THE COMPLETE LIBRARY
All the Books. All the Pain. All the Laughs.
Three series. Multiple awards. Not a single humble word in sight. New: the imPerfect Strays ↓
⚔ The imPerfect Cathar
Winner of the PenCraft Literary Award, Best Indie Book Award, Audiobook Reviewer Award, and American Legacy Book Award. Described as “Highlander meets Harry Dresden.” For fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London, M.D. Massey and Shayne Silvers. All titles on Kindle Unlimited.
New reader? Start with the free prequel novella An imPerfect Trap, then go straight to imPerfect Magic. Or grab an omnibus for maximum value on Kindle Unlimited.
PREQUEL NOVELLA · FREE
An imPerfect Trap
A fae shows up uninvited in Paul’s territory of Toulouse. He was never going to let that slide. Now he’s trapped in a locked room mystery in another dimension, at the mercy of a psychotic faeling’s twisted game. Reincarnating every time he gets killed doesn’t help when the trap won’t let him die.
BOOK 1 · 🏆 WINNER · 4 AWARDS
imPerfect Magic
One moment a heretical priest in the 12th century, hunted, hated. The next, waking up in the nearest corpse. Eight hundred years later and all he’s learned is how to die far too easily, far too often. Now his territory in the South of France is under threat, trapped by impossible angel-made runes. If the angels have gone full red-lightsaber evil, it might not just be his territory in danger — but the whole of reality itself.
BOOK 2
imPerfect Curse
Franc is dying, struck by a curse placed on him by the Sistren of Bordeaux. Paul is exhausted, done in, and desperately in need of a stiff drink. None of that is going to happen any time soon.
BOOK 3
imPerfect Fae
The trail leads to Faerie. No one gets through unless they’re Fae — which leaves one bad option: go toe-to-toe with the mercenary assassin spoken of in terrified whispers across centuries. Half-Marred Jack himself. The one who wiped the floor with Paul last time. He may be more than a monster. Paul is currently less than whole.
BOOK 4
imPerfect Bones
Back in Toulouse, and for once Paul has the upper hand. The unearthed remains of a certain hunchbacked English king provide a tantalising lead on their enemy — who has no idea Paul escaped his Faerie trap. But hob kings, goth vampires, and back-stabbing double-crosses are lining up to ruin the day.
BOOK 5
imPerfect Hunt
Spanning the South of France, England and Paris. Hot on their enemy’s heels with flashbacks to Paul’s adventures in Austria in 1939. The hunter might just become the hunted — which is, honestly, a very Paul Bonhomme sort of development.
BOOK 6 · CLOSES ARC ONE
imPerfect Gods
And so it comes to this. A showdown. An ending. But if they fail — if Paul ends — then reality might follow along behind him. The first arc of the imPerfect Cathar reaches its conclusion. No pressure. Just a day ending in Y.
STANDALONE NOVELLA · BETWEEN BOOKS 6 & 7
An imPerfect Samhain
The walls between the worlds are thin. The nights draw in. And monsters walk abroad. October 30th, 1958 — Paul receives police photos of a child’s skeleton washed up on a French beach, bite marks too big for any human. He and Aicha head to Nice to find out why France’s papers are completely silent about missing children.
BOOK 7 · OPENS ARC TWO
imPerfect Blood
What would you sacrifice to get back those you’ve loved and lost? Since the battle at Bugarach, Paul has been obsessed — fixated on finding a way to bring back those taken from them. But while he’s been chasing ghosts, trouble’s crept in closer to home. He ignored a friend’s cry for help. Now they’re gone.
BOOK 8
imPerfect Blades
Lost swords and last chances. Isaac is sick, the demonic illness spreading fast, and the only lead points to the legendary sword of Charlemagne — Joyeuse — somewhere in the Pyrénées. Ancient Basque legends and incredible tests stand between Paul and the cure.
BOOK 9 · SERIES FINALE
imPerfect Demons
The demon took Paul’s city. Now he’ll give them war. Toulouse is a war zone. The secret world of the Talented teeters on the edge of exposure, and all of humanity hangs in the balance. One last fight. One last impossible dice throw. Eight hundred years of dying comes to its reckoning.
SHORT STORY COLLECTION · 2025
imPerfect Tales
Immortality is a fragmented curse, bound together by myriad tales. From the bloody intrigues of medieval Toulouse to Ireland during the Great Famine, from ancient Lebanon to the shadows of modern Lille — novellas, short stories, and rare flash fictions, some appearing in print for the very first time.
📦 Omnibus Editions — Best Value
Three books in one. imPerfect Beginnings (Books 1–3) · imPerfect Villains (Books 4–6) · imPerfect Endings (Books 7–9). All on Kindle Unlimited. The most efficient way to binge an entire arc whilst technically pretending it’s still just one book.
🇫🇷 Also available in French as Cathare imParfait, translated by Perri Corbett. Proof C.N. Rowan’s humour survives translation into the language of the country that adopted him.
🏨 The Broken Hotel for Magical Misfits
Strong heroines. Found family. Slow-burn romance. A hotel that is emphatically not just a hotel. For fans of Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles, Annabel Chase, and anyone who wished The Faraway Tree had grown up with them. All on Kindle Unlimited.
