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Special guest blog from Rupert

5th December 2008

For anyone who has filled their car with petrol over the last year and baulked at the bill, I can set your mind at rest: the price was worth paying. Of course, that’s with the exception of the share taken by western governments, who fritter it on usele …

I don’t want your freedom….

4th December 2008

So I missed ‘Freedom’ because we were keen to leave the concert before everyone else in case of a two-hour traffic jam. Actually I forgot to mention that Alicia Keys played before George, she was truly incredible, I liked her almost more. Especially wh …

Older than the hills

1st December 2008

Tomorrow is the UAE’s birthday. It is 37 years old. That makes me older than the country I am living in. Kind of makes you think. How often does that happen to a person I wonder? The whole city is lit up like a Christmas tree. There are cars completely …

A different world

26th November 2008

It seems like a different world to the one we arrived in. When I first had to have documents translated from French to Arabic by an official translator it felt like an insurmountable task. Find the translator (there is only one in Abu Dhabi which trans …

It’s a girl!

23rd November 2008

So Wasta (pictured) is a girl, and she is now called Chloe, which suits her well. She seems to be settling in well, and has helped the children to settle down too. They are a lot happier I am pleased to report and have not mentioned moving back again. …

We have wasta

20th November 2008

Wasta is what you need to get ahead in the Middle East. It can best be translated as connections or influence. Yesterday as Rupert and I were walking to lunch a tiny black and white kitten literally threw itself in my path and started miaowing at me.  …

Heaven knows we’re miserable now…

18th November 2008

This was the conversation on the way to school today. Olivia: “Mummy, I don’t want to tell you this but I have to tell you something.” I assumed Bea had eaten my lip gloss or Leo had been wearing my bras. But it was worse. “We want to go home to France …

Faking it

17th November 2008

One of these bags costs Dh2,650, the other just Dh120 – the decision should be easy. But what would a cheap imitation say about you? Helena Frith Powell reports. For three weeks Claire has been waiting to buy a new handbag. She finally gets paid and, n …

The National

17th November 2008

It’s raining for once….

16th November 2008

After almost four months of constant sunshine the children and I were amazed this morning when we walked out of the house and got soaked. At first I assumed someone was washing the terrace, which would be an odd thing to do at 7.30 in the morning, but …

Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group. She writes a beauty blog wwwbeautyorbeast.uk.

Her third novel, The Arnolfini Marriage, based on a romance that evolves around a van Eyck masterpiece came out in 2016. As well as writing regularly for newspapers and magazines, Helena is also working on a thriller called Welcome to Sweden that will be published in spring 2018. Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and came out in paperback in April 2018.

Helena was educated at Durham University and lived in the Languedoc region of France for eight years, where the family still have a home. She lives between there and London with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

Welcome to Sweden; Gibson Square summer 2018

 

© 2018 Helena Frith Powell
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