Prior to the publication of What Was Lost she worked in a variety of jobs including deputy manager of a large record shop, post woman, web editor, teacher and mystery shopper.
This novel received critical acclaim as an examination of the often lacklustre and empty experience of modern life, contrasted with the energy and optimism of a young girl who went missing in the mid-1980s.
[7] It features the tale of a disenchanted local TV news anchor, who becomes obsessed with the unheralded deaths that he is routinely required to report as part of his day job.
O'Flynn was praised for being in this novel the "mistress of compassion" and "the JG Ballard of Birmingham...finding poetry and meaning where others see merely boredom and dereliction".
[8] Her third book, Mr. Lynch's Holiday, was published on 1 August 2013, and tells the story of an estranged father and son, both emigrants from their respective homelands, but for very different reasons.