CAROL HELLIER

Carol Hellier was born in Essex in the mid-1960s. In her mid-twenties, she uncovered a life-changing family secret: the parents who had raised her were in fact her grandparents, and the sister she had grown up with was actually her mother — a revelation straight out of an East End drama. More recently, she discovered that her great-grandmother was a Romany Gypsy named Rose, deepening her connection to her roots and strengthening her sense of identity.

With family ties stretching from Stepney in East London to County Cork in Ireland, family and heritage have always played a powerful role in Carol’s life. Growing up in a large, lively family, there was always somewhere to go, someone to visit, and stories to hear. Summers were spent camping with cousins, aunts, and uncles, creating memories that would later influence the warmth and authenticity found in her books.

After leaving school, Carol began a hairdressing apprenticeship, where she met her future husband, who came from a Romany Traveller family. They ran off together when she was nineteen and married a year later. Married life began in a trailer on her father-in-law’s land, giving Carol first-hand insight into the traveller way of life — an experience that now brings realism and depth to the gritty gangland and traveller storylines woven throughout her fiction.

Before becoming a full-time author, Carol worked in a wide range of jobs, including hairdresser, cleaner, waitress, barmaid, kitchen and bathroom designer, medical lab assistant, and medical secretary in cancer diagnostics. Alongside raising her family, she always carried a love of books. As a child, she devoured Enid Blyton and The Famous Five, later developing a passion for hard-hitting gangland fiction.

In recent years, Carol also tracked down her biological father — a man connected to the underworld during the 1960s and 70s. Although the reunion was not the happy ending she had hoped for, it led her to discover more family, including a sister who, like her, had also been raised by grandparents, and a brother. Those discoveries, alongside uncovering her Romany ancestry, further shaped her understanding of identity, belonging, and family loyalty — themes that run strongly through her novels.

Today, Carol spends her time writing and enjoying life with her large family, children, and grandchildren — the moments she treasures most.

Many thanks for reading, and she hopes you enjoy her books.