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Welcome to my blog
My name is Helen Carey. I am the author of a number of novels (see menu above), some of which have managed to creep into the best-seller category! If you haven’t read them already, I hope you will enjoy them.
I have taught creative writing at university level and have, in the past, worked as a reader for a literary agent. I am also a bit of an artist and an avid environmentalist! I live in beautiful Pembrokeshire on a small organic farm which my husband and I run as a wildlife haven. Also living with us is a rather large dog who had spent ten years on a chain in Greece before we found her and brought her back to Wales.
I don’t post very often, but you will find pieces here about my books, my writing, my reading, my art, and sometimes about other elements of my life. I hope you will find something to interest you.
Please feel free to get in touch via the comments tab if I can answer any writing or reading questions. Or if you would like news of my upcoming book, a brand-new wartime adventure, click here.
With all best wishes, Helen
Happy Christmas
To all my lovely friends and readers,
I hope you are all ready for Christmas and are looking forward to some jolly festivities and a relaxing break (although I know the latter is sometimes quite difficult to achieve!)
I’m sorry I have been remiss on my posts recently. My excuse it that 2023 was a busy year for us one way and another. A mixture of lovely highs, sad lows, and a surprising number of mildly irritating and time-consuming things to deal with in the middle! Normal life, I suppose!
Nevertheless, it has been a fruitful year for me on the writing front, with one new book finished, and another well on the way. In fact, I completed Chapter Eleven of my current project only yesterday. I wanted to get half way through in time for Christmas, and I just made it!
I’m hoping that both these books will come out this year, more news about that soon … plus you can sign up for further details at www.helencareybooks.co.uk
In the meantime, I would like to wish you a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.
With all best wishes, Helen, Marc and Hera (the dog!)
Loss
Three weeks ago, we lost Marc’s beloved mother, my wonderful mother-in law, MumJune. Not only was she an entirely unique, extraordinary person, tiny but unbelievably feisty, she was also a huge fan of my books, (and of me, altogether, come to that!)
As well as the inevitable sense of loss, I am particularly sad that the suddenness of her death meant she missed the chance to read my upcoming novel, the start of a brand-new wartime series, which is currently trundling through the publication process, and will be coming out next year. I know she was looking forward to it, partly perhaps because it contains a few elements drawn from her own life.
The full story of MumJune’s life would, in fact, make a fascinating novel. It spanned 92 years, and was well lived, full of variety, emotion and adventure. The very best sort.
I just hope that my new novel, when it finally appears, will do honour to her memory!
Getting back to work
It is a long time since I last posted on here. Big apologies to anyone who has looked for posts, but I haven’t been writing for a couple of years and I just haven’t got round to it!! Lazy, I know, but somehow other things have filled the gap. I have read more, watched more films, done more crosswords, cooked more (including some fantastic world street food recipes!), and Marc and I have been learning Portuguese, (480 consecutive days on Duolingo and I can now say, with confidence, that there is a large shark residing under the table!)
Also the pandemic made us realize what a privilege it is to live in this corner of beautiful Pembrokeshire. We have relished our land (we have planted 100 baby trees to add to the 400 we planted 8 years ago,) we have turned our garden into a wildlife haven, (this year we have newts and toad spawn in our old bath tub pond), and we have watched Hera, our Greek rescue dog become jollier and jollier as she runs around our fields.
So now things are slowly returning to normal, whatever that is. Or are they? Just as we feel the Covid threat has lifted, we have major new problems confronting us. The idiotic Brexit decision continues to cause difficulties here in the UK, businesses are struggling, the issues over Northern Ireland’s status rumble dangerously on, a rapidly rising cost of living is making actual living very hard for many. Even holiday makers are facing problems, flights being cancelled, huge queues at airports and ferry terminals due to lack of staff, and extra security checks (all due to Brexit). Our government is in disarray, led by someone clearly unfit for office. We can no longer move or trade freely with our closest neighbors. And all this, just when Europe is needing to pull together to stand up to Vladimir Putin.
Suddenly, horribly, it doesn’t feel a million miles away from 1930’s Europe when Adolf Hitler was beginning his murderous rampage. The death and destruction, the refugees, the privations, the hard decisions, the political vacillation, the ominous threat of escalation. This has inevitably led me to think about my Lavender Road books, and about all the fascinating research I did then. There are so many parallels, and so many stories I didn’t use at that time.
