Behind Every Secret, There’s A Story.
The Book of Life series is filled with complex characters and untold histories—moments that shaped their choices, dreams, and heartbreaks. These short stories pull back the curtain, offering an intimate look at the lives, relationships, and events that shaped their world.
Each month, a new story invites you deeper into the hidden corners of their past and present. Whether it’s a quiet revelation or a life-changing event, every tale adds another layer to the mysteries that bind the Callahan and Bakker legacies.
Step inside. There’s always more to discover.
Haunting Marlena: A Book of Life Short Story
Aaron believed his mother’s fears died with her. But on Halloween night, when a ghostly shimmer appears in his home—the same eerie presence Marlena saw yearly—he questions what haunts his family.
Desperate to understand, Aaron digs through his mother’s writings and unsettling memories resurface. As he pieces together her fractured history, he feels the shimmer’s pull intensify, blurring the line between memory and something far more sinister.
Haunting Marlena is a story of inherited secrets, unseen terrors, and what we carry with us even after death. Will Aaron face the supernatural shadows that haunted his mother, or be consumed by them too?
Releasing Marlena: A Book of Life Short Story
In the heart of a family suffocated by secrets, strained relationships, and unspoken resentments, Marlena struggles to keep Thanksgiving—and her fractured home—together. As each family member grapples with their inner battles, past wounds resurface, threatening to tear them apart. But amidst the simmering tensions and raw emotions, one question lingers: can Marlena find the courage to break free from the weight of expectations and rediscover the love and freedom she’s been yearning for?
Releasing Marlena is a poignant, deeply emotional story of resilience, family, and the cost of invisibility.
Unraveling Marlena: A Book of Life Short Story
On the surface, it’s the perfect Christmas. Beneath it, something is breaking.
Twelve-year-old Marlena wakes to a house filled with Christmas cheer: blinking lights, the smell of pine, and her sisters’ laughter ringing through the halls. But the warmth of the season can’t erase the strange stillness in the air or the questions Marlena doesn’t dare ask.
As snow blankets the neighborhood, secrets begin to settle like a weight Marlena can’t shake. Her parents’ careful smiles don’t reach their eyes. The quiet feels louder than it should. And somewhere, buried under the surface of their perfect family, something is unraveling—one thread at a time.
Set against the backdrop of a 1960s Christmas, Unraveling Marlena is a haunting coming-of-age story about the fragile balance between what we know and what we choose to believe, where innocence slips quietly away, and the truth waits like footprints in the snow.
The Short Stories of Marlena: A Collection
Three Seasons. Three Stories. One Unforgettable Woman.
Marlena Bakker’s life is anything but ordinary. In this collection of short stories, Heather O’Brien explores the complexities of family, sacrifice, and the secrets we carry.
In Haunting Marlena, a chilling Halloween tale, Marlena confronts the ghosts of her past—both real and imagined. Releasing Marlena offers a poignant Thanksgiving tribute to the invisible labor of motherhood and the quiet sacrifices women make. Finally, Unraveling Marlena brings Christmas drama to the forefront, as a family gathering spirals into chaos, revealing long-hidden truths—and a shocking murder mystery.
From haunting regrets to profound revelations, these stories delve deep into the heart of being human. Rich in emotion and suspense, The Short Stories of Marlena will linger with you long after the last page is turned.
Watching Lydia: A Book of Life Short Story
The woods swallow secrets whole, but some nights, they whisper them to those who dare to listen.
For Lydia Walker and her friends, New Year’s Eve in the Georgia woods was supposed to be about bonfires, laughter, and midnight wishes. But the woods had other plans. Strange sounds, unanswered questions, and a night none of them can fully explain haunt them long after the embers cool.
As the seasons change, whispers of what happened that night refuse to fade. The deeper Lydia looks for answers, the more she begins to wonder: did they stumble across something meant to stay hidden—or did something in the dark find them first?
Burying Lydia: A Book of Life Short Story
Some secrets should stay buried…
Rural Georgia, 1995. Sixteen-year-old Lydia Walker thought she knew her town—quiet streets, familiar faces, the kind of place where nothing truly dangerous happens. But when a routine visit to the cemetery leaves her haunted by something she can’t explain, Lydia is drawn into a mystery no one wants solved.
The deeper she digs, the more the world around her shifts—whispers behind her back, strange notes appearing where they shouldn’t, the creeping sense that she’s being watched. And when she finally looks too closely, she realizes the truth:
Some things aren’t meant to be uncovered. Some questions should never be asked.
Because in a town like this, knowing too much can be deadly.
A tense, atmospheric psychological thriller about secrets, fear, and the things we pretend not to see.
Growing Lydia: A Southern Story of Family, Memory, and One Unforgettable Day
One perfect day. A lifetime of memory.
On a crisp St. Patrick’s Day morning in 1990, twelve-year-old Lydia Walker wakes with a feeling she can’t explain—like something important is waiting just beyond the pine trees. The plan is simple: fried chicken, fishing poles, and a day at the lake with her grandparents and older brother. But by the time the sun sets over the water, that ordinary Saturday in South Georgia will become the day she never forgets.
Years later, with loss behind her and change ahead, Lydia returns to that morning—not for nostalgia, but for something solid. Something sacred.
Set against the slow, tender backdrop of the rural South, Growing Lydia is a poignant coming-of-age story about family, memory, and the quiet moments that shape us long after they’re gone.
The Short Stories of Lydia: A Collection
Three Seasons. Three Stories. One Tragic Life.
Lydia Walker is a woman shaped by secrets, grief, and grit. In this gripping collection of short fiction, her life unfolds across three unforgettable stories—each tied to a different season, a different mystery, and a different version of who she was… or could have been.
In Watching Lydia, a quiet New Year’s Eve brings strange messages, a haunting sense of being watched, and the slow unraveling of a mystery only she can see. In Burying Lydia, a name scratched into the dirt of a cemetery grave pulls her into a chilling Valentine’s mystery that may cost her everything. And in Growing Lydia, we return to one perfect St. Patrick’s Day in 1990—long before the pain—when family, freedom, and first crushes filled the air.
Tense, tender, and laced with Southern atmosphere, Lydia: A Book of Life Short Story Collection explores memory, resilience, and what it means to carry both sorrow and strength. Whether you're new to the Book of Life series or returning to its world, these stories offer a haunting, heartfelt glimpse into one woman’s journey.