Helen Black

Helen Black is an English poet from Pontefract, West Yorkshire. She is best known for the Lily Valentine series of novels and several standalone novels. In her childhood, she lived in an extended family where her father a miner and her mother a local shop attendant were the main providers. At 18 years of age, she went to Hull University, where she drank a lot of lager at campus-organized gigs. She graduated three years later with a law degree, a tattoo on her shoulder, and a hole-ridden Doc Martins. While she had trained as a commercial lawyer, she soon found out that high end lawyering was not for her as she lacked the natural disposition for it. Quitting her job, she set up shop for herself in a tiny windowless office in Peckham, South London where she made a name for herself, helping teenagers with legal advice and bus fares. From the tiny office, she became one of the most known figures in Bethnal Green, Deptford, and Brixton, and eventually ended up as a legal representative for children in the care system in Luton. Her work has been largely influenced by her varied legal experiences with underprivileged children. Her first novel Damaged Goods was a response to the question, what would you do if you came to know that a client you were representing is guilty. Would you still represent them? Helen Black likes to joke that she is married to a long-suffering lawyer whose only wish is to one day have his shirts ironed. The couple has twins who rule the Black household in a manner best described as Stalinist Russia reincarnated.