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Siamese kitten. Before I knew it, I was bundled up down at the shop where I immediately fell in love with him and brought him home." Despite her mother's detest of cats Helen has, by default, become a cat lover. One of nine children, Noeline Blackman had two sisters that had breast cancer while she died of bowel cancer in 1999. While Helen says there is a gene that links breast cancer to bowl cancer, she and her daughters are not eligible for genetic testing. "Even if we were, I don't know what we'd do with the information," she says. "We don't want to live life doomed to get breast cancer. I know from experience how quickly life can change. One of your children could be killed and all the worry about potentially getting a fatal illness vanishes." Helen's firstborn, Sam was just nine when he was run over and killed while carrying a pigeon to the vet's surgery in Wellington. It took 25 years for Helen to be able to write about her son's death in 'any way that would be of help to others'. She was halfway through writing the story when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. "After the surgery when everyone went home and I was alone again I thought, what do I do now?" Helen went to her computer, looked at what she had written and deleted half of it thinking it was a 'load of self-pitying rubbish'. She started again in a more light-hearted tone and the result has exceeded her expectations. After hitting best seller lists in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Cleo made the New York Times Best Seller List in its first week in US bookstores. Rights have been sold in more than 14 countries worldwide, including Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, China, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey and Korea and a film deal has been struck with South Pacific Pictures, makers of highly acclaimed The Whale Rider. Helen's life story based on a banana cake recipe, has been performed to critical acclaim and sell out audiences in New Zealand and Australia and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charitable projects. And most recently, Helen has been invited to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair where New Zealand is Guest of Honour. "When I handed the [Cleo] manuscript in, it was sent off to an editor who had also had breast cancer the year before. She sent me 15 pages of notes and questions… 'Go deeper in this emotion, how did you feel at this point, what was your reaction when you found out Sam had died?' She wanted me to go back into those very deep emotional places that I had tried to delete. There was a voice inside me saying this may be the last book you will ever write so you better put your best into it." Helen was compelled to write the second book to describe the whole experience of dealing with a mastectomy, becoming an overnight success with Cleo and dealing with her eldest daughter's decision to pursue life as Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka. In After Cleo: Came Jonah Helen tells of the 'sneaky mum' inside her thinking that because of the diagnosis her daughter would choose to stay. "Lydia was very bright. She was never going to be a writer or anything creative to rebel against me. She leant more towards political science and economics at Melbourne University. I had this great future planned out for her in my mind of her in a charcoal suit going up a glittering tower every day and earning enough money so she never had to depend on a man. Just at the time I was diagnosed, she announced her intentions to leave for Sri Lanka to become a Buddhist nun. I was absolutely shattered because it wasn't the plan. But it turns out it was the best thing for her and she returned to nurse me in hospital. When I came out of the anaesthesia I heard chanting which I thought was a trip from the drugs. I was fading in and out of consciousness but it was her. She'd flown back from the monastery and was sitting by the bed with three candles and a bottle of holy water. Lydia has broadened my definition of what love is." Lydia is currently working to complete her PHD in psychology in Melbourne and focuses more on secular Buddhism. Helen says the pair have never been closer. Lydia is the third child Helen shares with her first husband, Stephen Brown whom she divorced in 1986. Her second son, Rob was married in 2009. Helen married consultant, Phillip Gentry in 1991 in Switzerland and the couple had another daughter, Katharine the following year. "Phillip was doing an MBA in Northern Ireland at the time and I was at Cambridge University doing a press fellowship. When I finished that, I went to Switzerland dragging poor five year-old Lydia along for the trip. In between it all Phillip and I got married - a little crazy but it seems to have worked out alright." Today, Helen Brown assures me she is happy. She looks forward to grandchildren and anticipates seeing her life played out on the big screen. In the few moments she steals away from her busy life of touring and promotional work she entertains thoughts of her next book, a homage to New Zealand and all the things that make this country unique. After 15 years in Australia Helen will always call herself a Kiwi and hold those who have helped her through her darkest days close to her heart. helenbrown.com.au