C. M. Rosens

Best Friends Bury Bodies Out Now - banner with a cropped image of a musician in elegant black clothes playing an acoustic guitar, posed against a plain grey background.
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January 2026: Writing Round-Up

Read on for a round-up of my writing this month, the WIPs I’ve been working on, and my published works!

cmrosens
6–9 minutes

As I’m doing a media round-up of all the things I’ve been enjoying this month, I thought I’d do a similar writing round-up, like I’ve been posting in my monthly newsletters, on this blog. I know a lot of you signed up to the blog posts aren’t also signed up to the newsletter, so you occasionally miss out!

Here we go with the recap – and apologies to those of you who have received the Janaury newsletter, and have seen some of this before!

Divination Hollow Contributor Pieces

  • Published January listicles: 10 international films that feature 1 or more of my favourite 3 Gothic tropes. As a bonus, I have paired each film with a book! This is split into Part 1 and Part 2 for the length.

I’ve got some February and March pieces to come.

New Release

My new novel, Best Friends Bury Bodies, is now released. I had some issues with the paperback files and a printing error with the cover, all of which are now resolved.

This book is part of a LGBTQIA+ Murder, Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers group promo on BookFunnel which runs to 28 Feb 2026. Click through to find LOADS of books that fit this description, and find new reads!

This novel began life in 2023 when I was re-watching a lot of the Midsomer Murders early seasons (including the pilot, on YouTube), and really craving some of the romance subplots that Agatha Christie was so good at in her novels. However, I didn’t want to write something too serious; I wanted to keep the melodrama and outright over-the-top silliness that I love about the Midsomer Murders stories.

Best Friends Bury Bodies Out Now - banner with a cropped image of a musician in elegant black clothes playing an acoustic guitar, posed against a plain grey background.

Midsomer Murders meets The Forty Year Kiss (but with queer, non-monogamous protagonists in their late 40s).

When her long-estranged soulmate and 90s music star, Bas, reaches out to Sarah on the anniversary of her partner’s death, Sarah and their close-knit group of childhood friends track him down to the picturesque village of Oxstone and find a very different man to the one they knew.

Their old friend is now an alcoholic recluse, broken by the pressures of celebrity, hiding behind a false identity, and being blackmailed by his much-younger “wife”, Izzy. Bas and Sarah are immediately drawn back to each other, despite Sarah’s better judgement, and they embark on an affair.

But Bas isn’t the only one with secrets. When his thirteen-year-old guitar pupil discovers human remains in Oxstone Woods, and then Izzy is brutally murdered, all manner of skeletons come tumbling out of the closets.

Can Sarah and Bas navigate their rekindled passion and his journey towards sobriety while solving the mysteries of Izzy’s murder and her possible connection to the bones in the woods, or is it too late for second chances?

A queer, polyam, bisexual second chance romance murder mystery.

Read a sample in your browser

Available in eBook and paperback. Audio coming soon to Ko-Fi and Itch; it may not be a podcast series.

Ko-Fi members, Eldritch Family tier only:
The Giveaway Draw for a signed paperaback will take place in February!

You can still join the Eldritch Family tier; there are 3 slots left. Anyone joining before 12th Feb will be entered.

Wider Release

print cover of Birds of a Feather with a council estate vibe.

I’ve now finally given in, and given Birds of a Feather (with bonus short story, First Christmas) a wide release. This novel initially came out in August 2022 as a serial for Ko-Fi members, and then had a limited release where it was only available in my shops.

First Christmas then came out in December 2024, two years later, as a little bonus for my Ko-Fi members that month. That is still available on its own via my Ko-Fi shop.

As I have members who prefer print to eBooks, I then combined the two stories into one edition, and released it on Amazon as a paperback.

This year, I have now released it wide in eBook and print format, and you can get it in a variety of places. I will be releasing the audio version on Ko-Fi and Itch, but it may not be a podcast series.

Read a sample in your browser.

Find it In Stores

Signed paperback copy: this draw has happened. Congratulations to my winning member who has now been informed on Discord, and will be receiving their copy in the post!

Short Stories

I wrote a new short story in one sitting, then revised and edited it, for submission to magazines. I’m proud of it, but I also think it will be a tricky one to place. I’ve had 2 rejections so far, so I’ll keep going. If it doesn’t find a home after about 10-20 submissions, I’ll revise it a bit more, and think about including it in one of my own collections. I really like it, so I’ll do something with it if nobody wants it.

THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH SYLVIA’S MOTHER (Horror, 3.6K words) written in January and submitted to 2 magazines and counting! It might find a home somewhere one day.

I also rediscovered a pulpy Sci-Fi story I had started writing, which I had intended to be a novella based on the Musicians of Bremen, but I reworked one section of it to be a standalone short story below 8K words, so that I could try my luck with WriteHive’s Defying Death anthology. It’s a m/f pairing with a sex-positive ace man, and middle-aged protagonists.

EARLY RETIREMENT (Sci-Fi, 7.7K words) revised and edited in January and submitted to an anthology.

I already had a short story on sub from December, but I won’t count this one here, as I haven’t touched it this month and still haven’t heard back. These two are the ones I’ve actually worked on this month!

Word Counts

The following works in progress are ones I have played with over this month. I am including anything over 500 words. I have other WIPs, but I’m not including any I have not touched in January 2026.

FEED started the month at 57K words. I wanted this to be my main WIP this month, but then I got really into the Contemporary stuff, and sucked back into the characters for the AU. This is a tricky one to get right, and I’m not happy with the shape of this draft yet.

Genre: Horror-Fantasy
Series: Pagham-on-Sea Book 4
Current status: ~active~
Current word count: 63K words

THREE FOR A GIRL started the month at 14.2K of experimental writing but 0 words of a draft. I started writing this not long after Birds of a Feather (2022), but the experimental sections I have are all patchy and scrappy. I decided to use a couple of scenes from the experiments, but mostly started from scratch. This is the book where I introduce AU Katy.

Genre: Contemporary Suspense
Series: AU Carrie & Ricky Book 2
Current status: ~active~
Current word count: 25K words

UNTITLED VICTORIAN WIP was a new thing I played about with after re-reading/re-listening to Arthur Machen’s novel, The Three Imposters. The titular three are only revealed in their own personalities in the opening of the novel, which begins at the end, and are met in the “How We Got Here” sequence of stories within stories as the characters they play in pursuit of a rare Roman coin, the gold Tiberius, which they are seeking for their shadowy employer, Dr Lipsius. They are two men and a woman, and the woman cuts off the hand of their latest quarry as a trophy for Dr Lipsius prior to them burning him to death.

I was fascinated by these characters and I thought I’d have a go at something similar, with three characters whom you get to know in their own, relaxed states, sharing tales of their exploits after a heist or mission. I don’t know if there’s legs for this, or if I’ll finish it, but I have sketched out the germ of this idea in an opening scene.

I was further inspired by the John Silence stories by Algernon Blackwood, and I thought it would be fun to make these three the recurring antagonists in other people’s paranormal tales, as they go around stealing occult items and books for the highest bidder, worming their way into their target’s confidence by telling their own tales of the supernatural.

Genre: Historical Paranormal
Series: Standalone
Current status: ~experimental~
Current word count: 2.1K

Posts & Articles

I’ve published around 10K words on this website this month, which includes the Author Spotlight interviews (so not all my words!). Check out the January posts.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year! In my Gregorian New Year post I looked forwards to 2026 in a practical way, thinking about goals and resolutions. In this post, I take some space to assess the values and spiritual approach I want to take.

Keep reading
by cmrosens

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