Frances Quinn grew up in London and read English at King's College, Cambridge, realising too late that the course would require more than lying around reading novels for three years. After snatching a degree from the jaws of laziness, she became a journalist, writing for magazines including Prima, Good Housekeeping, She, Woman's Weekly and Ideal Home, and later branched out into copywriting, producing words for everything from Waitrose pizza packaging to the EasyJet in-flight brochure.

In 2013, she won a place on the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course, and started work on her first novel, The Smallest Man. That Bonesetter Woman was published in 2022 and The Lost Passenger in 2025.

She lives in Brighton, with her husband and two Tonkinese cats.