[8] At Cambridge, she met her future wife, Christine Roulston, a Canadian who is now professor of French and Women's Studies at the University of Western Ontario.

[5][9][10] Donoghue has spoken of the importance of the writing of Emily Dickinson, of Jeanette Winterson's novel The Passion and Alan Garner's Red Shift in the development of her work.

Inspired by an 18th-century newspaper story about a young servant who killed her employer and was executed, the protagonist is a prostitute who longs for fine clothes.

[17] The Sealed Letter (2008), another work of historical fiction, is based on the Codrington Affair, a scandalous divorce case that gripped Britain in 1864.

[18] The Sealed Letter was longlisted for the Giller Prize[19] and was joint winner with Chandra Mayor's All the Pretty Girls of the 2009 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.

[27][28] David Ehrlich of IndieWire called it a "sumptuous but slightly undercooked tale", praising Lelio's direction, the performances, the cinematography, and the score.

[29] Peter Bruge praised the cast performances in his review for Variety but criticized the screenplay, summarizing it as an "evenhanded but ultimately preposterous adaptation".

[30] The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Farber found it an "illuminating study of dark prejudices" and commended Pugh's performance, as well as Lelio's direction which he said represents perhaps his "finest achievement to date".

[32] Donoghue's novel The Pull of the Stars (2020), written in 2018–2019, was published earlier than originally planned because it was set in the 1918 influenza pandemic in Dublin, Ireland.

[36][37] Hephzibah Anderson, in The Guardian, wrote that "While Haven certainly isn’t her most accessible novel, a flinty kind of hope brightens its satisfying ending.