Discover new books on Goodreads

See if your friends have read any of Carol McKay's books

51 ratings | 36 reviews | avg rating:4.80

more photos (1)

Carol McKay’s Followers (9)

Carol’s Bookshelves

to-read (0)
currently-reading (0)
read (51)
did-not-finish (0)

Carol’s Friends (113)

Tina

592 books | 26 friends

Julie Thomason

1,021 books | 162 friends

Victoria Watson

1,429 books | 1,526 friends

Charlie Gracie

59 books | 95 friends

Noelle

1,670 books | 931 friends

Jonathan Fisher

156 books | 126 friends

Alison Fiona Mckay

314 books | 34 friends

Anni Telford

3 books | 53 friends

More friends…

Carol McKay

Goodreads Author

Born

in Glasgow, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.carolmckay.co.uk

Twitter

carolmckaywrite

Genre

Fiction, Memoir, Nonfiction

Influences

Janet Paisley; Janice Galloway; Anne Donovan; James Kelman; Jon McGreg ...more

Member Since

November 2012

edit data

Out now, my crime novel White Spirit. Set in the Scottish Highlands, it introduces DI Allan MacIntyre, a good-looking 37-year-old who has to investigate the murder of a teenage boy at the same time as a series of minor explosions. 'a thrilling story... White Spirit excels in plot. The pacing is perfect.' (Arkbound)

Want a feelgood read about life after a pandemic? Incunabulum is for you. I promise you - the characters face their share of scary fights and ordeals, but this is a positive book, fast paced and with a happy ending, and isn't that exactly what we want right now? Incunabulum is epic storytelling about new life. Try it! And let me know what you think of it.

Leela Soma interviewed me about it for her blog, and you can read it here - h Out now, my crime novel White Spirit. Set in the Scottish Highlands, it introduces DI Allan MacIntyre, a good-looking 37-year-old who has to investigate the murder of a teenage boy at the same time as a series of minor explosions. 'a thrilling story... White Spirit excels in plot. The pacing is perfect.' (Arkbound)

Want a feelgood read about life after a pandemic? Incunabulum is for you. I promise you - the characters face their share of scary fights and ordeals, but this is a positive book, fast paced and with a happy ending, and isn't that exactly what we want right now? Incunabulum is epic storytelling about new life. Try it! And let me know what you think of it.

Leela Soma interviewed me about it for her blog, and you can read it here - https://leelasoma.wordpress.com/2020/...

My fiction is informed by people and places. Many of my stories stem from experiences within my hometown but I often find myself inspired by places I've visited. Sometimes my work is classified as urban realism; sometimes it asks the reader to grapple with the misfit in us all.

My short stories have been finding publication for twenty years since I took a Masters degree in Creative Writing at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow. I'm very happy to have some of the early ones made available together in an e-book called 'Ordinary Domestic' published in March 2012 by The PotHole Press.

Also available on Amazon, in e-book format and good old fashioned ink and paper, is 'As I lay me down to sleep' which is the first volume of Eileen Munro's autobiography. I co-wrote this book with Eileen after meeting her when she was a student on one of the Open University creative writing modules which I taught between 2004 to 2018.

In 2010, I was diagnosed with a health condition called Addison's disease. It's an auto-immune condition in which the body attacks and destroys the outer layers of the adrenal glands. It's a fairly rare condition, so I got in touch with fifteen other Addison's people to produce an inspirational book on the subject. We've all written about our experience of what it's like to live with this life-changing condition, and this is now available on Kindle in the e-book called 'Second Chances: true stories of living with Addison's disease'.

Also available for Kindle - my e-book of Creative Writing Prompts to Feed the Imagination. I wrote this to answer the question I get asked most often, i.e. 'Where do you find ideas? I'd love to write but can't think of anything to write about.' This little guide gives lots of stimulating ideas for fiction, poetry and memoir writing and it also includes some straightforward advice on plotting and point of view.

...more

Learn more
Ask the Author

To ask Carol McKay questions, please sign up.

Combine Editions
Carol McKay’s books

Average rating: 4.15 · 721 ratings · 40 reviews · 15 distinct works • Similar authors

	As I Lay Me Down to Sleep by Eileen Munro, Carol McKay (Goodreads Author) 4.13 avg rating — 637 ratings — published 2008 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Second chances: true stories of living with Addison's disease 4.24 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Incunabulum 4.70 avg rating — 10 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	White Spirit really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 11 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Don't. Even. Ask. Too. Hot. by Kirstin Innes (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Chris Powici (Editor), Niall O'Gallagher (Editor) 4.20 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2024	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Creative Writing Prompts to Feed the Imagination 4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ordinary Domestic it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Reading the Landscape liked it 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ordinary Domestic: Collected Short Stories 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	One Last Tango 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Carol McKay…

14 posts
Carol McKay's Blog

One Last Tango

Fanfare!

My latest collection of poems One Last Tango has been published by the amazing Seahorse Publications. Huge thanks to publisher Dr Linda Jackson.

You can watch a video of me in conversation with Linda on the Seahorse YouTube channel.

Endorsing One Last Tango, author and poet Allan Gaw says, 'Carol McKay invites us to travel with her through time and place in this remarkable collection. .

rss
Carol’s Recent Updates

Carol McKay wrote a new blog post One Last Tango Fanfare!My latest collection of poems One Last Tango has been published by the amazing Seahorse Publications. Huge thanks to publisher Dr Linda Jackso Read more of this blog post »
May 26, 2026 06:48AM · like
Carol McKay rated a book it was amazing In the Blink of an Eye by Ali Bacon (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This novel uses a variety of different narrators to build up an absorbing account of life in Edinburgh in the second half of the 19th century. Appropriate, really, to build the storyline via these ‘snapshots’ as the novel is about artists exploring t ...more
Jun 30, 2025 09:03AM · like · see review
Carol McKay rated a book it was amazing Invisible Schemes by John McGlade	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Dazzling Highly original in style and content. So, some chapters are like catalogue descriptions of housing schemes (aka 'estates'), and these are interspersed with an ongoing narrative about a gangland hardman and his private-school-educated nephew. ...more
Nov 01, 2024 08:41AM · like · see review

More of Carol's books…

Quotes by Carol McKay (?)

“I was once told that sometimes out of limitation comes our greatest strength.”
― Carol McKay, Second chances: true stories of living with Addison's disease

tags: strength

2 likes

“That first week after the crisis that led to my diagnosis, I had the chance to surround myself with family and friends, and to enjoy contact at a deeper emotional level than ever before. Sharing that closeness was almost worth almost-dying for.”
― Carol McKay, Second Chances: True stories of living with Addison's disease

0 likes

“It still amazes me how my mental attitude, my outlook, my plans, the energy I put into something, affects MY Addison’s disease. Or the other way round – how Addison’s affects everything else.”
― Carol McKay, Second Chances: True stories of living with Addison's disease

0 likes

See all Carol McKay's quotes »