Helen Bianchin

Helen Bianchin worked as a legal secretary in her native New Zealand, then spent two years travelling and working in various parts of Australia. She met and married her Italian-born husband in the tobacco farming town of Mareeba, North Queensland, where she cooked for seasonal workers, helped out on the farm, and took care of hundreds of chickens, as well as several ducks and turkeys. Should she mention she also had to kill, clean and prepare poultry for the table? Three years of hailstorms and crop losses resulted in a lifestyle change, and Helen returned to New Zealand with her husband and their daughter, where they added two sons to their family. Encouraged by a friend who enjoyed numerous anecdotes of Helen's life as a tobacco farmer's wife, the tentative idea of romance novel emerged. "Write what you know" … So Helen created an Italian-born hero who owned a prosperous tobacco farm, meshing fact with fiction and authenticity! Six years after her first book was published, Helen and her family returned to Australia to settle in south-east Queensland where they currently reside. Their three children and four grandchildren live close by. Helen's interests include a love of reading, going to the movies, and watching selected television programs. She also enjoys catching up with friends, usually over a long lunch! A lover of animals, especially cats, at present count she owns a grey Himalayan Persian, a Birman, as well as a Maltese terrier.