Rory McGouran

Published Books
UNTHINKABLE (31 October 2024) BUY ON AMAZON: https://amzn.to/4f0dwOp

​Who are you? Tell us a little bit about yourself...
I am a retired hospital physician. I live in Norfolk and my first book, UNTHINKABLE, is a murder mystery set in a hospital similar to the one in which I spent my consultant career.

What first inspired you to start writing?
I began to write it thirty years ago after a nurse, Beverley Allitt, was imprisoned for life for murdering four children and harming several others. A subsequent inquiry criticised the medical and nursing staff for not suspecting her sooner but I wondered how easy this would be. People die in hospital from natural causes and it is a huge step to suspecting that a death may be malicious. You have to know that you have a body before you can investigate a murder! I sent the first three chapters to an agent and was discouraged by her adverse (and perfectly reasonable) comments on my writing ability and also her observation that nobody was interested in reading about hospitals anyway. I understand that the usual advice is that your writing style can take years to mature. Mine has taken thirty years. Like many writers I had an inspirational English teacher at school. He encouraged me to write and over the years I have had articles published in magazines such as Yachting Monthly, and for a while a regular humorous column in a medical paper. UNTHINKABLE however is the first book I have published. 

What made you want to work with Rowanvale and be published?
The stimulus for me to publish now has been the recent trial of Lucy Letby, who received several life sentences for murdering neonates. The trial has subsequently been criticised because the evidence against her was mainly circumstantial. This mirrors almost exactly the dilemma the characters face in my book when faced with unexplained deaths, and I hoped this similarity might encourage people to buy it. I decided to self publish rather than begin a dispiriting hunt for an agent. 

I liked the sound of Rowanvale when I found it on the internet and have not been disappointed. I am old enough now to be rereading many books I have enjoyed in the past. I must have read and loved Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim several times and I keep coming back to Evelyn Waugh, particularly Brideshead Revisited. Presently I’m reading the Barchester Chronicles, by Anthony Trollope, for the fourth time.                              

What’s your best advice for handling writer's block?
​My best advice for handling writer’s block is to give up and forget about it for a while, not necessarily for thirty years, but long enough to get your brain out of the rut it is stuck in. The one thing I always have with me when I’m writing is my dog, not because I want him but because I can’t get rid of him, and I know he will go on staring at me until I have to stop what I’m doing and take him out for a walk, thus breaking my concentration. The Barchester Chronicles, for the pleasure of the often ridiculous plots and his beautiful prose. 

What is the best part about being an independently published author?
The best part for me is the control one has over the whole process and the knowledgeable and prompt advice.

What’s next for you?
I’m not sure what’s next, but my book’s ending is open to interpretation so who knows!