An Introduction

My name is Heather O’Brien. I am 45 years old, an author, and a mother. My first book, a psychological drama full of mystery, suspense, and thrills: Book of Life: Marlena, was published in October 2024, and my second book, Book of Life: Lydia, was published in January 2025.

I used to be a blogger. Years ago—twenty-four years ago, to be exact—I was pregnant with my first child. I was an avid writer, having kept journals since the tender age of about 6, and I wanted to journal every moment of my pregnancy. I also wanted friends, to connect with people. The internet was a different place back then, and the best I could find were a few AOL pregnancy groups. I joined, made friends, and learned about blogs. Suddenly, my journaling options exploded! I could write and share all of my thoughts with… everyone. Heck yes, sign me up!

My first blog was a Livejournal, then Blogger, and finally, a custom WordPress blog. I wrote nearly every day, always thinking about the next post, the next short story, or the next article. I had been taking pictures of my children like crazy anyway, but now I needed a better camera and a course in digital photography. I planned outings based on how aesthetically pleasing they would be for my blog. It was… madness.

In 2012, my then-husband and I had a child—my third, his first—and she never took a breath. She died just before she was born, and we were devastated. I wrote my way through the fog of depression and grief that followed. I could not have coped as well as I did without that outlet. I was honored to be included in an anthology of published stories by other baby loss mothers: Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for Grieving Mothers.

Around this time, life became difficult in other ways. Some were positive: my fourth (and last) child was born in 2014. Some were not-so-positive: I have a child who struggles with severe mental health issues and while I had been openly blogging about this for years, I suddenly realized that maybe that was not a great idea. I needed to give my child privacy—the result was that I archived almost 18 years of blog posts and essentially removed myself from the blogging community.

I went back to journaling privately, in an actual paper journal. It served the same purpose of managing my mind and thoughts, but I often wished for another platform to scream from… where other people could connect and discuss.

Life became more difficult—a divorce, a failed cross-country move, a new relationship, another cross-country move, work injury—the last five years have been a wild ride, let me tell you. The ideas for my Book of Life series were born somewhere in all that chaos. I jotted down notes in Evernote—I found it a few weeks ago and it is completely different from where I ended up with the idea, but it’s pretty fascinating to see how it has evolved.

My mind is a manic place to be. When I decided to include a blog with my author website—to have a platform where I can scream into the void again, and hopefully find people to connect and discuss things with—I promptly made a list of approximately 400 things that I want to write and share and post about, all related to the development and writing of my Book of Life series. I am incredibly excited to share the stories of the people I have created with you, and I hope you will come to love them as much as I do.

Their stories aren’t always pretty. They’re full of tragedy, trauma, and suspense. There is also beauty and happiness—exactly like the story of each of us.

I hope you will join me.