In September 2020, the online community of self-published romance writers was rocked by a Facebook post announcing that author Susan Meachen had died by suicide.
To her readers and fellow authors, Meachen had seemed like another writer hustling to make it big in the grueling, potentially lucrative world of indie romance. The author of more than a dozen books with titles like His Wicked Way and My Crush, Meachen had amassed a small but loyal following online, where her fans discussed her works in a Facebook group.
Complicating the news of Meachen’s purported death, Meachen’s family members blamed bullying from other romance writers. Angry fans harassed other small romance writers, accusing them of effectively killing Meachen themselves.
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Other writers who knew Meachen online were struck with grief, wondering if they had done everything they could to prevent her death. Her online friends collected money for her funeral expenses. They worked for free to edit one of her unpublished works for publication to fulfill what was described as Meachen’s last wish: the release of a final book ahead of her daughter’s wedding.
More than two years since Meachen vanished from the internet, though, it seems that she wasn’t dead after all. On Tuesday, Meachen’s Facebook account surged back to life, posting in her fan group that she was alive. Meachen blamed the fake suicide story on family members, saying that she wanted to resume writing as if the supposed death had never happened.
“Let the fun begin,” Meachen wrote in the new Facebook post.
For romance enthusiasts who grieved Meachen’s death, however, the news that she was still alive wasn’t considered “fun.” The revelation has had an explosive effect in the online romance-writing community, raising questions about why the ruse went on for so long and where the money for her funeral went.
“That is beyond psychotic,” fellow romance writer Samantha A. Cole said in a Facebook video posted on Wednesday discussing the controversy.
“I can forgive many things, but I don’t think I could ever forgive your faking your death,” author Karen Hall wrote to Meachen in a Facebook post.
Meachen didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Before the apparently faked suicide, Meachen was known in Facebook romance communities for her willingness to help would-be authors learn how to market and publish their books online. That came to an end with the announcement from her account that she had died by suicide. Grieving fellow authors promoted her books on their own social media pages, urging their readers to buy Meachen’s last work in her memory.
The allegations from her family that Meachen’s death was caused by bullies in the romance world prompted attacks on other writers, including Cole. But in her Facebook video, Cole said she was more saddened after Meachen’s supposed suicide by the thought that she hadn’t contacted Meachen in the days leading up to the death announcement.
“Was there something I could have said or done to make her realize that there were people in the book world that supported her?” Cole said.
Even after the death post, though, Meachen’s account continued to correspond with her online friends. After a grieving fan wrote to the account a few months after Meachen’s apparent death, the account urged him to move on, claiming to be a Meachen family member who still called Meachen’s voicemail to hear her voice.
“My mom loved you so and it’s very hard to let go,” someone controlling the Meachen account wrote back to the fan, in a message later posted online.
Even after her purported death, though, it appears that Meachen wasn’t far away. Someone logged into her account and asked for help marketing her back catalog, which had fallen victim to algorithms on book websites that prize new books and bury old ones. And roughly a month after Meachen’s death announcement, a new romance writer appeared on Facebook using the name “T.N. Steele.” The aspiring author’s page was adorned with the same kind of flowery, pink graphics that Meachen favored. And she participated in Meachen’s old fan group, “The Ward.”
In November 2022, roughly two months before Meachen re-remerged, “T.N. Steele” made a request in the Facebook group. The group’s activity had dropped off after Meachen’s supposed death, and her relatives said they couldn’t keep it up. Steele asked if she could take over Meachen’s old group instead.
Now Meachen’s former friends suspect that Steele was in fact Meachen all along, reasserting control over her old fan group through an alias. Whoever runs Steele’s account appeared to acknowledge that she was in fact Meachen, posting around the same time that Meachen reemerged this week that Steele would “return to my real account and name. “
In a Tuesday post to her old fan group, Meachen said the suicide story was invented by family members after she did try to die by suicide. As Meachen recovered in the hospital, she claimed her relatives concocted the idea to tell her fans and friends that she actually had died. Now, though, Meachen wrote that she was in a “good place,” ready to reemerge after more than two years.
“I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if it’s right or not,” Meachen wrote in the new post. “There’s going to be tons of questions and a lot of people leaving the group I guess. But my family did what they thought was best for me and I can’t fault them for it.”
Meachen’s return to writing hasn’t received much support, aside from one confused fan who wrote “welcome back?” under her post. The announcement roiled the world of Facebook romance writers, with one blogger writing simply “what the hell.”
Cole, upset by the news that Meachen’s death was apparently staged, sent her old friend a series of angry Facebook messages. Meachen responded that she was in a “better place,” adding that her books hadn’t sold much at all after her “death.”
In her Facebook video, Cole said the Meachen saga would make her warier of making friends in the indie romance community—a place where most interactions take place online, with many authors using multiple aliases and pen names.
“For two-and-a-half years, she sat back and took on this whole new life, not telling anyone in the book world who she was,” Cole said. “Watching us grieve — her and her family accepted free editing, they accepted donations for a funeral that never took place.”
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. You can also text or dial 988.
