helena frith powell

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Category: writing

Dear Diary

5th February 2018

I am reading, well listening to, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Part of the novel is told in diary form. The protagonist not only tells the story by means of her diary, but she goes back into her diaries to confirm facts or assess feelings she h …

Trouble with truffles

1st November 2017

As it’s the truffle season I am posting a story I wrote about that magical ingredient set in Rome. It is inspired by one of my favourite short stories called Roman Fever by Edith Wharton. Enjoy the season!  Ruth stands on the corner of Via Margutta. It …

Style and the art of writing in France

25th July 2017

Helena Frith Powell moves beyond beauty and chick-lit with her latest novel – and tells Jessica Knipe how moving to France has changed her life forever Matching bra and knickers – check. Daytime-appropriate lipgloss – check. Driving through the picture …

Happy Birthday dear Biologico

30th November 2015

Today is my father’s birthday. Or at least it would have been, but he died in January 2014. I didn’t really know him until I was a teenager. My mother and he split up when I was two. She and I moved to Sweden then England and we had no contact with him …

What to wear, or not to wear?

9th January 2015

I am back at Viva Mayr for the first time since 2008. I landed late last night and have woken up to a snow-covered landscape. The staff all wear white, thus matching the surroundings. In fact some of the clients are in white too, but you can tell they …

Intriguing secrets of Lady Luxe

8th December 2012

When an online novel, Desperate In Dubai, hit the internet last year, it immediately attracted thousands of dedicated readers, all even more desperate than its characters to know what happens next. Helena Frith Powell talks to its anonymous author abou …

Unacustomed as I am to public speaking…

27th November 2012

Tomorrow I have a terrifying task to perform. At 2pm I am to stand up in front of the WHOLE of Leo’s year at school and give a speech about what it’s like being a journalist. Nothing, not even my first appearance on Richard & Judy, or walking up th …

Tim Butcher, writing war’s wrongs

8th November 2012

Tim Butcher has joined a project that draws attention to the plight of young women across the globe by writing a story of abuse and degradation in Sierra Leone – where he went to banish some of his own demons. Helena Frith Powell reports. “Do you know …

Interview with Nawal El Saadawi

10th October 2012

Nawal El Saadawi has returned to Cairo where intends to stay until she dies. Not that she feels particularly at home there. “Home is not about where I am. I would not call Cairo home. I feel at home wherever I meet people I feel at home with,” she tell …

50 Shades of Frustration

7th August 2012

I used to say there is nothing as dangerous as a frustrated author. I should know, because I used to be one. I could barely stand to hear about someone who had had their book published, it would send me into a frenzy of jealousy and frustrated angst. N …

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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 is out in hardback and will be out in paperback in January 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 in 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 January 2018

Welcome to Sweden; Gibson Square spring 2018

 

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