Fleeing the scene of the night before, Helena ricochets around her sleepy hometown seeking comfort in random encounters—taming feral children, losing her virginity in a blackout, eating cherries with a mysterious creature who goes by the name of Baba Lepa, falling in love with a singer of a heavy metal band. The small-town world is stifling and fake. As she marches through it like a toy soldier, Helena's mission finally crystallises: she must leave and never return, and she must do it before it's too late.

HELENA is a 65,000-word account of teenage angst and revolt, friendship and betrayal, love and loneliness, set against the backdrop of emerging civil war and tightly interwoven with elements of folklore and magic realism.