What next?

by 9 Comments  

I know I only just finished the latest novel, but I am thinking about the next one. There are a few options I would love your thoughts on.
Option One: Ciao Bella in novel form, modelled on Bonjour Tristesse, obviously not the same as Ciao Bella, but with similar themes and of course the central character of my Dante-reading, opera-obsessed and womanising father.
Option Two: Another chick-lit, this time with a strong tennis theme. Central characters include Rafa and Roger types but they hate each other, think Jake the gypsy and Rupert Campbell-Black in Riders.
Option Three: A novel based here called The end of Mahara, which is a comment Olivia came up with while describing the coming-of-age of a friend of hers, meaning that for Mahara her carefree childhood days are over now she has to cover herself. Three central characters; one expat wife, one housemaid, and one Emirati whose lives somehow intertwine. Will probably also end up being chick-lit as any fiction I try to write tends to turn into chick-lit.
Or none of the above, suggestions welcome….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2012


9 thoughts on What next?

  • I am most drawn to the third option, having lived in Qatar for a few years as an expat myself. It is quite a challenging story to write I believe. I would very much like to find out your take on being an expat in the Arab world. You say their paths will cross?? I don’t know how it is for you in the Emirates but in Qatar, outside work, it was impossible to interact with Qataris. I don’t know one single Qatari woman for example. As an engineer, I met with my share of Qatari men, but I don’t have any insight whatsoever into their family lives. Maybe the reason was that I was single at the time, a black sheep, if you will. I wasn’t, how shall I say, much welcome in the family circles 🙂 You might have observed for yourself that expat wives are very possessive of their husbands. I am not sure what good it does to them at the end.
    Well, in short, I would really look forward to reading such a book. Comparing your observations with mine would be very entertaining.

  • Thanks Melda, I agree on the expat wives, very odd indeed. I had an idea that they could be involved in some kind of car accident so that’s how their paths cross, or a book club perhaps, and the maid works for the Emirati. I agree though that we rarely interact with each other.

  • I loved all of your French themed books! Would love to read more romance stories, possibly Paris (The city of love!) :). I would love to see how option #2 evolves. Tennis is a favorite sport in our family of eight. My daughter is a junior in college and plays tennis at Monmouth University located in New Jersey, USA.

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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.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France 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

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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