Helena, a self-confessed romantic and an ardent fan of Jane Austen's works, spent many years on her parent's quaint farm in the beautiful Natal Midlands of South Africa. The sheep, horses, fruit farms, green rolling hills, a nearby spiritual seminary, and rustling maize fields of the countryside clearly shaped her ideas from a young age.
The English countryside so resembles the green Natal Midlands of her homeland, where she still resides.
With her heart linked to the English side of her ancestry, three of her historical novels Wind in the Wheat Fields, The Lady and the Piano and The Solitary Man are set in England.
Her fourth novel, Married by Proxy, however, is set in South Africa after the Great World War.
Helena and her delightfully eccentric husband run a charming flower shop together, 'Flowers From Howick'.
They have two wonderful children who have flown the coop.
This turbulent, yet relentlessly charming, romance takes place just after WWI. Thomas Greenwood – a confirmed bachelor - fights in the war in the diamond-rich area of South West Africa, where he finds his fortune.
Thomas buys a beautiful farm in Cedarville, but his boreholes dry up in a severe drought. His eccentric neighbour is selling his farm next to the Umzimvubu River, but he won’t sell it to an unmarried man, believing a man isn’t stable unless he is married!
Thomas is forced to advertise for a wife in an English magazine. He marries a woman, Fenella Barrington, by proxy. The trouble starts when she arrives and his major-domo, Giles, tells her the real reason why he married her…
