Helen Dennis was born in Brighton and was a teacher for twenty years. Her writing draws on huge universal questions, and River of Ink was inspired by the question: is it good to want to live forever? Helen worked as a student at two schools for deaf children as well as Brighton Deaf Centre: one of the main characters in River of Ink is a deaf boy who uses BSL, and it is important to her that his character is strong, funny and integral to the plot and emotional arc of the story. Helen now writes full time but enjoys making school visits, where she runs code-cracking and creative writing sessions. Previous books include the Secret Breakers series, written under the name H L Dennis, book three of which was nominated for the Carnegie Award.