Tribune-Review profiles Laura and her debut memoir

When This Is Not My Life launched in June 2025, the Tribune-Review profiled author Laura Burkett of Lower Burrell, Pennsylvania, under the headline “Lower Burrell woman’s ‘achingly honest’ debut memoir tells story of love, loss.” The article is a good introduction to the story behind the book.

The profile opens with the anecdote readers now associate with the memoir: Laura’s sister, Danielle, ran away to Puerto Rico when she was 15 because she got a bad perm. Danielle died unexpectedly in 2003, at 33, when Laura was 29, and the circumstances around her death were never clear. Laura told the paper she felt compelled to write the book because she is the last person living in her family who knows the story.

Laura described her sister as adventurous and wise beyond her years, but also troubled, with a life full of drama, chaos, and a lot of good men and bad men. When Danielle was gone, she said, it left a void.

She was just as candid about the years that followed. She told the Tribune-Review she did what she needed to do every day to keep moving forward, and that some of it was not good. She said the response she has heard most from readers has been women opening up about their own pain because she opened up about hers, and that she believes the book resonates because it is honest.

Honesty, she said, is where power and freedom come from. After carrying the weight of the story for twenty years and avoiding people because of it, she says it is okay to say out loud that you had trauma in your life.

Laura told the paper the book has a bit of everything: quick-witted humor, a detective story, and a love letter to sisterhood. The article also reported that the memoir had recently earned Amazon bestseller status in several categories, including love and loss, grief, and true crime, and it quoted reader Erin Donley, who said Laura writes like she is spilling secrets over whiskey.

Read the Tribune-Review article