Waiting Heart

When thirty-two-year-old Claire Hartman inherits her grandmother's house in Willowbrook, Indiana, she expects to spend a few weeks sorting through old furniture and faded memories. What she finds instead changes everything.Hidden in the attic is a trunk full of leather-bound journals written by Owen Mitchell, a distant cousin who died in 1926 at just twenty-four years old. His entries from 1924 to 1926 reveal a young man searching for something Claire understands all too well-real love, genuine connection, and someone who truly sees him.As Claire reads Owen's words night after night, something unexpected happens. She begins to fall for him. Not for the historical figure or the old photograph, but for the heart and mind revealed in every carefully written page. Owen writes about waiting for "the one"-someone who listens with her whole heart, who values ideas over small talk, who understands that love should feel like coming home to yourself.The journals become Claire's refuge and her obsession. She talks to Owen's photo. She writes him letters he'll never read. She visits his grave and tells him things she's never told anyone living. Her best friend grows worried. Her sister stages an intervention. But Claire can't stop reading, can't stop feeling this impossible connection across ninety-nine years.Owen died before finding his person. But his words found Claire. And now she has to decide: Is this profound emotional recognition across time worth holding onto? Or is she in love with a ghost, hiding from real life with someone who can never love her back?A deeply emotional story about the power of written words, the nature of love across time, and what it means to truly see another person's soul. Perfect for readers who believe some connections transcend everything-even death itself.THE JOURNALS is Book One of the Genealogy Series, a collection of romantic novellas exploring love, history, and the bonds that connect us across generations. P. A. Farrell is a psychologist and published author with McGraw-Hill, Springer Publishing, Cafe Lit, Ravens Perch, Humans of the World, Active Muse, Free Spirit Publishing, Scarlet Leaf Review, 100 Word Project, Woodcrest Magazine, Confetti, and LitBreak. She's a top health writer for Medium.com, has published self-help books, and is a board member of Clinics4Life. She lives on the East Coast of the US.

Claire Hartman has finished Owen's final journal. She's read his last words, written just two days before pneumonia took him in April 1926 at age twenty-four. She knows how his story ends now-with hope, with longing, with the belief that somehow, across any distance, his words would reach the person he'd been waiting for.But knowing how his story ends doesn't tell Claire what to do with her own.Her family and friends stage an intervention. They present the evidence: Claire isolated, obsessed, talking to Owen's photograph. Her sister Beth says the words out loud: "You're in love with a dead man." And Claire can't deny it anymore. She is. She's fallen completely, impossibly in love with someone who's been gone for ninety-eight years.Dr. Sarah Bennett, a therapist Claire reluctantly agrees to see, tells her it's not psychosis-it's complicated grief mixed with romantic projection. She's using Owen as a shield against rejection from anyone living. Using his beautiful words as permission to hide from real connection.The whole town of Willowbrook has noticed Claire fading. The librarian asks if she's okay. The coffee shop barista says she hasn't seen Claire smile in weeks. Even strangers comment on how distant she seems. Claire is drifting through her life, present only with Owen's memory.When Claire looks in the mirror, she barely recognizes herself. Pale. Exhausted. Hollow. And she hears Owen's voice-not literally, but in her memory of his words: "Choose life." Because that's what he'd written. That's what he would have wanted for her.But choosing life means letting Owen go. Means boxing up his journals and saying goodbye at his grave. Means grieving someone she never met but loves completely. Means accepting that this profound connection, this meeting of souls across a century, has to end so her own life can begin again.The question that haunts her: What was this for? Why did she find Owen's journals? Why did she fall in love with someone she could never have? What is she supposed to do with this impossible love?The Question is a raw, emotional story about grief that doesn't make sense, love that transcends time, and the courage it takes to let go of something beautiful so you can hold something real. Perfect for readers who understand that sometimes the hardest person to say goodbye to is the one who understood you best.Book Three of The Waiting Heart Series-where Claire must finally choose between the past and the present, between safety and risk, between Owen's memory and her own future. P. A. Farrell is a psychologist and published author with McGraw-Hill, Springer Publishing, Cafe Lit, Ravens Perch, Humans of the World, Active Muse, Free Spirit Publishing, Scarlet Leaf Review, 100 Word Project, Woodcrest Magazine, Confetti, and LitBreak. She's a top health writer for Medium.com, has published self-help books, and is a board member of Clinics4Life. She lives on the East Coast of the US.