Author Interview: J.E. Rowney

Today I welcome author J.E. Rowney to the blog to join in the publication day celebrations of her latest book I Can't Sleep, welcome Jayne. 

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how your writing journey started? 

I grew up in the North of England, reading everything I could get my hands on and writing short stories from as early as I can remember. I had a vague idea that I would like to be a journalist, but somehow I ended up being a midwife and then a project manager. I carried on writing in my spare time. When I started working in London, commuting from Yorkshire, I spent a lot of time travelling on trains and writing on my little laptop to pass the time. 

My writing journey actually really got into motion on those actual journeys! I self-published and my debut, “Charcoal” went viral and made it to the bestseller list. I’d like to say that ‘the rest is history’ but writing really took a back seat until last year when I released my second book. Now the time is right for me to commit to writing, and I’m not looking back!

If you had to give an elevator pitch for your latest book I Can't Sleep, what would it be?

You know that time, when you’re not quite asleep and you’re not quite awake? You’re not quite sure where you are, or whether what you just heard was part of your dream, or if it is real. Now imagine living your life in that in-between haze…that’s the life that Becky lives. Written from Becky’s point of view, I Can’t Sleep keep you awake at night searching for the truth. 

“I can’t sleep. Not since June 16th, 2018. Not since what happened…”

Traumatised by the events of her past, exhausted by insomnia, Becky Braithwaite believes that a new start will help her to recover. She leaves home to fulfil her brother’s dreams, and honour the life he never had but she soon finds that escaping from the past is not as easy as she imagined.

Is her fatigued mind playing tricks on her, or is danger really lurking in the shadows?

I Can’t Sleep is a switch of genre for you, what attracted you to writing a psychological thriller especially one with Insomnia as the central theme?   

I love reading psychological thrillers but I have noticed a lot of the same themes and plots being recycled. I wanted to do something different. There’s a famous quote that says something along the lines of ‘if the book you want to read hasn’t been written yet then you should write it’. That’s how “I Cant’t Sleep” began. 

I actually suffered with insomnia myself in the past and although I didn’t suffer quite as much as Becky does I did have some experiences that made me question my own mind. 

The Write Stuff with... J.E. Rowney

Today it's my pleasure to hand the reins of the blog over to author J.E. Rowney to talk about why she loves reading challenges.

2020. What a year it has been so far. I have been finding it very difficult to focus on reading over the past few months. I am usually a voracious reader and I enjoy a diverse range of books. Whilst I have always loved reading (I started out as a massive horror fiction fan back in my teens, would you believe?), I probably haven't read as diversely as I could have. That all changed last year. I discovered reading challenges, and it really helped me to open my eyes to new types of books.

If you have never taken part in a reading challenge, the basic idea is that you have a list of prompts, and you read a book that matches each of the prompts. Some of the prompts push the reader to choose a book in a particular genre (e.g. ‘a mystery’ or ‘a historical fiction’) but others can allow more fluidity of choice (‘a book with a bird on its cover’ or ‘a book published in the month of your birth’). One of the other benefits I have found is that I have been encouraged to read more diverse books (‘a book by an indigenous author’, for example). It’s easy to choose the books that you have always read or the genres that you feel comfortable with; reading challenges have literally challenged me to expand my range.