SEELIE KAY: Postcards from The Ledge: This week in The Loft: Australian author Clyve Rose!

Joining me today in The Loft is Amazon best-selling author Clyve Rose. Clyve writes historical romance. She believes that love is the highest and strongest force known in the world and it only manifests when we are our best and truest selves. When not writing, Clive can be found pounding the sand on the beautiful beaches near her Australian home, engaging in short-haul ocean swims, and researching quirky historical fashion trends. Clyve shares her home with a small white demon dog and a budding Amazon warrior.

Author Cylve Rose

S: Good morning, Clyve! Thanks for joining me today.

What inspires your stories?

C: People inspire my stories, as does love. The way they brave their own worst fears and move through the world towards each other. The power of love between siblings and families, between parents and children, between friends and lovers. There are so many sources of strong, powerful love to learn about. It’s endlessly changing and endlessly fascinating.

S: Are there any characteristics your lead characters share?

C: I’d say yes, they are all outsiders in one way or another. Either they don’t quite fit in the place they’re expected to belong or they are truly strangers in a strange land. My heroine in my debut novel wasn’t English, but found herself housebound in an English manor house for some weeks with a duke’s son. In my Christmas novella, the earl’s daughter must maintain the façade of wealth and privilege while the truths she lives with are far from this gilded lie.

S: Ah, hidden truths always tantalize!

Do you believe in love at first sight?

C: I believe in lust at first sight. I believe in chemistry and attraction. Do I believe love strikes like lightning, with nothing ever occurring to connect two people beforehand? I think love--powerful, resilient love--takes time. It grows and changes with the hearts involved. I do not think it is a single moment. It is many moments. That first sight of the other--that may be one of them, but it cannot be all of them.

S: Do you remember your first kiss?

C: I do remember it. His name was Nick, and he caught me completely by surprise, mainly because I knew he had a girlfriend at the time. It was the first time I realized that social mores only dictate behavior if we believe it does.

S: What was your worst date ever?

C: He brought his wife. That said, she and I had a great girl’s night out and dumped him at the first bar we hopped to. I believe they’re no longer together. Need I say more?

S: That is a story worthy of inclusion in a romance novel.

What do you want inscribed on your tombstone?

C: My epitaph will undoubtedly read, "One more read through." My editor has to pry my work from my hands most times.

S: Tell me about your book, "Love's Sweet Arrow."

C: It's a holiday reunion novella appearing in the Regency Christmas anthology, Sweet Christmas Secrets. It sits alongside nine other sweetly seasonal Regency reads. Writing my first sweet romance was a lesson in patience, in listening to the characters and staying true to their story. If they are not the kinds of Regency figures to fall naked on a hay bale, then as the writer, I must find another way for them to discover their love. In the case of this story, their love was never in doubt--merely in stasis and difficult to admit, as love often is. The hovering, the waiting, the second-guessing and the wondering--all add poignancy to the sweetness of this style of romance and I may have loved it a little by the end. This novella gave me quite the toughest moments I’ve had as a writer in years. It feels sweeter, and less hot, that my usual work. It also feels more delicate--like tender lacework instead of sensuous silk ribbon. There were moments I believed it impossible to finish, but I never give up on a story. Not as long as the love is there.

Here's the blurb--

The battle-weary Captain Eversfield lost his heart years ago to a girl who was out of his reach – but now? Back from the wars but not quite whole, will his Christmas wish come true?

Lady Annette Ryehurst spent ten long years trying to forget the boy she’s missed all this time. With her mother causing scandals and scheming to wed Annette to her cousin, our heroine’s chances of love seem to shrink by the day. Then she finds a paper rose in an old friend’s carriage. Dare she hope again?