About Barbara

Official Bio

Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in 21 countries and spent many months on both the most sold and most read Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara is an avid traveler and passionate cook, and discovered the Oregon coast on a pandemic-era trip with her husband. She now lives on that rocky, moody coast in a quirky beach house and writes her books from a room overlooking the sea. She lives with her British husband, who has promised to never lose his accent, and their cats and dogs.

Fast Facts

  • When We Believed in Mermaids is a Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and #1 Amazon Charts bestseller, where it spent more than 4 months on the list, and two months on the Most Read Amazon Charts. It was one of Amazon’s most read books of 2020 and has sold to nearly two dozen foreign markets. For rights inquiries, click here.

  • The Art of Inheriting Secrets topped the charts in both Australia and England.

  • How to Bake A Perfect Life was a Target Club Pick and won a highly prestigious RITA award. The Lost Recipe for Happiness went back to print 8 times and was published in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Denmark, and Germany. It also won RITA award. Barbara was inducted into the Romance Writers of America's HALL OF FAME for romantic women's fiction in 2012.

  • Barbara is a passionate traveler who has wandered around Europe, New Zealand and Australia, and India, hiking and eating and finding wonder in new cultures. She's a long-distance walker who has hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain and to the top of Pikes Peak in her hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado and has plans to tackle the Coast to Coast in England in the near future.