The Story She Left Behind

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and mental illness.

Patti Callahan Henry is an American author. She grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has lived in various locations on the East Coast. She currently writes and resides in Mountain Brook, Alabama. Henry pursued her higher education at Auburn University and Georgia State University. She worked as a pediatric clinical nurse specialist but left the medical field to write fiction full-time.

Henry has published over 17 novels. Her titles include The Secret Book of Flora Lea (2023), Once Upon a Wardrobe (2021), Surviving Savannah (2021), The Favorite Daughter (2019), Becoming Mrs. Lewis (2018), The Bookshop at Water’s End (2017), The Idea of Love (2015), The Stories We Tell (2014), And Then I Found You (2013), Coming Up for Air (2011), The Perfect Love Song (2010), Driftwood Summer (2009), The Art of Keeping Secrets (2008), Between the Tides (2007), When Light Breaks (2006), Where the River Runs (2005), Losing the Moon (2004), and most recently The Story She Left Behind (2025). Henry’s novels are works of contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and/or women’s literature.