Helen J Beal: 4 books

What happens when the old money runs out and the new money rolls in? Welcome to Bestwood, a dilapidated estate in the wilds of the English countryside where Herbert, a giant land tortoise presides over the tatty menagerie. The zookeeper, Bob, and his daughter Stella are mystified when rock legend Dave...

A woodpecker who creates sculptures for the opera singer he adores, a sculpture that collects the thoughts of the people who touch him, ghosts of owls that portent death in the castle, a secret night-time visitor finding his own way to say goodbye, mobile phones that metamorphosize into fruit on the...

What do you do when you owe the Ukrainian mafia a huge amount of money that you don’t have? Drive a twenty-year old ambulance ten thousand kilometers from London to the remotest country in the world, of course. Not to run away, you understand, but to bag your share of a million pound cash prize. Melissa,...

An ostentatiously luxurious super yacht. The endless cerulean blue of the Indian Ocean. The sun warming your skin. Sounds like heaven? Not when you are hostage aboard, captured by bandits, waiting for the ship’s owner to pay the ransom for your release and you find out he’s going bankrupt. This is...