Sometimes, an author's life story can be just as interesting as the novel she creates.

Jennifer Comeau's debut historical fantasy novel, A Moon In All Things (12 Willows Press), took 10 years to write and is about to launch this week.

The novel, set in 1820s Galway Bay, Ireland, is YA-adjacent. It features 16-year-old protagonist, Morrigan Lane, a headstrong girl who isn't interested in stitching the perfect crewel or keeping a tidy hearth, but instead wants to captain a boat like her fisherman father. Her journey is inspired by Ireland's mythological Otherworld, which teaches her how to "heal brokenness between humans and their natural world."

The Otherworld is a term for a magical, invisible realm in Irish mythology where supernatural beings like fairies, gods, and spirits live.

It's fair to say that Comeau's personal journey served as a template for Morrigan's unorthodox choices.

In the 1980s, there was a cultural shift toward career-minded women. Like many women her era, Comeau followed a money-making path after high school, not an artistic one. So, without even being aware of her own wants or needs, she earned a bachelor's and master's degree in engineering.

After decades working as an executive in the automotive industry and information systems, Comeau started to feel that her chosen path was detrimental to her health and soul.

"Early on as a people pleaser, a child of eight kids in the family, I did whatever it took to get the achievement, the 'atta girl,' really to the point where I didn't know who I was," she said.

At 37, she started taking stock of what was really important. Not money. Not status.

"At my core, I'm an empath, a sensitive person, what would have been called 'thin-skinned' in the corporate world," she said. "I kept asking myself how to get out of this trap that I, myself, had made."

She harkened back to what felt good and healing in childhood. "I had been a dreamy, bookish kid, playing in ponds, writing poems, having picnics under willow trees."

She was instinctively drawn to singing and writing, but wrestled with Imposter Syndrome.

"I had no credentials, and in the corporate world, credentials are everything," she said.

Still, she gave herself permission to build her talents, by first teaching herself to play guitar, and then writing lyrics to accompany songs. That resulted in producing two albums of original music, with one song snagging a finalist level in a Maine songwriting competition.

Having moved to Maine from California with her husband 25 years ago, the state's heavily forested areas provided more inspiration. She became a certified forest therapy guide.

Her Irish ancestry and her mother's genealogical stories manifested in a dream one night, about a woman on the cliffs of Galway Bay. Through all of these pivots in her personal life, a story was born, the beginnings of A Moon In All Things.

Still pursuing the lifelong pattern of earning credentials, she began honing her writing through taking workshops.

As her story unfolded, it became about Morrigan, "who is summoned by The Otherworld to heed her calling and go against societal dictates to become a healer of her village, and thus, herself." Comeau took a 99-percent pay cut from her job to travel to Ireland for four weeks and surround herself with the setting of her novel. "I didn't pressure myself to write anything," she said. "I just walked everywhere and absorbed everything. I had this mantra the whole time: 'Quiet mind; quiet mouth; open heart; empty vessel.'"

She continued research on the novel by working with Irish History Professor Niall Ó Cíosáin

"That trip made me trust my intuition and break old patterns," she said. "I've come full circle to fully appreciate these skills I now have. I think the world may be ready for a novel like this. For years, the trend in novels has been dystopian, but now that we're living it, I think the world is ready to fall in love with magical relationships, nature, and the Otherworld."

The novel can be found locally at Left Bank Books, at independent bookstores, and online. Visit her website to learn more about upcoming events.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com