Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame

Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame is the debut novel by British author Olivia Ford, who spent most of her career as a story producer on reality television. The novel follows 77-year-old Jenny Quinn, whose unexpected success on a reality baking competition television show called British Bakes uncovers shameful secrets from her past. As Jenny navigates the challenges of filming and fame, her family and friends help her to rediscover her potential and achieve her dreams. Major themes in the novel include The Connection Between Food, Memory, and Love, The Importance of Intergenerational Relationships, and The Mistreatment of Pregnant Women and Girls in the 20th Century.

This guide refers to the 2024 Viking e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, and rape.

Plot Summary

In the Prologue, a teenager named Jenny copies recipes into a cookbook while imagining celebrating future Christmases with a child. Sixty years later, 77-year-old Jennifer Quinn considers applying for Britain Bakes, a popular baking competition television show. She decides not to tell her husband, Bernard, until she is accepted, marking only the second time she has lied to him in their nearly 60 years of marriage.

Jenny takes advantage of the Christmas season to bake and photograph a mountain of desserts for her application packet. She and Bernard spend Christmas in London with their niece Rose, daughter of Bernard’s late sister Margot. Although Jenny loves spending time with Rose’s family, it is also a painful reminder of what she and Bernard never had, and of their age. Jenny worries that Bernard will be hurt by her decision to pursue a new dream beyond their home.

Two weeks after applying, Jenny is selected to interview with the producers of Britain Bakes in London. Unfortunately, Bernard has agreed to spend the same day with Rose’s daughter Poppy in London. Jenny lies to Bernard about where she is going, promising to meet him and Poppy later. At the interview, she meets fellow potential contestants, including the kind-hearted Azeez, who helps her redecorate a fallen cake. The next day, Jenny overhears Bernard confiding to Rose that he believes Jenny is hiding an illness from him.

While hosting neighbors Ann and Fred for Valentine’s Day, Jenny misses a call from the Britain Bakes producers and is forced to reveal the truth to Bernard when he hears the voicemail message. Although frustrated by the lie, he quickly forgives her and is delighted when she is officially cast in the show. However, Jenny begins to have doubts when she feels awkward in front of the cameras while filming her introductory scenes at home with Bernard. She gains more confidence when her niece Rose takes her shopping, and Rose’s son Max sets up social media accounts to promote her.

Interspersed with the primary narrative are a series of flashbacks revealing that, at age 16, Jenny was seduced by 30-year-old Ray Smith, the married son of her first employer. Jenny became pregnant after Ray convinced her to have unprotected sex, preying on her naivete. When Jenny revealed the pregnancy to Ray, he told her that she had no proof the baby was his, and that he wanted nothing to do with her.

Devastated, Jenny kept the pregnancy a secret from everyone but her father, who encouraged her to have the baby in secret and place it for adoption. Jenny was sent to a mother and baby home, where she lived with other unmarried mothers waiting to have their babies. Desperate to share some part of herself with her baby, a boy she named James, Jenny wrote him a cookbook of family recipes. Six weeks after giving birth, Jenny and the baby were separated, devastating her. Weeks later, she met and fell in love with Bernard.

In the present, Jenny and Bernard share an emotional goodbye as she begins her first week of filming Britain Bakes. She struggles to adjust to living without him but has a successful first day at the Stables, the show’s iconic countryside filming location. She is named one of the top two bakers and chosen to compete for the coveted “golden whisk,” which makes her exempt from elimination the following week. Although she loses the challenge, she makes it through to the following week.

In the second week of competition, Jenny’s chocolate teacakes and brandy snaps help her secure the golden whisk. Jenny’s baking successes bring up memories of her past and give her the confidence to reveal the secret of her pregnancy to Bernard. Before she can, however, he is hospitalized with pneumonia while she is on set. Jenny quits the show to help Bernard’s recovery, and in her absence, another contestant, Sorcha, wins patisserie week, defeating Azeez in the Blind Bake Challenge.

At Bernard’s insistence, Rose contacts Carys, one of the producers, who agrees to let Jenny return to the show because the golden whisk would have protected her from elimination during the week she missed. Rose agrees to stay with Bernard and care for him while Jenny competes. Jenny is a surprise success in bread week, reaching the Blind Bake Challenge but ultimately losing to Azeez. Success with a donut recipe in the semi-finals secures Jenny a place in the finals of Britain Bakes. In the leadup to the final, producers interview Bernard and Ann, who both share their immense pride in Jenny.

Jenny’s gingerbread picnic basket collapses in the Britain Bakes Final, and Azeez is crowned champion. As producers interview her about family recipes, Jenny is overwhelmed by memories of placing her son for adoption. After filming, she decides to post about her experiences in a Facebook group for parents hoping to be reunited with children who were adopted into other families. She believes her post to be anonymous. Minutes before being interviewed on national radio, however, Jenny learns that the post was not anonymous, and reporters have picked up the story.

Although he is hurt that Jenny hid her most painful secret from him, Bernard encourages Jenny to try to contact her son and promises to support her no matter what happens. The couple celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary surrounded by family and friends, including Azeez and his partner.

A few months later, while signing copies of a Britain Bakes cookbook, Jenny is approached by a man holding the book she wrote for her son over six decades earlier. The man is revealed to be Andrew, her grandson, who realized that Jenny might be his father’s birth mother when he recognized her bakes and name from his father’s family cookbook. As the novel ends, Jenny and William are reunited at Andrew’s home.