About Helaine

Helaine Mario is the author of four novels of suspense. Firebird (Amazon 2012) is a stand-alone Cold War suspense novel. The three novels in the Maggie O'Shea Classical Music Suspense series are The Lost Concerto (Oceanview Publishing, July 2015), Dark Rhapsody (Oceanview Publishing, July 2018), Shadow Music (Oceanview Publishing, September 2021), and Echoes on the Wind (Suncoast Publishing, May 2024).

New York City born and raised, Helaine is a Boston University graduate. She married in 1969 and moved to Connecticut to raise her two children, volunteer at Save the Children, and write for the local newspaper.

In 1985, Helaine’s life took an unpredictable turn when her husband’s career brought her family to Potomac, Maryland. For all eight years of the Clinton Presidency, she was a White House volunteer for Tipper and Al Gore, and continues to be a passionate advocate for public service and women & children’s issues.

Because Helaine believes strongly in “giving back,” she has worked on several non-profit boards and, in 1998, founded The SunDial Foundation, Inc., which benefited our most vulnerable women, children and families for 20 years. She also created Project PJs, offering new books, bears and pajamas to under-served children in the community. Now, the Helaine and Ronald Mario Fund continues to support some 40 charities. All royalties from book sales go to programs that support reading, music, art, nutrition and scholarship programs for children and families

Helaine and her husband, Ron, now spend their time in Arlington, Virginia—where she continues her advocacy work—and Cape May, New Jersey.

She is grateful to be a cancer survivor and is most proud of her two children and five beautiful grandchildren. Her son, Sean, is the pianist who inspired the classical music background in The Lost Concerto.

When it comes to writing, Helaine wants, more than anything, to tell a good story, create characters with depth, and paint pictures with words. To make people feel. She wants to be a storyteller forever.