Helen Johnson

Relocation to Murder

Jessie Wilder relocates to Paris from London on secondment with her employer.  Her best friend Deb has been in Paris for a year running a Chocolate Shop in the rue de Rivoli and is delighted when Jessie agrees to move in with her.  They are chalk and cheese but are fiercely loyal.  They join a night school to improve their limited French and Deb strikes up a relationship with their handsome teacher, Dan.  Jessie is still hoping love will somehow find her.
One afternoon there is an altercation outside Deb’s shop which quickly turns violent and gunshots are fired, two people are killed and several wounded.  The police closely monitor both Deb and Jessie during the investigation as potential antique smuggling gang leaders make contact with the girls.
Jessie returns to London for a long weekend to attend the opera, a great love of hers, and meets a man in peculiar circumstances.  Their relationship blossoms until his long-term friend puts a spanner in the works, breaking them up.  Whilst drowning in sorrow and pining for her lost love, Jessie hears a late-night news bulletin that alerts her to who the gang ringleader may be.  She must find Deb.  From thereon in she unwittingly puts herself in grave danger, is drugged, beaten and kidnapped.  Can she escape, can she alert the police, and can she save her friend in time?

Family Renovations

Jessie Wilder has relocated to Paris from London with her best friend Deb.  Both have recently started a new relationship and are in the process of reassessing their lives.  Jessie has fallen for an opera singer, Reggie, whom she met in peculiar circumstances.  Their relationship blossomed until his long-term friend, Pierre, put a spanner in the works, breaking them up. 
They soon get back together and a few weeks after celebrating Christmas, Jessie encounters his “dysfunctional” family, including Celony, Pierre’s daughter, and sparks fly.  Will she ever be accepted into this seemingly hostile clan?  Her love for Reggie, however, remains strong as they become closer and she accepts his proposal of marriage.
A bridge collapse, caused by an earthquake just outside Rome, destroys three office blocks and Pierre’s insurance company is responsible for their cover and he is now facing financial ruin.  To add to his worries, three bodies are found in the crumbling footings of one of the office blocks and the bodies lead a paper trail directly back to Pierre.  Can he really be involved with these deaths?
After a fun afternoon of trying on wedding dresses, Celony and Jessie are attacked and Celony is taken hostage by an unknown assailant.  With the wedding now on hold, the “dysfunctional” family need to work together to find out who the kidnappers are and why they have taken Celony?  It is a race against time, and will Celony’s father step-up and pay the ransom?

Embers of Love

Jessie Wilder has fallen for an opera singer, Reggie, and now lives with him in Lausanne, Switzerland.  As we join them, they are celebrating their first year of marriage and couldn’t be happier, despite the interference of their “dysfunctional” family.
Jessie travels with Reggie and is enjoying the lifestyle this affords her, taking in the sights, having lazy lunches and the odd spot of shopping.  She feels content but her lifelong friend, Deb, who has her own business in Milan, is becoming increasingly jealous, almost resentful, and the close relationship they once had begins to unravel.  Jessie cannot see where it is all going wrong and blames Salvo, the Milan police officer Deb is living with.
As Jessie tries to make sense of the decline of her relationship with Deb, her marriage also begins to suffer as she meets the woman lying in wait to gladly take Reggie off her hands.  When Jessie tries to voice her worries she is dismissed as seeing things that simply aren’t there.  Jessie is letting it all get on top of her and begins to feel ill.  Adding to her worries, Dan, the convicted criminal who came into Jessie and Deb’s life the previous year, with deadly consequences, has absconded from the police whilst being extradited, and is last seen heading towards Milan.
Is Dan about to wield his revenge?  Will Reggie succumb to this other woman?  Will Deb listen to Jessie’s warnings?

Coming of Age

Jessie Wilder is married to Reggie, an opera singer, and they live a happy life in Switzerland.  Jessie, who once travelled with Reggie whilst pursuing his opera career, now stays at home with their contrasting twin boys, Berto and Luca.  She is torn between the need to be with them at this crucial stage in their life, and her longing to be with Reggie.
Celony, Reggie’s “niece” gets engaged but his parents are against the match, and when Reggie invites his parents to see him in “Don Giovanni” the similarities between how Don Giovanni lives his life, and how Celony’s Papa lives his, reignites the objections, and heated arguments break out.
Jessie, Reggie and the boys go on holiday to England and then onto Wales to visit Jessie’s family where old tensions surface.  Once home, a series of unfortunate accidents occur that affect Berto and Luca and gradually they begin to rebel, leaving Jessie heartbroken and unsure how to proceed until one evening the boys go missing after school, and the police eventually confirm that someone has been communicating with them online.  It is a race against time to find the boys and get them to safety.
Can Jessie restore her relationship the boys? Will Celony and Paulo’s relationship survive?  Will the boys be found in time?