Reads: January, 2025

I'm back to sharing my monthly reads (albeit late) but I'm being kind to myself, as it's a bit of trial and error when returning to the groove of things after the length of burnout I experienced. That aside, here were the books I reviewed for January:

All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes by Sue Black

Mapping Murder: The Secrets of Geographical Profiling by David Canter

I'm hoping to get in some more fiction reading soon, and have implemented this plan in the form of a book club! If you'd like to be a part of this, please consider joining my Facebook group, C.S. Poe's Curious & Mysterious. We will be voting on the first book February 20 and the winner will be announced February 25. We'll read this title throughout March and meet at the end of the month in a fun and laid back Zoom chat to gush about the experience. 

In the meantime, I always post my reviews at Goodreads and BookBub and welcome to followers!

Conventions: 2025 appearances

 

I will be in attendance at three events in 2025 as a registered author! Will I have the chance to see you at any of these fantastic book conventions?

Coastal Magic Convention: Daytona Beach, FL, Feb. 20 - 23

RomantiConn: Trumbull, CT, Jul. 25 - 26

GRL: Scottsdale, AZ, Oct. 10 - 11

Sale: Curio

Until January 31, my latest short story and chaotic rom-com Curio is on sale for only .99c! This sale is exclusive to my direct shop and no checkout code is needed. Grab yourself a copy and decompress this weekend with secondhand shop owner Lew, hot guy and habitual customer Henry, and Lew's ridiculous Aunt Julia with her dyed green hair.

Check out my shop here.

Blurb: Llewellyn Cooper and his aunt Julia run Curio Cabinet in New York City’s West Village, where the clientele is as strange as the junk being amassed in their secondhand shop. Llewellyn and Julia have been as thick as thieves his entire life, and Llewellyn can’t imagine being anywhere else six days a week—even if Julia’s bizarre habits and inappropriate conversations drive him crazy. That’s family, though, right?

When Llewellyn drums up the nerve to chat with a routine customer—in part due to curiosity, as Henry McLaughlin returns time and again to purchase nothing but old photographs, but also because the bearded and bow tie–wearing man is the finest thing to ever step foot inside Curio—it seems like Llewellyn will finally have a plus-one for future RSVPs. But just when things start looking up in the romance department, it turns out Henry might be too strange for the Cooper family.

And that’s saying something.

Sale: 25% off audiobooks

Until January 31, 2025 all of the audiobooks for sale at my direct shop will be 25% off! These titles are already cheaper than the Whispersync prices, which means if you want to indulge in the entire Snow & Winter series, you can grab all five books for only $25, which is a pretty mean steal. Also available are my standalone novels Southernmost Murder and Color of You, and my spec-fic novella, 11:59.

All audiobooks will be available for listening on your Bookfunnel app, which is free to download on both Android and iOS.

Hit up my shop Emporium Press and use code at checkout: AUDIO25 and thank you for your support!

2025 with C.S. Poe

Welcome to 2025!

I love January 1st. It has always felt like a natural do-over, a chance to get projects, goals, or plans implemented with a freshly cleaned slate. And to keep that sensation alive, I always deep-clean my house on New Year's Eve, open the windows to let out one year while allowing in the next, and stay up to welcome the change at midnight. And after the rough year I had in 2024, if you told me to hold my breath, dance on one foot, and throw corn at myself for additional good luck, I'd probably do it. I jokingly quote Michael Scott from The Office: I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.

One lesson I took from 2024 is that I will no longer be assigning upcoming books a release date until the manuscript is finished. It's simply too much pressure, which complicates the artistry of writing. And the reader letdown when I've had to cancel pre-orders as well as my self-imposed guilt is simply no bueno. So as I head into 2025, release dates will be shared once I've completed the manuscript. Pre-orders will become available while the book is in edits, since that's a surefire schedule with my amazing team of editors at the helm.

So what can readers expect from me in 2025? A lot. I'm brimming with ideas—a whole heap of cool shit I can't talk about quite yet (a little stitious, remember?) but rest assured, it's in the works and I'm stoked about it! What I am willing to talk about is Memento Mori and Magic & Steam. As many are aware, I'm actively writing Hudson River Homicides, the fourth title in Memento Mori, after several re-writes and burn out, and that will be the first release of the year. Afterward, I'll be returning to Gillian and Gunner's steampunk universe to write and release the long-awaited fourth title in Magic & Steam, The Councilman.

I'll be in attendance at several book events in 2025, including Coastal Magic Convention in Daytona Beach, Florida, RomantiConn in Trumbull, Connecticut, and the annual return to GayRomLit, this time in Scottsdale, Arizona. I hope to see you at any one of these locations!

Otherwise, I plan to keep using this blog to share my book releases and sales, reviews of books I've read and movies watched, and maybe some new character-related content as well. And if you want to stay apprised with my production schedule, available free reads, and much more, be sure to follow my social media accounts or sign up for my newsletter. You can find all of that here.

Thank you for supporting my writing. This June will be my tenth year as a professionally published author, and that simply wouldn't be the case if it wasn't for readers like you. We're going to make this a great year together!

Sale: Curiosities & Subway

Celebrate the New Year with some mysteries! Pick up Book 2 in Snow & Winter, The Mystery of the Curiosities, or Book 2 in Memento Mori, Subway Slayings, for only 99c during the month of January, exclusively at Kobo!

New to either of these series? Never fear! Meet amateur sleuth Sebastian Snow and his homicide detective love interest Calvin Winter in The Mystery of Nevermore. Or join Cold Case detective Everett Larkin and his forensic artist partner and love interest Ira Doyle in Madison Square Murders.

Snow & Winter 2 Blurb: Life has been great for Sebastian Snow. The Emporium is thriving and his relationship with NYPD homicide detective, Calvin Winter, is everything he’s ever wanted. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Sebastian’s sole concern is whether Calvin would enjoy a romantic date. It’s only when an unknown assailant smashes the Emporium’s window and leaves a peculiar note behind that all holiday plans get pushed aside in favor of another mystery.

Sebastian is quickly swept up in a series of grisly yet seemingly unrelated murders. The only connection tying the deaths together are curiosities from the lost museum of P.T. Barnum. Despite Calvin’s attempts to keep Sebastian out of the investigation, someone is forcing his hand, and it becomes apparent that the entire charade exists for Sebastian to solve. But with each clue that brings him closer to the killer, he’s led deeper into Calvin’s official cases.

It’s more than just Sebastian’s livelihood and relationship on the line—it’s his very life.

Memento Mori 2 Blurb: Detective Everett Larkin of New York City’s Cold Case Squad has been on medical leave since catching the serial killer responsible for what the media has dubbed the “Death Mask Murders.” But Larkin hasn’t forgotten that another memento—another death—is waiting to be found.

Summer brings the grisly discovery of human remains in the subway system, but the clues point to one of Larkin’s already-open cases, so he resumes active duty. And when a postmortem photograph, akin to those taken during the Victorian Era, is located at the scene, Larkin requests aid from the most qualified man he knows: Detective Ira Doyle of the Forensic Artists Unit.

An unsolved case that suffered from tunnel vision, as well as the deconstruction of death portraits, leads Larkin and Doyle down a rabbit hole more complex than the tunnels beneath Manhattan. And if this investigation isn’t enough, both are struggling with how to address the growing intimacy between them. Because sometimes, love is more grave than murder.