My Summer of Love

This novel is the winner of the Betty Trask Award 2002 The film of the novel was made in 2004, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (The Last Resort), and stars Natalie Press and Emily Blunt (joint winners of the Evening Standard Best Newcomer Award) and Paddy Considine, it won the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2004 and is winner of Best British Film at the BAFTAs Helen's new deliciously creepy novel The Secrets She Keeps due out March 05

It's 1984 and one of the hottest summers Yorkshire's seen. Mona is 15 years old. She's a drinker, a thief and a fruit machine addict. Things are already going badly in the pub where she lives with her obese step-brother PorkChop. But when Mona meets posh Tamsin Fakenham, a sassy girl with beautiful breasts, things very quickly get much worse.It's 1984 and one of the hottest summers Yorkshire's seen. It's the kind of woozy heat to lose your mind in. Mona is fifteen years old. She's a drinker, a thief and a fruit machine addict. Things are already going badly in the pub where she lives with her obese step-brother PorkChop. But when Mona meets posh Tamsin Fakenham, a sassy girl with beautiful breasts, an actress mother and a sister who's died of starvation, things very quickly get much worse.