So, I am beginning to think about writing another series. I have already done some outlining and some extra research, and I think I might have found some interesting characters and themes to pursue!
I can’t promise that it will be soon though as I plan to do the bulk of the writing next winter when we will probably be back in hibernation! But maybe, just maybe, there will be something else for you to read next year!!
Happy Christmas
Hello to all my friends and readers. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while, I have been having a little rest from book promotion, but I do want to thank you all for continuing to buy my books, for all the wonderful messages I receive, and most of all I want to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and all good things for 2022.
It now looks as though we are about to enter a new lockdown here in the UK, our government is a complete mess, and we still have the awful effects of Brexit to deal with, but I am ever hopeful that this horrific period of turmoil will end, and then there will be new lovely things to look forward to …. possibly including a new wartime series from me! I have (what I think) is a good idea and I have done some research, now I just need to summon the energy to write it all down!
I’m making no promises, but whether it comes to fruition or not, I still want to wish you all the very best for 2022 and lots of Happy Reading.
Helen Carey
EMPTY SPACES. Dedicated to Dot (Dorothy) and Harry Mordey.
Happy New Year
What a year the world has had! For Marc and me here in Wales is has been perfectly bearable because we are lucky enough to live in a beautiful place, with our own land around us and plenty of walks from the door. Our local shops have all risen to the occasion by delivering food, and so we have hardly had to leave our own terrain. In an odd way we have almost enjoyed the enforced idleness and peace and quiet. without the usual run of visitors, But although on the surface we have been ok, for us as for so many, underneath there has been sadness and anxiety and a horrible grief as various friends and family members have passed away during the year, some from Covid and some from other causes.
I don’t quite know why but the whole situation, the total mismanagement of Covid by the UK government, my distress about the prospect of leaving the EU and the awful xenophobia that Brexit has brought to the surface in this country, has sapped my creativity and although I do have a nice idea for a new wartime series, I just haven’t so far felt like putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard!)
But now here we are at the end of the year, with 2021 just over the horizon. I wonder what it will bring. For now the situation in the UK is dire, the infections rate has got out of control, the deaths are rocketing again, the vast majority of people (including us) are locked down, and although the vaccines are becoming available it is going to take a lot of time for them to be rolled out successfully. But at least there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
One of the lovely things that has happened for me this year is that I have received more than usual numbers of messages from readers saying that they have found reassurance and comfort from my books, that even in the darkest times people can find the strength and resilience to persevere and overcome.
Perhaps in 2021 the world will settle down again, the US elections have already brought some sanity, and there has been an upsurge of kindness in local communities worldwide. As was shown during the Second World War the situation has brought out the best in many people (although sadly not all!), and once again perhaps, if the good forces can prevail over the bad, we might be on the way towards building a kinder, more tolerant society. That at least would be my fervent hope. That is certainly what Winston Churchill hoped when he laid the foundations for a united Europe.
In the meantime I thank you all for your continued support, and wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year.
Stay safe ….
Helen x
Veterans
As so many remembrances are lacking this year due to the continuing virus restrictions, I thought it would be nice to share this poem written by my lovely husband, Marc Mordey.
Stay safe
Hello everyone and greetings from sunny Pembrokeshire.
How quickly things change! Since I last posted on this site, the whole world has changed.
I am not going to draw comparisons with the war, although it is tempting to do so, but I am going to say how interesting it is to see how different people react to the crisis. I have often said in these posts that one of the things novelists often try to do is to force their characters into difficult circumstances, because then you can see their true nature emerge.
Well, we are certainly in difficult circumstances now! And we are watching our medics, nurses, carers, shop assistants, police, and many others rise valiantly to the occasion, risking their lives to help others. For the rest of us, the only way we can help is by staying at home. It seems so little to ask, but it is amazing (or is it?) how many people seem reluctant to do it, feeling that they, for some reason, are exempt. Others are vociferous in their determination to rail against the incarceration.
Yes, it is hard, and clearly, depending on circumstances, harder for some than others. To take an example from my Lavender Road series, it would have been unbearable for Joyce Carter to have been locked down with her abusive husband, Stanley, for a few days, let alone weeks on end. (But she definitely would have done it if it had helped defeat Hitler!)
For most of us, a bit of enforced idleness is bearable. I am sure we can do it. We have to do it, if this hideous virus is to be defeated.
