Chances are good that you probably follow Nantucketer Holly Ruth Finigan on social media. More than 47,000 people do. But how much do you really know about the woman behind the hashtags? An early adopter of social media, Finigan created the Nantucket blACKbook—the first online guide to all things Nantucket—in 2012. As the media and marketing company grew, so did Finigan’s social media platform. Thousands of people hung on her every word, clamoring to know where to go and what to buy on island. While Finigan never revealed the names of secret beaches, she soon realized she’d given too much of herself to the internet. After undergoing open heart surgery in 2018, Finigan did more than just recover. She shed her online identity and rebuilt her life. And she has recounted her journey in her new memoir, Wholeheartedly: The One You Want to Find Is You.

The seeds of Wholeheartedly were planted more than a decade ago, when Finigan started documenting her life as a fresh-off-the-ferry Nantucket bartender. In 2008, she shared these observations and stories with the world with the launch of her blog, also called the Nantucket blACKbook. It was an immediate success, a Sex and the City for the Faraway Island.

Soon, other island media outlets wanted their audience to hear Finigan’s fresh voice. “So many people in media gave me opportunities to test out my writing and show that I was a writer. I’m grateful for the community that believed in me,” she says. The next few years, Finigan’s byline was everywhere. First, she had a stint at Nantucket’s weekly newspaper, the Inquirer and Mirror, in a column called “Finigan’s Findings” where she chronicled a winter of discoveries on the island. Brides-to-be read her coverage of Nantucket nuptials for Deb Anderson’s Only Nantucket/Nantucket Weddings, and her recommendations on where to see and be seen graced the pages of this very glossy in “The N Scene.” The late Gene Mahon hired Finigan to write dispatches for his newsletter, sending out the “HollyWould” blog to his readership.

Finigan’s mother, Ruth, died in April 2014 after a battle with cancer. Much of Wholeheartedly delves into Finigan’s maternal relationship. “Writing about my mother, who has passed on, is something that was somewhat easy and pretty cathartic,” Finigan says. “The hard part about writing a memoir for your family is the people who are still here and are going to read it. For anyone who is thinking about writing—or righting—a story about your family, my biggest takeaway is to heal that story internally before putting it out externally.”

Giving her family time to work through the stories Finigan unpacks in Wholeheartedly added an extra five years from the time she wanted to publish the book until it could stand proudly on the shelves.

Wholeheartedly is a unique book. Broken into four parts, it takes readers on a journey that explores Finigan’s relationship to family, to the internet and to herself. For someone who once worried about sharing uncurated snippets of her life online, the unflinching honesty of Wholeheartedly comes as a welcome surprise. Reading Wholeheartedly is like having a conversation with a favorite big sister. Finigan’s anecdotes are raw and authentic, and some are outright hilarious. Wholeheartedly is a love letter to life and survival—and all the messiness that comes with it.

Finigan’s business acumen came in handy when self-publishing Wholeheartedly. “I am my agent, I am my PR, I am my publisher,” she says. Lots of people Finigan met on Nantucket were involved in the production of the book, including editor Tracy Leddy, a former English teacher at Nantucket Public Schools; island photographer Georgie Morley; designers Michael Molloy and Jasmine Takanikos; and Sarah Feather Farley, who laid out the book. Finigan says of her team, “There is so much creativity, so much brilliance that lives on Nantucket. You don’t have to leave Nantucket to find experts.”