The first time I connected with Taylor was nearly a year ago. I reached out over email to include her on a piece I’d written for Black Ballad on the renaissance of the romance genre and the Black women leading it.

Now, as we chat battling poor Internet signal (I’m sat in a rowdy Kenyan restaurant, phone to ear) we are mere weeks away from the journalist making her debut. I’m not the only one with frantic energy at the start of the call though; Taylor’s just come back from getting her hair done.

She shakes her glossy curls from side to side with an impish smile. “I was almost late but I wasn’t even at work or doing anything productive like you. I was just at the salon. I was like to my hair lady ‘Hurry it up, I’ve got to do an interview!’”

Has it sunk in yet, that she’s about to have her book out there officially?