until less than a decade ago – if Hollywood wanted to make a romantic comedy, they wrote it themselves, and if they wanted to make a period piece, they took a Jane Austin novel. I guess at the time they thought that if they adapted a romance novel, people would look down on it and no one would take it seriously, right? But Shonda took it seriously."
Q: Did you understand the significance at the time? That you essentially won the lottery?
"Oh, I realized that I won the lottery, that's for sure. But I didn't really know how big it would get. It wasn't until it came out that I realized that I had won the mega lottery. I knew that it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, not only for me but also for my colleagues, and I promised myself that I wouldn't do anything to spoil it. I really said to myself, 'I'm going to be the most fun person to work with, they'll like me and want to work with me on more books'. I really wanted that."
Q: And did you feel a special responsibility of being the first author to make the romance novel genre mainstream?
"I don't know if I felt a responsibility, but I was aware of it. I knew that most of the control over how successful it would be was not with me, because I handed over the creative control to 'Shondaland' [Shonda Rhimes' production company]. But I did feel a certain pressure, just knowing that if this thing fails, it might never happen again."
Q: Did you have a hard time relinquishing control like that?
"No, in any case, I'm not the type of writer who stays up late at night and ruminates about their characters. When I finish my work and close my computer – I'm done. It's not my whole world. And regardless, 'Shondaland' know how to make good television, I don't. I know how to write books. One of the smartest things you can do in life is to realize when other people are smarter than you in certain things and let them hold the reins, and that's what I did."
"I can't believe this is my life"
Rhimes not only began to adapt the Bridgerton novels to film but expanded it with a prequel, "Queen Charlotte," which was viewed 47 seven million times within the first week of its release.
"It's crazy! Absolutely crazy! In the United States and Canada, there are themed events, like you're at a ball. Like you've entered the world of Bridgerton for one night. Suddenly there's merchandise!" Quinn said with excitement, pulling out a bag with the logo of "Queen Charlotte."
"Every day I say, 'Wow, I can't believe this is my life.' Before the series came out, my sister jokingly said to me, 'Imagine if they did a sketch about it on Saturday Night Live,' and then they did a sketch about it on Saturday Night Live! I couldn't even imagine it."
In "Queen Charlotte," Rhimes and her team made a bold decision to reimagine history, in particular, 19th century England with black nobles, including the queen herself. This change allowed for a truly diverse cast, even though it is technically a period novel. Another bold decision was to transfer the sex scenes from the book to the screen as is. In the third season, which is expected to be released at the end of 2023, Rhimes takes it a step further.
"In the book, Penelope loses about seven kilos [15 pounds] before the plot begins, and there were those who criticized me for it. They said I shouldn't have done it. But even after Penelope lost weight, she remained plus size, she is still worried about her weight. There is a moment in the book where she says: 'I don't need to eat another muffin with jam!' There will be trolls on the internet who will say something about this. There have already been some, and Nicola [Coughlan who plays Penelope] really suffered from harsh statements and left Twitter because of them. But I believe in it and think it turned out great."
"A different kind of sex"
One of the pillars of the series, certainly in the first seasons, is – of course – the explicit sex scenes that oftentimes garnered a disproportionate amount of attention, but perhaps were no different than many other series.
When asked what she thinks about this, Quinn said it was "simply because the scenes were filmed from a female perspective and are focused on the woman and her pleasure.
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"These are intimate scenes, between people who care about each other. In movies and on TV we often see sex scenes that revolve around anger, revenge, and power dynamic. In Bridgerton there were those too, but most of the time it's a different kind of sex, and I think the media didn't know how to approach it. They started to laugh at it or say how rude and blatant these scenes are. But the truth is, we just did it differently from the rest, and people aren't used to watching sex scenes that look like that."
Q: But even in romance novels, which are usually written by women, we can sometimes see non-consensual relations or inappropriate male behavior.
"True. Consent is one of the important issues in romance novels today, but it's hard to always find the balance in historical novels – because people's thinking was so different in the past. People are really upset that in [the first book] 'The Duke and I,' Simon tells Daphne 'You belong to me!' But it's true. That's how it was then.
"I do think it's something that we must present as correctly as possible because readers have already told me that they didn't know they deserved to be treated a certain way until they read the books.
"There is no doubt that we have helped women and people understand that they deserve a healthy relationship. Therefore, to the extent that these books can set an example, that would be great. I can't think of anything that in hindsight I would not have written, but today I am definitely aware of it and thinking about it more".
