Anne Louise O'Connell

An author, developmental book editor and partner publisher, Anne can be found working on her latest novel, mentoring other authors, publishing books or leading writing workshops & retreats. Anne’s first novel, Mental Pause, launched on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2013, and won an Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY). Her next novel, Deep Deceit, launched March 8, 2015 and is the first in a planned mystery series. The second in the series, Deep Freeze, is coming out March 8, 2025. While living as an expat in Thailand, she was a regular contributor to the Wall St. Journal Expat Blog and Global Living Magazine. She published a collection of her travel and expat stories called Swimming with the Elephants and Other Adventures.

Upon her return to Canada in 2016, after 22 years of expat life, she established OC Publishing in Halifax, NS. She is currently working on the next installment of the Deep Mysteries series.

Anne's Books

Deep Freeze

Susan Morris is relishing the artificial cold of Ski Dubai, an indoor ski hill in the middle of the desert, with fellow ex-pat Pat Thornton when she sees the chairlift carrying Pat’s husband detach from its cable and plummet to the ground. After an attempt is made on Barry Thornton’s life while he’s in hospital, Susan begins to suspect the chairlift crash was no accident. Then the Thorntons’ home on the Palm Jumeirah is broken into and their Sri Lankan maid goes missing. Feeling the tell-tale prickling at the back of her neck, Susan is certain all these incidents are connected, but how?

In this second book in the Deep Mysteries series, the innate drive to help others puts ex-nurse Susan Morris in precarious positions. Her very life is threatened as she pokes her nose into places it doesn’t belong.

Launches on March 8th, 2025 (International Women's Day), and will be available for pre-order soon.

ISBN: 978-1-989833-45-2 - paperback

Deep Deceit

When Celeste Parker’s daughter Tamara goes missing in Dubai the all-out search and rescue mission she anticipates never materializes. She is put off by the police as 18-year-old Tamara is technically an adult, and no foul play is apparent. Celeste faces the gut-wrenching fear every mother dreads... the possibility of losing a child.

The longer Tamara is missing the more her feelings of dread escalate. Celeste's maternal instinct tells her something is terribly wrong. New to the city and with her husband away working in Saudi Arabia, Celeste turns to her new friend and fellow expat, Susan Morris, for help. The duo set off on a hunt, which takes them down a dark alley of deep deceit. From exotic nightclubs and high-class call girls to mysterious Saudi palaces hidden behind ominous walls, they follow each lead while uncovering the unthinkable. As they come closer to finding Tamara, the secrets Celeste and Susan uncover threaten not only her daughter's life but everyone in their families’ as well.

Deep Deceit, the first in the Deep Mysteries series, is available at Dartmouth Book Exchange, Vickery House Books, Shore Thing, and on Indigo/Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, and many other online retailers and can be ordered in to your local bookstore.

ISBN: 978-0-9849272-6-5 - paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9849272-7-2 - eBook

Mental Pause

Abbie is riding the hormonal roller coaster and hanging on for dear life. She finds herself in a body she no longer recognizes, a marriage that feels overwhelming, and she questions her very sanity. Her existence has become one big hot flash inflamed by killer moods. A chance meeting seems to give her the escape she's desperate for but at what cost? Accused of murder she finds herself in a jail cell accompanied by her regrets and the gnawing fear that her life may be changed forever. It’s a kind of mental pause that Abbie has never imagined, in a story that offers no letup from start to satisfying finish. Change of life, anyone? Mental Pause promises to take you way beyond.

Mental Pause is available at Dartmouth Book Exchange, Vickery House Books, Shore Thing and on Indigo/Chapters, Amazon, and many other online retailers and can be ordered in to your local bookstore.

ISBN: 978-0-9849272-2-7 - paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9849272-4-1 - eBook

Swimming with the Elephants and Other Adventures

Author, editor, partner publisher and world traveller, Anne Louise O’Connell was born to travel. On the last day of one trip she loves to begin planning the next. Like many adventure lovers, she works to travel, avoiding packaged tours because the beaten path just doesn’t beckon to her. She is always enticed by the overgrown trail or the donkey track that mysteriously juts at an angle off to the left. Here is a collection of stories from just a few of her travels throughout Asia, the Middle East, South America, the Greek and Caribbean Islands along with a smattering of insights into the expat life she lived for 22 years.

If you’re a fellow traveller, hopefully this will pique your interest in some new places, or bring back some fond memories of paths you’ve taken before. If you’re an armchair traveller, sit back, put your feet up and enjoy the ride.

Swimming with the Elephants and Other Adventures is available on Indigo/Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers and can be ordered in to your local bookstore.

ISBN: 978-1-7752756-4-0 - paperback (2nd edition)

ISBN: 978-1-7752756-5-7 - eBook (2nd edition)

What Readers Are Saying

“Susan Morris is at it again – ignoring the dangers of snooping around the tony underworld of Dubai. In Anne O’Connell’s gripping new novel Deep Freeze, Susan probes the injury of her friend Dr. Barry Thornton and stumbles on an evil cabal preying on domestic workers. Steeped in both cultural immersion and medical research, Deep Freeze is a gripping page-turner that builds to a crescendo of tension.”

Peter Moreira, author The Haight Mysteries

“Anne O'Connell has written an intimate thriller (Deep Deceit) from an unusual and fascinating point of view: the families of Westerners living and working in the Gulf States. She takes the Not Without My Daughter plot and adds a new and satisfying twist.”

– Tim Brookes, president, Endangered Alphabets Project

"Spiced with evocative descriptions of menopause's mental and physical onslaught, as well as spot-on dialogue and savvy passages that capture some of the complexities of female friendships, I read this great debut novel (Mental Pause) in a single sitting."

– Amslie, Amazon reviewer