As military spouses, we have so much to offer in terms of advice, wisdom, encouragement, and —most importantly— our stories. However exciting, mundane, relevant, or random they may seem, they are beautiful and worthy of being told. Writing Our Stories is a series that will highlight the incredible military spouses across branches, ranks, and corners of the world.
The month of February is known as the month of love, so it only seems appropriate to highlight the incredible life of Claire Cain. Claire is an Army spouse who writes romance novels for a living, and her latest book, Safe with You: A Small Town Romance, comes out February 7.
Claire has always been a writer, starting with *NSYNC fanfic in notebooks and progressing to the 29 books she has written on her own (and eight she co-wrote) in the span of only five years. But before she was an author, she was simply a lover of learning.
“I married my husband the summer after I graduated college and really didn’t have a vision for myself beyond more education. I loved school and thought I wanted a PhD, but as so many milspouses can attest, making that work while also wanting to live with my husband at his first duty station proved challenging,” explained Claire. “Because of this and a deployment that started within weeks of moving to Fort Campbell, I started a Master’s program at Austin Peay State University.”
With a Master’s in Creative Writing and after instructing at Austin Peay for a decade through three PCS moves, Claire was hesitant to read romance novels, as literary fiction was preferable to genre fiction in the educational program. But once she began reading them, she fell in love — and began to write them herself. “It lit my brain up and soon I was looking for stories that reflected my own,” she explained. “And it freed me up to write a great romance without apologizing for it not being literary fiction because I was writing what I loved to read.”
Unfortunately, Claire wasn’t able to find many books that mirrored her “normal” military life. Many books hinge on the characteristic suspense of a disaster, with romance being a byproduct.
“I wanted to read a story similar to mine—about a soldier … and how they make their lives work through the challenges of career choices and deployments and the demand the military places on not only the soldier, but their family or potential family… from there, I just kept finding new ways to look at that same dynamic because, as we know, there are so many wonderful ways to fall in love with a service member,” she said.
As for her real-life love story? She’s been married to her Army husband for almost 17 years. Their relationship began as close friends, and then they became pen-pals while he was in Basic. She wrote to him weekly, and then was with him through the ROTC years. A summer wedding, three children, and an entire Army life later, she still enjoys the adventure that the military brings, even when it keeps her husband away during holidays. As a romance writer and a romantic, of course she loves Valentine’s Day, but as is typical in military life, she has celebrated the holiday alone. But that doesn’t mean her beloved ever leaves her feeling forgotten.
“Valentine’s Day has never been about the gifts for me, but I will say one memorable one was during a year-long deployment during the surge in Afghanistan. It was a brutally hard deployment and this was before we had kids. My husband, not a romantic or gift-giver by nature, surprised me with a beautiful necklace in a very recognizable little Tiffany blue box that February and it felt so special,” Claire reminisced.
From the chapters of her own story to the pages of her books, Claire has seized the power, resilience, and commitment of military couples as they endure the trials that loving a service member entails. Using her pen to tell the tales of hardship, sacrifice, and passion, she reveals the truest form of love.
“My favorite romances I’ve written all capture something I love—a sense of home and the value of unconditional love.”
If you would like to enjoy a romance novel this month while supporting a military author, find Claire’s books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or bookshop.org. Happy reading!