New reader? Start with the free prequel novella A Hidden Witch’s Inheritance, then dive straight into Book 1.
BOOK 1
A Hidden Witch’s Spell for Making a Tiny Giant Mighty
Iris inherits a crumbling hotel from a grandmother she never knew. The long-term residents redefine quirky — especially Silas, the brooding recluse who always wears black and never opens his curtains. She slips on her grandmother’s mood ring during a meltdown. Her kitchen catches fire. The hotel turns out to be a magical portal to multiple worlds. Classic Tuesday.
BOOK 2
A Hidden Witch’s Spell for Freeing a Captive Olympian
Save the house, or save her best friend? The trail leads to Olympus — home of the gods of legend, who turn out to be not particularly friendly to regular mortals. Tisha was poisoned saving Iris’s life, and the only cure is also on Olympus. Iris is heading in anyway.
BOOK 3
A Hidden Witch’s Spell for Scrying a Lost Vampire
Someone is missing. Someone who may or may not be the reason the curtains on room 7 have never, not once in living memory, been opened. The hunt is on — and the answer may change everything Iris thinks she knows about the hotel and its most mysterious resident.
BOOK 4 · SERIES FINALE
A Hidden Witch’s Spell for Saving her Magical Misfits
Our enemies have found the House. Battle lines are drawn across the hearth — and Iris’s heart. The misfits are ready to fight. The odds aren’t just stacked against them, they’re insurmountable. The found family fights back anyway. That’s rather the point of found family.
NEW SERIES · BOOK ONE OUT 15 OCTOBER 2026
❄ The imPerfect Strays
Portal high fantasy, co-written with K.S. Walsh. Children stolen by the Fae, freed after two hundred years into a monster-haunted medieval Geneva. Set in the imPerfect world, but written to stand on its own. One book a month, October to December 2026.
New reader? Start with Stray Monsters. No prior reading needed.
BOOK 1 · 15 OCTOBER 2026 · ★ 4.78 ON GOODREADS
Stray Monsters
Born a slave. Stolen by the Fae. Kept as Queen Maeve’s pet for two hundred years. When the cages finally open, Billy and the other strays land in Geneva, 1290, where magic belongs to the rich and monsters roam beyond the walls. The city’s Defenders offer them a home and a purpose: hunt the beasts. But free doesn’t mean safe, and the worst monsters don’t always have claws.
Book 2 · Stray Fractures
November 2026
The strays survived Geneva. Now a smiling demagogue is turning whole towns against the Talented.
The strays survived Geneva. Now a smiling demagogue is turning whole towns against the Talented.
Book 3
December 2026
The trilogy finale. Title coming soon.
The trilogy finale. Title coming soon.
IF YOU LIKED…
Which C.N. Rowan series is for you?
What should I read after Dungeon Crawler Carl or The Dresden Files?
Try the imPerfect Cathar by C.N. Rowan: nine books of darkly funny, award-winning urban fantasy about Paul Bonhomme, an 800-year-old Cathar heretic who reincarnates into the nearest corpse every time he dies. It has the snark and relentless pace of Dungeon Crawler Carl and the wise-cracking, magic-and-mayhem detective energy of Harry Dresden, set in the South of France. Readers of M.D. Massey and Shayne Silvers will feel at home. Start with the free prequel novella, An imPerfect Trap.
Are there books like Rivers of London set in France?
Yes. Like Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London, the imPerfect Cathar weaves real places, real history and local folklore into its magic, but in Toulouse, the Pyrénées and Paris rather than London. Expect the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade, French monsters like the Tarrasque and the Beast of Gévaudan, and a great deal of dark humour.
What are good books like Ilona Andrews' Innkeeper Chronicles?
The Broken Hotel for Magical Misfits by C.N. Rowan. Iris inherits a crumbling magical hotel from the grandmother she never knew, complete with eccentric residents, a portal to other worlds, and a brooding recluse who never opens his curtains. Like the Innkeeper Chronicles and Annabel Chase’s books, it mixes cosy found family, magic with consequences and a slow-burn romance. Four books, complete, with a free prequel novella.
Is there a grown-up version of The Faraway Tree?
The Broken Hotel for Magical Misfits is about as close as it gets: instead of a tree with new lands at the top, it’s a crumbling hotel whose doors open onto other worlds, including Olympus. Same wonder and odd, lovable residents, written for adults, with real stakes and a romance.
What fantasy books are like Six of Crows or The Folk of the Air?
Stray Monsters, book one of the imPerfect Strays by C.N. Rowan and K.S. Walsh. It has the stolen-children cruelty of Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air, the damaged, distinctly powered crew of Six of Crows, and the moral turn of Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Children kept for two centuries in a cruel fae court escape into a monster-haunted Geneva, 1290, and become monster hunters. Out 15 October 2026.
Which series should I start with?
Darkly funny urban fantasy with an immortal anti-hero: the imPerfect Cathar. Cosy-with-teeth portal fantasy, found family and slow-burn romance: the Broken Hotel for Magical Misfits. Epic fantasy with fae, monsters and morally grey choices: the imPerfect Strays. The first two each start with a free novella.