Our Email Newsletter from January 2026

seeingredthepodcas
5 days ago
4 min read

Bethan's monthly email newsletter

Happy New Year!

We are at the end of January, we hope you have had a wonderful start to 2026 and that if you have made any resolutions & plans they are going well.

Welcome to your monthly round up of Seeing Red news, insights, competitions and information... apologies that I missed the usual newsletter at the end of December, but I thought I'd do a bumper version this month instead.

December...

I had a lovely birthday at the beginning of December, and was very grateful to everyone who sent me a gift- I felt incredibly spoiled!

Also thank you for my lovely wreath that Claire made and sent me.. all the way from New Zealand! I absolutely loved sending out the Christmas gifts for our giveaway winners, and we both had a wonderful time taking part in the Seeing Red secret santa! (One of the many hilarious gifts is shown below... a Mark cushion lol)

It's so humbling to see what a great community this show has! Thank you for being a part of our lives!

January...

We started the year as we mean to go on, with lots in the pipeline and excitement for upcoming events.

We also had our quarterly book club with the Patreon community, talking about Virginia Roberts-Guiffre's book Nobody's Girl.

January also saw the launch of Mark's new solo podcast Dead Famous, have you listened? I'm so proud of him! It's been brilliant so far, hasn't it!

Recent Episodes...

In December we had a little break for a couple of weeks, to spend time with our families, so we released 3 standard episodes and then we released a couple of re-visited episodes and a very special bonus interview, the interview with Oscar that we referenced last newsletter.

In December we talked a lot about how you don't ever truly know someone. Our cases were quite varied but had this running theme of people being multi-layered. We had Lynda Spence, who was a con artist, weaving a web of lies which eventually caught up with her... but no-one deserves what she went through at the end of her life. We also heard about Sarah Thomas who didn't realise the man she was meeting for an innocuous drink was someone with a deadly anger issue who couldn't hear the word no. And we heard about Albert and Paul who opened their hearts and home to a man who repayed them in the most horrific manner possible.

In January we have focussed on children a lot, the disappearances of Patrick and David, then the murders of Lexi and Scarlett at the hands of their mother, and Parker due to her father. It's been harrowing. But the episode about Daniel and Owen highlighted the amazing work done by families in the name of their lost loved one, keeping their memories alive whilst doing good.

Our Patreon bonus episodes in December and January have touched on topics we are often fascinated by, in December we talked about incel culture, and January's looked at youth knife violence from the mid 2000s... frustrating and upsetting elements to our society.

January's Book Recommendations

I don't have specific recommendations this month, rather a couple of authors.

I've recently read a few books from two authors I love. I have previously read some of their books, and then recent activity on social media prompted me to return to their stories and I'm so glad that I have!

Gillian McAllister is a thriller writer who draws me in with a question or suggestion, then turns everything on its head. One of my recent favourites has been Famous Last Words (you wake and your husband isn't home... in the city there's a hostage situation unfolding on the news... it is your husband... what happens next?! eek) and I am excited for her upcoming Caller Unknown.

The other author I've gone back to is John Marrs. You may be a part of the chapter 39 crew (iykyk) and I've always been a fan of his thrillers, but recently I've returned to his dystopian novels. I loved The Passengers when I read that, and I recently devoured The Family Experiement, even though it made me feel truly unsettled. He has a new thriller that I'm about to start today called Dead In The Water.

I really love the way both these authors use their social media platforms! I feel like I get a real insight into their lives and homes, and it makes me even more excited to read their books.

Bella and I took part in The St John Ambulance challenge The Twelve Books of Christmas - raising awareness and money for this amazing charity and enjoying some festive themed books together. Thank you to everyone who donated, we were very pleased to have raised £107 for such a worthy cause.

Coming up in 2026!

This year we have 3 in-person events in our Seeing Red diary so far:

True Crime Fest in London on 28th March

Crime Con in Brmingham on 25th April

Crime Con in London on 3rd & 4th October

If you are interested in attending any of these please do get in touch as we have entry ticket discount codes to give our listeners & patreon supporters!