Claire McGowan Books

Description /Buy link takes you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.

Claire McGowan is an Irish author that writes mystery novels. Born in 1981, she spent her childhood in a village where very little happened. Fortunately, she had her books. She read everything she could find at the Warrenpoint Library.

She was still in primary school when she started raiding the adult section. It was necessary to keep her voracious appetite for the written word sated. After all, she was consuming ten books a week and obsessing over the likes of Mave Binchy and LM Montgomery.

The author received plenty of support from the adults in her life. Her house was littered with books. Additionally, she was blessed with a headmaster who encouraged the students to read as much as possible.

Eventually, reading gave way to writing. Claire was nine when she finished her first book. She had few distractions at the time because their TV had four channels, and bookshops and cinemas were nowhere to be found.

Once she started, she couldn’t stop. The writing bug followed the author into her 20s. But she couldn’t bring herself to pursue a publishing career because writers did not come from small Irish villages like hers.

By the time she found the courage to submit and publish her debut novel (The Fall), Claire had finished her English and French studies at Oxford University. She had even lived in France for a year.

The author was ready to settle for a life in linguistics when her debut novel came out. The rave reviews surprised Claire and proved to her friends and family that she had the talent to write fiction professionally.

Claire knew she was destined for a life in publishing when famous figures like Lee Child praised her work. It proved to Claire that she was a real author. She continues to ply her trade in crime fiction.

The genre appeals to Claire because it allows the author to indulge her love for mysteries and puzzles. She’s also drawn to the darker aspects of crime fiction.

Claire doesn’t have to struggle to find ideas for stories. She believes that some people write fiction because they have too many ideas. She is one such person. Her brain is always concocting ideas and scenarios.

From what she has seen, you can teach people to write, but you can’t show them how to create new ideas. The author knows this because she was a senior lecturer (Crime Writing) at City University London.

She encourages aspiring writers to add as much dialog to their work as possible because it increases the pace while making the manuscript more readable. She has also noticed that some amateurs write dialogue in big chunks even though people don’t speak that way.

They forget to include repetitions and hesitations, which is why their dialog doesn’t sound natural. Claire left teaching to write full-time.

Claire McGowan Books Into Movies

The Paula Maguire series has been optioned for TV.

Best Claire McGowan Books

The author’s literary efforts are not limited to the crime fiction genre. She also writes romantic fiction using the ‘Eva Woods’ pen name. Claire’s best books include:

What You Did: Ali was happy. Besides having the one career she wanted, Ali had also married her college boyfriend. As such, she couldn’t wait to reconnect with her university friends. But the reunion took a nasty turn when Karen, her best friend, staggered into the room, bleeding.

The traumatized woman accused Ali’s husband of attacking her. But Mike denied the allegations, offering a version of events that contradicted Karen’s testimony. And now, Ali has to decide.

One of them is lying, but which one? Who is she expected to believe? Her husband or her best friend?

The Other Wife: Life has treated Suzi poorly. Scared and pregnant, the woman is trying to come to terms with the bad thing she did. Meanwhile, she must tolerate the antics of her jealous husband.

When Suzi gets a new neighbor, she’s delighted because Nora is the friend she always wanted. In fact, Suzi wants to tell Nora her secret. But something’s wrong. Nora isn’t quite what she seems.

Elle’s home is seemingly perfect, but only because she works so hard to keep up appearances. Elle’s facade begins to crack when her husband betrays her.

These strangers are living disparate lives, but their worlds are about to collide.

When Does The Next Claire McGowan book come out?

The next book by Claire McGowan is The Other Couple and will be released on February, 24th 2026.

Home » Author » Claire McGowan

BookSeries.org