So all I can do is wish you well, and hope that you can stay happy and safe for the duration.
And if anyone wants to ask me questions about my books, writing, reading, or indeed about anything else, or if you just need a friend to communicate with, or someone to boost your morale, to then do get in touch, I am not going anywhere, and it would be a pleasure to help.
Helen xx
Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas from one happy dog!
First of all a big apology to my blog followers and friends for the dearth of posts this year. Since I finished writing Victory Girls, the last novel in my wartime Lavender Road series, and since our little dog Maisie died in September 2018, we have been mostly away, travelling the world!
We have had an amazing year of adventures, culminating in a road trip to the island of Kythira in Greece (where Marc and I met 19 years ago!) to bring back a very sad dog we had found there in the summer. She was chained up in the middle of nowhere, all on her own, very dirty and uncared-for, and seemed so pathetically pleased to see us that we felt we had to do something about her.
It’s a long story, and took a lot of organizing, but our lovely Greek friends on the island helped enormously by arranging for us to have her, keeping her in an outbuilding, and taking her to the vet for inoculations so she could have a passport ready for her trip back to the UK once the weather was cooler. They named her Hera, and we have decided to stick with that. So in September, as soon as we had got back from a 3000 mile trip round North west USA and Canada (wonderful!), Marc and I loaded the car with every piece of dog paraphernalia we could think of (Hera wasn’t house trained and we had no idea how she would cope with the journey) and set off to fetch her.
Hera as we first saw her in July
The trip lasted a month and turned out to be just over 5000 miles long. By now we had discovered that Hera had originally been owned by a bird hunter who had beaten her for being frightened of the guns. By the time we found her she had been on that chain for 10 years.
To our amazement, right from the start she loved the car, she behaved impeccably in the hotels we stayed in on the way home, and enjoyed the various walks we managed in a range of locations (mainly trying to avoid the attentions of local street dogs!) She is now settling well to life in Wales and we are delighted with her!
Wishing you all a very peaceful Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!
Helen x
D-Day
As the 75th anniversary of D-Day approaches, I thought I would post a small section of my novel THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET which takes place on the morning of 6 June 1944.
At five o’clock on the morning of the 6th of June, Louise jerked awake to the sound of planes overhead.
At first she thought it must be an air raid and she was going to have to decamp to the cellar, but there were no sirens blaring, and in any case, German bombers invariably came in from the east or south-east. These planes sounded as though they were travelling in the opposite direction.
And then she heard her mother’s footstep outside her door.
‘Louise, are you awake?’
Louise got out of bed and opened the door. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I think it’s started,’ her mother said. She sounded breathless. Turning off the landing light, she went straight to the window and opened the blackout curtains. ‘Yes,’ she whispered in awe. ‘Look.’
Louise joined her at the window. It was still dark, but for the first time in nearly a week, the sky was clear, and as her eyes acclimatised, she saw a mass of shapes slowly moving overhead. West to east. Towards the coast. Towards France.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. She put a hand to her mouth. The planes were almost wingtip to wingtip, many towing gliders. They were all painted in black and white stripes, presumably to aid recognition among inexperienced Allied troops, and to prevent incidents of so-called friendly fire.
As she watched them in amazement, she couldn’t help thinking of the thousands of young men on board. And of the ones presumably even now heading out across the Channel, or perhaps already struggling off landing craft on dark French beaches. Young men like Moses and Ben, and the Carter boys. What were they thinking now?
Suddenly it all seemed terribly real. The campaigns in North Africa and Italy had been so far away. This was here. This was now. And nobody knew how strong the German resistance would be, what carnage would ensue, how many lives would be cut short. Today. Tomorrow. However long it took.
She felt tears springing to her eyes and saw that her mother was similarly affected. Suddenly they were holding hands. Then somehow Louise was in her arms. As she clung to her mother, feeling the bony shape of her shoulder, smelling the perm in her hair, she realised it was probably the first time they had embraced since she was a child.
‘What do we do now?’ she whispered.
Celia drew in a long, shuddering breath. ‘I think the best thing we can do,’ she said, ‘is to go downstairs and make a cup of tea.’
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET is the 5th book in Helen Carey’s best selling Lavender Road series. For more information about Helen or her novels, please click the page links above or visit her website at www.helencareybooks.co.uk
