Premise
Carrie has just inherited a nest egg from her grandad and left her abusive partner of 4 years to move in with the co-worker she has a slight crush on, Raven, a corporate goth also moving on from (but staying friends with) her on-again/off-again ace/arospec ex, Ricky.
Ricky, a self-employed jack-of-most-trades renovating Raven’s townhouse, is embroiled in his cousin’s criminal endeavours and a violent feud with a rival tradesman, and pretty positive that if he can’t make things work with Raven, he’ll never meet his person… until Raven introduces him to Carrie.
When all three find themselves targeted by Carrie’s vengeful ex, Phil, desperate to get her back so she can pay his gambling debts, Carrie finds she has a much darker side than she thought, and Ricky thinks he’s found his soulmate, but is he right, or will Phil’s escalating vendetta push them to extremes and further apart?
Tropes & Content Notes
~only one bed
~corruption arc
~mutual rescuing
~polycule potential?
~an elderly emotional support dog called Boss (nothing bad happens to the dog)
~mental health issues featured: anxiety, depression, ADHD – characters variously are managing them or absolutely not managing them or are trying to/helping each other out. Ricky (ADHD/anxiety/depression) drinks on his medication and/or forgets to take it.
~Neurodivergent asexual spec/aromantic spec character who is pan-orientated navigating sexual and romantic expectations and his own boundaries (messily/badly)
~everyone’s pan/bi or lesbian
~messy disaster cis and trans queers being messy disasters
~weed and cocaine consumption
~binge-drinking in British drinking culture context
~self-medicating with alcohol and food, depression weight gain and dysfunctional eating
~blood, finger severing, some violence
~reference to accidental death of a young boxer in a boxing match
~arson, threats of immolating someone, fire
August & September Ko-Fi Rewards
So this August, the Ko-Fi rewards for top tier members is access to the complete 0draft of my AU novel, a contemporary “if Guy Ritchie wrote a romcom with an ace/arospec MC” based on the beats of THE CROWS, but if Carrie and Ricky had no eldritch horror going on and they met on a pseudo-London council estate instead.
I’m serialising this for top tier & lower tier members with each part I post going up with my annotations as a demo of my writing process, in case the way I do it is useful to anyone else (maybe if you also have ADHD you do something similar to me! I’d love to know if that’s the case!)
If you support me as a one-off, you’ll also have access to all these posts for 30 days. Members have unlimited access.
In September, top tier members are getting the whole revised novel as an eBook for free (it’s currently 87.5K and I’ll cut it down to around 80K). Lower tier members will be getting it for £1.99 (discounted). It will retail on my Ko-Fi for £3.99.
Letters from the residents of Fairwood House will resume in October!
C. M. Rosens 