Blog2020-05-12T14:18:58+00:00

What's Helen Been Up To?

Strange Times

I think it's safe to say that no one could have predicted how this year is turning out. It's been kind of a rollercoaster, that's for sure! I'm very grateful that I've been able to keep working and bringing HEAs into the world when it really needs them. I released a Sleeping Beauty short story Rise and Shine. Both this and Thorn in His Side have been recorded by the awesome Kieran Flitton, and should hopefully be available soon! 

If you want somewhere fun to escape to, the doors are always open at my Facebook group, Helen's Jewels! Lots of fun giveaways and sneak peeks at works in progress, as well as hot guys and cuteness!

Stay safe, Jewels xxx

I'm back!

Well, it's been two years, but www.helenjuliet.com has been completely redesigned and updated. In that time, I've mostly been focusing on my American pen name, HJ Welch, and only released one Helen Juliet novel in all that time (A Right Royal Affair). But all that's about to change! Tomorrow sees the release of new book, Thorn in His Side, a Beauty and the Beast re-telling. I will continue to focus on Helen Juliet for the first half of this year, then balance both the pens as equally as I can going forward.

This weekend I'll be going to shiMMer in Birmingham, an all-day MM book signing. I will also be attending Book Lovers Con in Nashville in March. At the moment, my office is a mountain of books and swag, lol!

Never want to miss a release? Sign up to my newsletter!

Want ALL the gossip, including teasers of upcoming books, giveaways, and the chance to receive advanced reader copies of my books? Join my Facebook group, Helen's Jewels!

And finally, if you want to see what I've been up to as HJ Welch, please check out that website!

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everybody! I hope you had a great 2017, and I wish you all the best for 2018!

My year got off to a great start with the release of the third Homecoming Hearts book Burn which I'm VERY proud to say made the gay romance top 20! Thank you to everyone who has read the book so far. I hope you enjoyed Raiden and Levi's story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

I will soon start work on Steam, Trent and Ashby's story. But first I'm working on a bit of a secret project that I'll hopefully be able to talk to you about soon! I have soooo many books lined up for this year that I just can't wait to write and share with you. So, I better get on with it!

A Little Extra Festive Cheer

Just a quickie before disappearing for Christmas! Boy Next Store is my little festive gift to you guys, and you can grab your free copy by clicking HERE!

I hope you have a wonderful holiday break, and I'll be back in the new year with Burn, the third book in the Homecoming Hearts series!

Hugs and love xxx

Happy Holidays!

I can't believe it's December already, this year has gone so fast!

Well, I left my job and am a full time author now. It's an incredible feeling but I couldn't have achieved this without the help of so many people. They know who they are, I have hugged them a lot.

So what's been going on? I went to by first GRL in October, it was an incredible experience and I met so many awesome people! Fingers crossed I'll be able to return next year.

The second book in the Homecoming Hearts series, Spark, came out on November 14th, telling the story of Joey and Gabe.

Tomorrow, the follow up to Glitter on the Garland, Sparkle to the Season, will be available for FREE! It's the finale to Matt and Aedan's story, so it you liked the first book, be sure to check it out.

The third HH book, Burn, will be released on Jan 3rd. If you want to be the first to see the gorgeous new cover, make sure you're signed up to my newsletter!

I DID IT!!!

OMG!!! I handed in my notice to my day job!!! As of Friday 13th October I shall be a FULL TIME AUTHOR!!! Just in time for the GRL convention in Denver too, woohoo!

Scorch came out today, Sept 26th. This marks the launch of my new, American pen name, HJ Welch, as well as the start of the Homecoming Hearts series.

My husband and I are also moving into our first house this week, and we are picking up our NEW KITTENS on Friday!! So…everything all at once you might say lol.

Finally, thank you to everyone who made Without a Compass such a HUGE success!!! It reached #13 in the UK MM charts, #36 in the US, and #11 in US Bisexual! I still can't quite believe it!!!

Busy Busy Busy

Things have been moving VERY fast around here!

Without a Compass was released on August 24th and Blimey O'Riley am I thrilled with the reception you guys gave it. Thank you so much!

