Heather Aimee O’Neill Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Heather Aimee O’Neill is an American writer, poet, and teacher.

She serves as the Assistant Director of the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop and she also is employed at CUNY Hunter College where she teaches creative writing. An excerpt from her novel When The Lights Go On Again was released in April 2013 by Wallflower Press as a chapbook.

Memory Future would go on to win the Gold Line Press Award from the University of Southern California in 2011, selected by judge Carol Muske-Dukes. O’Neill’s work also became shortlisted for the 2011 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Award and has been featured in many different literary journals.

Heather also serves as a freelance writer, working for various publications that include Parents Magazine, Time Out New York, and Salon.com. She also is a regular book columnist for MTV’s AfterEllen.com.

She is married and resides with her family in Brooklyn, New York, which includes her wife and their two sons.

Memory Future is a 2011 book by Heather Aimee O’Neill. Have you been reading too much fiction in certain genres and want to switch it up but you don’t know where to start? Check out this engaging poetry chapbook that was so good that it was named the winner of the 2010 Gold Line Press poetry chapbook competition.

Flip through the poems randomly or just go through them one at a time in order in this book that is sure to delight true fans of poetry. Heather says in one poem that ‘we’ll leave behind a language, travel back’.

If you’re someone who loves to start the day with a nice cup of hot tea or coffee and a thoughtful book from your own personal library that inspires and engages the mind, this is likely the book for you! Get a copy of Memory Future and make a space for it on your bookshelf and check out one of the best poetry chapbooks to come out in recent memory thanks to the talents of Heather Aimee O’Neill.

The Irish Goodbye is a 2025 book by Heather Aimee O’Neill. This is a book that was nominated in 2025 for a Goodreads Choice Award in the category of Readers’ Favorite Debut Novel.

In a riveting debut, O’Neill tells the story of three sisters who are grown who are dealing with a shared tragedy that takes place over the course of a Thanksgiving weekend that they spend in their childhood home, where they go over their complex relationships and tensions from the past that have not yet been settled.

It has been quite some time since the three sisters of the Ryan family have been all home together, spending time at their family’s house located on the eastern shore of Long Island. They all really love that house but have mixed feelings about being back there. Even though the tragic event happened nearly two decades ago, it feels as though it was just yesterday for the sisters.

Some twenty years back, all of their lives suddenly were turned upside down without any warning. When they got into an accident on their brother Topher’s boat, it resulted in a horrific tragedy that affected all of them in different horrible ways. Their friend’s brother was killed in the accident, the resulting lawsuit nearly took everything that their parents had, and Topher went deeper into a depression that resulted in him unfortunately taking his own life.

The women of the Ryan family have gathered together this year for Thanksgiving and they’re initially looking forward to connecting some more, but each of them has a secret that they are carrying and they’re not sure how to disclose it or if they should.

Cait is the oldest sister and she is still deeply affected by the boat accident, especially since she is still holding a tremendous amount of guilt over the role that she played in it that still no one knows about. Despite this she is happy to be rekindling the flame that she had with her high school crush, who happens to be Topher’s best friend– and the boy who died in the accident’s brother.

Now Cait is going to have to reconcile the way that she feels– in more ways than one. Meanwhile, Alice is the middle sister and has just been thrown a curve ball that could put the career she is starting up again at risk. She is also dealing with a tough decision that could doom her marriage.

At the same time, the youngest sister Maggie is doing her best to summon her courage and reveal a new relationship to her family. She is taking the leap at last and bringing the woman she loves home to meet her mother– who is very Catholic. Maggie is nervous to make the introduction, but all she can do is try and hope that everything goes well.

Infusing it all is the grief that everyone is feeling for Topher but that the family so far has not managed to figure out how they can manage together. Then Cait invites someone else to come to Thanksgiving dinner and it ends up resulting in a lot of tensions boiling over and new things coming to light.

They’ve always had a decent family bond but this holiday may prove to be too much for everyone. Way more than a family holiday is going to be ruined unless the sisters are going to be able to find some type of way that they can forgive not only themselves but also each other.

Can the Ryan family move on from what has happened in the past? Will there be some healing that is able to take place, or are they going to find that some things that happen end up staying with you for good? If the sisters and the family as a whole cannot find some way to heal and move forward, they may likely never have another peaceful holiday again. Find out what happens by getting a copy of The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill today.