Spotlight On this week is all about
award winning author Helene Young
Helene Young. Love in the heart of danger…Australian suspense
There’s an excerpt to read from Burning Lies too.
For multi-award winning author, Helene Young, the idea for her ‘Border Watch’ series started one early morning.
“I discovered a body washed up on the beach. While there was nothing sinister in that discovery, it planted the seed of an idea for a novel focusing on the terrorist threat to Australia. Working as a captain with Australia’s largest regional airline I fly with crews who have flown for Surveillance Australia – the current Coastwatch contractor. That made it easy to draw on their experiences and weave my characters through a realistic scenario.”
Helene has just taken leave of absence from her role as a Regional Flying Manager. You’ll now find her sailing the Coral Sea with her husband aboard their catamaran, Roo Bin Esque. She’s also custodian of several million bees, a lover of tropical gardens and an avid reader.
All Helene’s books can be read as stand-alone novels
CURRENT RELEASE
Sometimes love is the only thing worth living for.
In remote northern Australia, Conor Stein is living under an assumed name and rebuilding his shattered life. Working at Cooktown’s youth centre has given him the chance to make a difference again, and a chance to flirt with Kristy Dark. When he finds himself dragged into a murder investigation, with more lives at risk, he fights to the death to protect those he loves.
After tragedy tore her family apart, Dr Kristy Dark fled home to the steamy north with her feisty teenage daughter, Abby. She hoped being part of the small community would help them both heal. When late one sultry night Conor staggers into the emergency department supporting a local fisherman with a gunshot wound, she has no inkling her world is about to be turned on its head.
As a cyclone tears through Cooktown, cutting them off from the world, the real killer moves to silence any witnesses. With their lives on the line, Kristy will have to summon her courage and place her trust in Conor, or they’ll both lose someone they love.
Northern Heat is available in eBook and paperback from all good retailers.
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HELENE HAS CHOSEN TO SHARE AN EXCERPT FROM
Burning Lies
Kaitlyn Scott is searching for the truth about her husband’s death, even if that means revisiting the most painful day of her life. But what she uncovers is a criminal willing to stop at nothing to keep his secret.
Ryan O’Donnell, an enigmatic undercover cop, is investigating arson attacks when he is drawn into Kaitlyn’s world. He tries to fight his attraction for her, hoping the case might put his own demons to rest, but it only threatens to push him over the edge.
With Kaitlyn and Ryan on a collision course, the arsonist seizes the chance to settle some old scores. As the Atherton Tableland burns, the three of them are caught in a fiery dance of danger and desire, and not everyone will come out alive.
Set in Australia’s tropical far north, this is an explosive story of peril and passion by the author voted by the Romance Writers of Australia as the most popular novelist of the year.
Burning Lies is available from all good retailers.
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Excerpt from Burning Lies by Helene Young
Note from Helene: This scene is from a little over half away in the story. It’s Kait’s birthday and her mother, Julia, invited Ryan, nephew of their old next door neighbour, Jerry, to dinner as a surprise guest. Kait’s young son, Dan, thinks the world of Ryan but she’s still unsure of him. She’s just gone to the kitchen to bring out the birthday cake and he’s followed her in.
‘Can I help?’
She hadn’t heard him come in behind her and almost jumped, knowing she couldn’t turn around just yet; her face would be too open.
‘No, all good. Guests don’t do the dishes in this house.’
‘Then think of me as a freeloading neighbour. Bet you let Jerry do the dishes.’ He came and stood beside her. There was laughter in the lines around his eyes and the soft curve of his mouth. He was teasing.
‘Jerry was different.’ She couldn’t stop the sadness in her words.
‘Okay, so he had a few years on me.’ He turned as he spoke and leant against the sink. They were almost hip to hip, facing each other, but side by side. His heat bridged the tiny gap and warmed her arm. She couldn’t stop the ripple of awareness, of want. The answering flare in his eyes made her nipples pebble against the soft fabric of her dress and she knew she had to step away.
Before she could move, he snagged a wayward curl with his finger and tucked it behind her ear. His touch skimmed down her neck and onto her shoulder.
‘Kait…’ he began, but she pulled back. It would be too easy to be seduced, bewitched, beguiled. Too hard to step back later.
She met his eyes, shook her head, tried to break the spell. ‘No.’
‘No? Or not tonight?’
‘No. Not ever.’
His smile was unrepentant. ‘I’m persuasive.’
‘I’m sure you are. That’s not the point.’
‘There’s someone else?’
‘No. There doesn’t need to be.’
‘You’re scared.’
‘Scarred.’
‘Same difference. We both are.’
‘So let’s leave it at that. No more scars for me.’
‘You’re a beautiful woman. There’s no need to be alone.’
‘I’m not. I have Dan and Julia. And Nero now,’ she added, trying to take the situation in hand.
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of baggage.’
‘Don’t think Julia’s ever been called baggage before,’ she retorted, feeling more in control.
‘You know what I mean. And being glib won’t deflect me.’
‘It will, you know.’ The chocolate cake she lifted from the fridge was a work of art. ‘And if it doesn’t, then this will.’
‘No candles?’
‘Nope, that would be giving away my age.’
‘A woman in her prime.’
‘Ha, there’s that flattery again.’
He looked at her with his head tilted to one side. Did she detect regret, or was it just the look of a man who’d missed his chance at a night of sex? It unsettled her that she couldn’t read him. He seemed so self-assured. Wounded, yes, but confident, comfortable in his skin. When he’d stopped to change her tyre he’d seemed so much younger than he did tonight.
‘You’ve got your hands full.’
When he placed his lips over hers she almost dropped the cake.
The pressure was light, a gentle tug on her lips, the barest slide of his tongue. She didn’t, couldn’t, stop the tremble of her mouth and the wild beat of her heart. He pressed a harder kiss to her temple and stepped back. She was lost.
‘And don’t you dare tell me there’s no chemistry, Kaitlyn Scott.’
He took the plate from her hands, the glint in his eyes roguish, disturbingly attractive. ‘Let me, you might drop it.’
‘As if.’ She thrust her nose in the air and stalked back to the dining room, his gentle laugh making her blush.
Julia’s bright eyes were almost too much and her temper raised its head. Match-making was Julia’s forte and she’d been set up tonight. But…
‘And the ice-cream, dear.’
‘Right.’ Kait fled back to the kitchen, hearing Dan describe in great detail the gooey centre in the evening’s cake.
The sound of Dan laughing as Ryan teased him dampened her anger. She knew it was misguided, misplaced. It was herself she was annoyed at.
And Ryan?
He was right. She was scared, too scared to try again. Too afraid of failing Julia and Dan, too certain she couldn’t navigate a relationship without rocking her steady world. Too damaged to trust again.
Set in Australia’s tropical far north, this is an explosive story of peril and passion by the author voted by the Romance Writers of Australia as the most popular novelist of the year.
Burning Lies is available from all good retailers.
BUY NOW
Amazon Australia
iBooks
Kobo
All Helene’s books can be read as stand-alone novels
Read more about Helene and her many bestselling books on MEET HELENE YOUNG
Discover all Helene’s books on her webpage HeleneYoung.com (and keep up to date with her sailing travels on Helene’s blog!)
“Like” Helene Young on Facebook
Follow Helene on Twitter @Heleneyoung