Home - Helene Young

The word hums in my mind like a familiar hug. Once I’m on the highway heading out of Cairns, I feel the tension drain from my shoulders. Twenty minutes and I’ll be home. Bliss!

Maybe because of this strong homebody gene the settings for my stories are very important. I need to know the environment where my hero and heroine live. I need to see clearly where the action takes place and, once I do that, the landscape muscles in to become a character in its own right.


Wings of Fear (Border Watch in its first edition) and Shattered Sky are both set in North Queensland, Australia where I live. It’s a beautiful, exotic part of the world where things are a little different. We call one hundred millimeters (or four inches) of rain in an hour a summer shower and wave our umbrellas in flippant disdain. Humidity sits above ninety percent for a large portion of summer. We almost take for granted the stunning beauty of the Great Barrier Reef and the ancient life of the Daintree Rainforest. The wonderful rich reds of towering gingers, the bright orange of heliconias, and the dark green of the native trees provide dramatic color.

Every day when I fly, I look down on the gorgeous deep blue of the Coral Sea and marvel at the Great Dividing Range as it stretches its ridgelines down to the pristine sands of the coast.

We have some interesting wildlife - prehistoric crocodiles and agile kangaroos, curlews and stingrays, snakes and frogs. It’s all good material for a vibrant backdrop for Romantic Suspense.

Right now, sitting at my table typing this, I’m being bombarded with a dozen different birdsongs after this morning’s heavy rain. Sunbirds are washing themselves outside my window and there’s a slightly confused frog giving out its mating call (that should only happen after dark… perhaps he didn’t get lucky last night…)

Later, as the sun edges the hills behind in brilliant gold, the crickets will sing in a rolling wave of sound before the silence of the night settles down around us. I’ll curl up on my couch with my laptop and set about creating the perfect home for my new heroine, Kaitlyn, weaving some of what’s around me into her private sanctuary.

What do you love most about where you live? Is it your wonderful neighbors or perhaps it’s the frantic pace of a busy city apartment? I’d love to hear what you look forward to most when you come home at the end of the day.

As a young child Helene thought everyone read books and invented stories. Starting school and discovering this was not the case for most children was a bit of a shock. However, she did soon discovered that English was her favorite subject and Enid Blyton her favorite author.


While she’s moved on from the Five Find-Outers and Dog, but she hasn’t lost her love of suspense and intrigue. It was partly that passion for all things adventurous that saw her take to the air as a pilot in 1989. Twenty-two years later she’s now a senior Check and Training Captain with Australia’s largest regional airline.

Her second novel Shattered Sky was released in Australia on the 1st February 2011.