How to build financial security from firm foundationsWhen calculating income necessary for retirement, experts provide a dollar figure excluding rent and mortgage repayments. That's right! They assume that most Australians will have paid off their family home by the time they stop working. This is no longer the case. Home ownership rates are declining and, alarmingly, the rate of homelessness is on the rise. At greatest risk is the 'older' woman, defined as 55 year...

Are you among the 50,000 women in Australia going through separation or divorce this year?Perhaps the relationship is a bit shaky-it's not over yet-but you believe in being prepared.Australian financial planning expert Helen Baker, author of On Your Own Two Feet: Steady Steps to Women's Financial Independence, draws on over a decade's financial planning experience-and a lifetime as the girlfriend with broad shoulders, a hug and a no-nonsense view of the world-to present a p...

In 1986, on the day the Chernobyl fall-out could first be measured in Britian, we flew off to live in New Zealand. All guide books, friends and acquaintances promised us paradise. This is what we found.

WOMEN NEED TO PLAN, NOT WAIT TO REACTMost women know, or have found out, that financial security is the key to living an independent, safe and fulfilling life. Yet women still lack the knowledge and confidence needed to take charge of their own financial future. This book will change that.Ex-financial adviser Helen Baker knows how women flourish with control and certainty over their lives. She wants women to plan for all stages in life and not react only wh...

Jane Austen chronicled Catherine Morland’s successful foray to Bath in her delightful early novel Northanger Abbey. In the background stands another young lady, lovely, amiable and accomplished but living in the shadow of her dominating father. Such is Eleanor Tilney. Now, her own story of long-requited but impossible love can be told. The authoress hopes that those, including Miss Austen herself who knows “no one more entitled, by unpretending merit, or better prepared by habitual sufferi...

Self-improvement has never been so erotic. Or so funny. Combine profit with sensual pleasure, sheer entertainment with instruction. Based on twenty years' experience, Helen Baker tells you how to achieve both."What an extraordinary book you've written! I enjoyed it wholeheartedly, kept laughing and laughing at the poor Frenchmen, I hope other teachers and students will find your book!"

A romance, based on a true incident, of multi-layered intrigue and unexpected passion set in the turmoil of the Wars of Religion in Southern France. Two different beauties, one a vivacious aristocrat, the other a penniless dishonoured waif, both become the pawns of an embittered court beauty of a previous era. Or do they "I have thoroughly enjoyed all the ones I have read but my favourite was definately the Substitute Bride."

I want to share the experiences which have set me back on my heels, either rocking with laughter or shaking my head in bewilderment. If any conclusion can be drawn, it must be that nothing is ever what it seems. Enjoy!

A visit of curiosity by a Russian speaker to a tranquil city on the verge of erupting.

Miss Jane Austen in her well-loved book Emma introduced us to a mysterious character - Jane Fairfax. Beautiful and talented, she excited admiration and annoyance in equal measure by her reserved character. How could such a paradox have arisen? However did she meet and captivate the elusive Frank Churchill? In this book, the authoress seeks to explain.

In Regency England, a leisured lady wrote eighteen thousand words of a delightful story and then abandoned her attempt. Everyone who read the fragment regretted her decision. Now, all has been incorporated into a complete novel which, it is to be hoped, should give pleasure to many.

How brave are you? Dare you turn your settled life completely upside-down? Would you decamp from one country to another, one continent to another, one hemisphere to another? Could you change from the middle of the countryside to city centre? From the middle of a landmass to the seaside? Abandon your large detached house in its own grounds for a flat? That is what I did last year. Read my adventures here.