Darby Kane

#1 International Bestselling Author of
Domestic Suspense and Thrillers

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About Darby and Her Books

An Official, Short-Form Version:
Darby Kane is a former trial attorney and #1 international bestseller of domestic suspense. Her first two thrillers, Pretty Little Wife and The Replacement Wife, have been optioned for television and featured in numerous venues, including The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, The New York Post, Popsugar, Refinery29, Goodreads, The Skimm, and The Huffington Post.

You want to know more? Buckle in.
"The Replacement Wife [is] Darby Kane's mile-a-minute novel" featured in the NYT Best Books of 2021 "Crime & Mystery" SectionDarby Kane wasn’t always Darby Kane the thriller writer. She started her career publishing under her real name: HelenKay Dimon, author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. She’s also been an avid reader for her entire life — thriller, mystery, and suspense novels were the books that filled her mom’s bookshelves growing up, and young HelenKay read them all. She can tell you what book she was reading during some of the big moments in her life… when she got her wisdom teeth out (Gone But Not Forgotten by Phillip Margolin), while she studied for the Bar Exam (Bad Love by Jonathan Kellerman), when the COVID lockdown started (The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley). She can’t remember where she put her glasses most days, but she remembers the books in her life.

She started writing…
HelenKay’s love for reading turned to a love of writing, but she didn’t start with the genre she grew up with. She was deep into her legal career, handling contested child custody cases when another attorney handed her three romances telling her she needed a happy ending because none of those child custody cases she were happy. Being introduced to authors like Sandra Brown, Julie Garwood, Tami Hoag, and Jayne Ann Krentz changed her life. She loved the mix of love and danger in the early romantic suspense books she read. She loved it so much she decided to write one of her own, because: why not. That hobby eventually turned into a romantic suspense writing career.

Romance? Yes. Twisted thrillers? Yes and YES!
HelenKay loved writing romance (and still does), but after penning dozens of romances, she also wanted to try writing some of those deliciously twisted thrillers she’s read forever. Since books like that don’t guarantee a happy ending like romance novels do, she took on a pseudonym. Enter DARBY KANE. Thanks to a supportive editor (May Chen) and a supportive publishing house (HarperCollins), she got the opportunity starting with two ideas: (1) a darker thriller where a woman kills her husband and then the body disappears; and (2) a lighter heist with a family of con artists. Her editor picked the dark thriller for Darby Kane’s debut, and that became the #1 international bestseller, Pretty Little Wife.

And that con artist book?
Indeed, that messy family idea wouldn’t go away. HelenKay reclaimed the con artist idea and added a bit of romance, a bit of suspense, and a lot more family messiness, and it’s now a book called Moorewood Family Rules by HelenKay Dimon (with an extra dash of comedy, because: why not).

More to come!
There are plenty of Darby Kane and HelenKay books to come. HelenKay also has a big backlist with lots of different genres.

Whichever name she’s channelling at that moment, Darby/HelenKay is active on social media, especially Twitter.

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