A storyteller since her Liverpool, England childhood, Helen Stringer's first job was researching the family history of the Earls of Sefton at their estate, Croxteth Hall, for use in exhibitions and on tours of the vast, empty old mansion when it was opened to the public - a mansion that sounds like some of the buildings in her books.Attending film school after coming to America, Helen worked in the entertainment industry first as a development executive at a television production company and then at an entertainment law firm, concentrating on her writing as most authors do, second shift, and learning how the industry works. It was while at the law firm that Helen began working on SPELLBINDER, getting up an hour earlier every morning to write.Helen now lives in a barn at the back of her parents' house with a bunch of cats and a ton of books. She reads a lot of history, collects vintage cookbooks, and loves to cook - though she has yet to try the recipe for invalids in a cookbook from 1736 which involves putting 200 dead sparrows into an earthenware jar, burying them in horse dung for a month, and then making them into a broth - though she believes the smell alone would be enough to get you out of bed.