My big news is that I am launching a second pen name. HJ Welch will be writing books based in the USA with American spelling/grammar/words and American characters (mostly, the odd Brit might slip in lol).

I'll be releasing details of the new books soon, but for now I'll tell you that the tentative plan is to write a five part series and release the first one on September 12th…we'll see if that actually happens!

Summer's in full swing…

Just a quickie!

PHEW! Things are a bit crazy, but in a good way! A Ballad of Confetti, Cake and Catastrophes is now available in eBook and paperback. I'm extremely proud of finally getting this book out, and very pleased at the reviews I got from the Signal Boost Promotions tour.

I went to the Queer Asia conference at SOAS University of London last weekend, and just about managed to keep up with all the extremely clever people presenting their papers. I met so many inspiring people, and learned a great deal.

I'm now gearing up to go to Euro Pride Con in Berlin this weekend, and shiMMer in Birmingham next weekend. I was EXTREMELY lucky to have the opportunity to upgrade my ticket to EPC, so I'm now attending as an author! The past week has been a flurry of sorting out shiny swag bags, and now I'm all set to fly out tomorrow morning – EEEKKKK!!

It looks like there might be a London book fair and signing in August, but I will post more details on that when I know…

Work on Without a Compass has begun. It's slightly slow going to get off the ground with everything else that's going on, but I know once I really sink my teeth into it, it's going to fly off the page.

Okay, that's it for now. Speak soon!!

Catastrophe is coming…

May 19th, 2017

It's been a very busy few weeks, but things are finally coming together!

First of all, Glitter on the Garland is now available in paperback! When I held the first physical copy in my hand, it was a pretty amazing feeling. I never intended this little novel to ever be anything more than an eBook, but to now see people from all over the world sending me photos of them holing it in their hands as well…that's a damn awesome thing.

I'm slowly getting together the bits and pieces for my table at shiMMer on July 1st in Birmingham. I have pens with my name on!!! I feel like a real author now lol. I'm also planning on making cupcakes…but let's see how that goes first before we get excited…

The main news is that A Ballad of Confetti, Cake and Catastrophes has now been edited, and all that's left is for me to polish it up so we can set about formatting it for release! If all goes well, the 100K word eBook should go live on May 26th, with the print versions coming asap afterwards – hopefully no more than a few days! Signal Boost Promotionswill also be orchestrating an online review tour as of June 1st. I'm just a little bit nervous about that!

I've started planning on the next book: Without a Compass. This is supposed to be just a fun little summer novella…but I said that about the last two books, so I'm going to hold off on predicting how long this will actually be, or the estimated release date. All I can promise is that I'm working as fast as I can!

Ding dong the bells are going to chime! 

April 10th, 2017

So, it finally happened. I got married to the love of my life – woohoo! It was a wonderful day, everything ran smoothly and we were blessed with the weather. I couldn't be happier.

Now all the madness is over, I am so happy to be back to reality, and a great deal of that is centered around my future book plans.  My biggest challenge right now is organising the first print run of Glitter on the Garland. That means readers will be able to order physical copies themselves off of Amazon, but I will also have a good number to take with me to the shiMMer book signing on July 1st.

Of course, Alyson Pearce from Between the Lines Editing has actually been doing all the hard work getting the manuscript properly formatted for printing.  I've just generally been the bewildered one answering her questions and trying to make myself useful! Printing books is complicated.

I am still hard at work on A Ballad of Confetti, Cake and Catastrophes It's been slower going compared to the last book, but that's only to be expected as last time I had several completely free days over the Christmas break, but before the wedding I was forced to abandon writing for a good ten days whilst I got everything in order! Once the book is complete though, I will be releasing it as an ebook and paperback via Amazon, and an ebook via Smashwords.

I've also, tentatively, been looking into recording audio books. This is if anything an even more complicated and involved process. But it's a really popular medium that people love, and I really excited to hopefully commit to recording some of my books in the future.

Finally, I have added a new section to the website titled Events. Here, you can keep track of where I'll be making appearances at conventions, conferences, book signings and more! I already know of a couple more events that I will be adding to the calendar, so as soon as I have confirmed dates, I'll make sure the information is updated.

For now though, I need to get back to Nicholas and Fynn, and business of their first kiss…