My Work

Clare Donoghue Never Look Back Book Cover
Clare Donoghue No Place To Die, book cover
Clare Donoghue Trust No One, book cover
Clare Donoghue The Night Stalker, book cover
Book cover of 'Never Look Back' by Clare Donoghue, featuring a woman with long hair standing amidst city skyscrapers at sunset, with an ominous clouded sky.
Book cover with sheer curtains and a window in the background, titled 'No Place to Die' by Clare Donoghue.
Book cover titled 'The Cradle Will Fall' by Clare Donoghue, with a background featuring barbed wire on a gray and textured surface, surrounded by a dark, twisted, leafless tree branch wreath.
Book cover with black, white, and orange text, featuring an abstract dark figure in the background. The title reads 'Clare Donoghue Non Guardarti Indietro'.
Book cover for 'Allein in der Nacht' by Clare Donoghue, a thriller. The cover shows a close-up of a matchstick with a burning red tip emitting smoke against a black background.
Book cover with black, white, and red colors, titled 'Kein Sterbensort' by Clare Donoghue, labeled as a thriller, featuring an abstract red inkblot or smoke design in the center.
Book cover for 'Kijk Niets Om' by Clare Donoghue featuring a woman walking down a city alley with a white wall, brown bricks, and a large red paint splatter behind her.
Book cover for 'Keep Niet Sorry' by Clare Donoghue, featuring a woman in a black coat and high heels walking on a street with a blurred background, with red blood splatters on the cover.

About Clare Donoghue

I spent ten years in London working for a City law firm before moving back to Somerset to take an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

The opening chapters of my debut novel, Never Look Back, were longlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger. It went on to be published by Pan Macmillan, followed by three more in the Lockyer & Bennett series: No Place To Die, Trust No One and The Night Stalker. I have also written a prequel short story, The Cradle Will Fall. My novels have been published in the UK in print, e-book and audio, as well as editions in the US, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Alongside my own writing I've spent over a decade teaching creative writing and editing other people's manuscripts, which, if I'm honest, is the part I love most.

A woman with long blonde hair and a striped shirt smiling in a bookstore aisle with shelves of books behind her.
A black tray with a cup of coffee, a cake that looks like a book, on an outdoor wooden table.
Stack of large paperback books titled 'Trust No One' by Clare Donoghue on a wooden table.

Never has a book tasted so good!

Working With Me

Clare is a brilliant editor. She instinctively ‘gets’ the essence of a piece of writing. Her observations and suggestions are astute and clever. She is really skilful at helping writers to hone their prose, tighten their storylines, develop their characters. When I began writing my novel, Clare’s intuitive understanding of my protagonist, and the advice she gave me, were key in its development and eventual publication. I will be forever grateful for her wise words and encouragement. Any writer who works with Clare has lucked out! She is hugely talented (and also lovely), and I wholeheartedly recommend her editorial services.

Elizabeth Delo - Author

Clare has an incredible ability to 'see' a story from the first moment. But she also has extraordinary skill in drilling down to those minute details that make or break the storyline. That clarity of vision, along with such eye for detail made her an essential part of my writing process and I am very grateful to have had her help and advice.

Luana Codo - Writer

Book cover for 'The Asquiths' by Colin Clifford featuring Big Ben and Westminster Bridge in London, with three silhouetted soldiers in the foreground.

Clare patiently guided me through the laborious task of publishing my book on Kindle. This involved sorting out an appallingly inaccurate scan of the original published manuscript then coping with the infuriating idiosyncrasies of Amazon ("the computer says NO") . Patience has never been one of my main qualities, but I would have given up several times had it not been for Clare's own calmness and understanding. I can thoroughly recommend her.

Colin Clifford - Author

Google Reviews
Google logo with five gold stars below it.
A woman with long blonde hair smiling, wearing a black top, against a plain background.
Book cover titled 'Becoming Liz Taylor' by Elizabeth Delo, featuring an illustrated portrait of a woman with dark hair, pearl earrings, and a pearl necklace, with an orange and blue background and a quote by Ruth Hogan.

Clare has an eagle eye for detail and helps you get to the heart of the matter, whatever you write. She is constructive yet compassionate in her guidance and feedback, but doesn't compromise in putting better writing first. She is extremely likely to edit these words and cut out my superfluity or hopelessly misplaced adverbs.

Bel - Writer

Cover of a book titled 'Railroad Raiders' by Simon Fairfax, part of the Plainsman Series Book 5. The cover features an old train and a cowboy revolver against a desert landscape.
Book cover titled 'The Cardinal's Sword' by Simon Fairfax. The background is red with a sword vertically in the center, combining a sword blade and a shield. The subtitle reads 'The Papal States at war.'
Book cover of 'A Knight and a Spy' by Simon Fairfax, set during the siege of Agincourt, featuring a sword, shields with fleur-de-lis, and soldiers in a battlefield scene.

Clare was new to me so always a bit of a gamble with a new proofreader. Luckily she did a lovely job , asked for as much information on background, vocab etc., (I write hist fic so v important) which was refreshing. It was a learning process as ever, but she listened to me, fitted in with my style and we got on famously. No hesitation in recommending her.

Simon Fairfax - Author

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