THE WORLDS OF C.N. ROWAN
Where History & Magic Collide
C.N. Rowan writes urban fantasy rooted in real places, real history, and real folklore — with considerably more immortal heretics, dysfunctional magic, and questionable life choices than the historical record usually admits to. Readers regularly report Google-Mapping their way through the South of France after reading the books. This is exactly the intended effect.
⚔ The imPerfect Cathar Universe
In 1209, a young Cathar heretic named Paul Bonhomme survived the Albigensian Crusade — and hasn’t been able to die properly since. He wakes up in the nearest available corpse, has been doing this for 800 years, and has somehow become the unofficial magical enforcer for the South of France. His best friend Aicha is an immortal Druze queen who is significantly more competent than him. Together, they tackle whatever reality throws at them. Reality throws a lot.
Key Locations
Toulouse
imPerfect Cathar · Home base throughout all 9 books
Paul’s territory. La Ville Rose — The Pink City. Where most things kick off and most things go wrong. Steeped in real Cathar history and home to more magical factions than is sensible for one postcode.
Faerie
imPerfect Cathar · Books 3–6
The Unseelie Court. Ruled by Maeve. Deeply unpleasant. The kind of place where going in is inadvisable and getting out is even harder. Paul ends up there more often than anyone would like.
Medieval Languedoc
imPerfect Cathar · Historical flashbacks throughout
12th-century southern France, where the Cathars were hunted by the Catholic Church in one of history’s grimmer chapters. C.N. Rowan’s research is meticulous. Readers keep Googling it.
Paris & the Pyrénées
imPerfect Cathar · Books 5, 8
The series expands into Paris for political intrigue, and the Pyrénées for ancient Basque legends and the legendary sword of Charlemagne. France is large. C.N. is determined to get into trouble in all of it.
England
imPerfect Cathar · imPerfect Hunt (Book 5)
Yes, they go to England. It goes about as well as you’d expect. There are goth vampires. There is a certain hunchbacked king’s remains. There is, inevitably, a great deal of chaos.
Nice & the French Riviera
imPerfect Cathar · An imPerfect Samhain
1958. A child’s skeleton on a beach. The setting for the standalone novella, where Paul is in his natural element: completely out of his depth, but absolutely not leaving until he fixes it.
The Magic System
Magic in the imPerfect Cathar universe is called Talent, and it is emphatically not a superpower. It costs. It destabilises. It draws attention from things that would very much like to eat you. Paul’s particular gift — instant reincarnation into the nearest available corpse — sounds convenient right up until you consider the downsides, which are numerous and frequently fatal to everyone around him.
Who Were the Cathars?
A Christian religious movement in 12th–13th century southern France, declared heretics by the Catholic Church. The Albigensian Crusade of 1209 was launched to eradicate them — one of the few Crusades directed at fellow Christians. The movement was effectively wiped out. C.N. Rowan’s research is extensive, and readers consistently note how seamlessly the history integrates with the fantasy. As one Goodreads reviewer put it: “I’ve probably heard of Cathars somewhere, but this was my first real look at who they were. Turns out they’re as apt for fantasy as the Templars.”
🏨 The Broken Hotel Universe
Iris is about to lose her bookshop when she inherits a crumbling hotel from a grandmother she never knew. The residents are eccentric. The building is magical. The mood ring is absolutely not to be touched. And Silas — the brooding, perpetually-curtained recluse — he’s fine. The hotel is a portal to multiple worlds, and this is, objectively, someone else’s problem that has entirely become Iris’s problem.
The Broken Hotel
Broken Hotel · Home base · All 4 books
Simultaneously falling apart and somehow structurally sound. Portal to at least two off-world locations. The plumbing is unreliable. The residents are worse. The curtains on room 7 are never, ever opened.
Olympus
Broken Hotel · Book 2
Home of the gods of legend, who are not particularly friendly to regular mortals. Iris goes there anyway, because her best friend Tisha needs a cure that’s only there. Iris is that kind of person.
Break Their Spines And I'll Break Yours Bookshop
Broken Hotel · Series origin
Where everything begins. Nearly bankrupt. Beloved. The kind of independent bookshop that deserves to survive on the merits of existing. It doesn’t quite manage it without magical intervention, which is probably a metaphor for something.
Why South-West France?
C.N. Rowan actually lives in the South-West of France — which, as he’ll tell you, was not for his sins, otherwise he’d have ended up somewhere truly dreadful. The region’s deep history with the Cathar movement, its folklore, its landscapes, and its particular flavour of French stubbornness provide the richest possible backdrop for a series about an immortal heretic who refuses to do anything the easy way.
Readers regularly report Street-View-ing their way through Toulouse and the surrounding region. This is exactly the intended effect, and C.N. is very smug about it.