Bestselling author, married to Ton, mother of Olivia and Sam, literary provocateur.
‘Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere else.’
Mae West
Heleen van Royen is born on 9 March 1965 in Slotervaart, Amsterdam, as Helena Margaretha Kroon. In 1983 she graduates from high school. In 1984 she gains admission to the School voor de Journalistiek (School for Journalism) in Utrecht, where she graduates in 1987. After college she works as a freelancer for the Haarlems Dagblad, as a reporter for Radio Noord-Holland and as a freelancer for several magazines.
In 2000 Heleen published her debut novel and immediate bestseller The Happy Housewife, of which to date more than 250.000 copies have been sold. It was published in eight countries, to international acclaim. Theatre company Het Vervolg brought the dramatisation of The Happy Housewife to stages across the land, and a film is in the making.
Heleen also wrote a weekly column for Het Parool, one of the major Dutch newspapers, and for Planet Internet. These columns were published in one volume in 2003, entitled Imagine its your wife!.
In 2003 Heleen’s second novel was published: Goddess of the Hunt. It stormed the top position of many bestseller lists, and in eighteen months time sold over 200.000 copies, making it the best sold Dutch novel of 2003.
Heleen’s third novel, entitled Escape, was published in 2006. It was nominated for Holland’s most influential readers’ award the NS Readers’ Award, and translated into eleven languages.
In 2007 Heleen joined forces with the internationally successful Dutch lingerie designer Marlies Dekkers to create the book STOUT!, or ‘NAUGHTY!’. STOUT! is all about flirting, success, power, lingerie and temptation. Heleen and Marlies interviewed eleven well known Dutch women about their career, their womanhood and their sexual fantasies and experiences.
In 2008 Heleens three novels The Happy Housewife, Goddess of the Hunt and Escape were published in one volume – all 880 pages together. In addition to the previously published novels the volume offered a sneak preview of Heleen’s new novel, which is set to appear in 2009.
Heleen has been married to Ton van Royen since 1992. Her husband recently started up his production company Je leven in beeld in Portugal, where the couple lives. They have a daughter and a son.
