Sayara St. Clair Interview Published on: 18, Feb 2019

Sex is where strong bonds are formed between partners. Sex is where we’re at our most primal; all the barriers are down. It’s where you can learn things about a person you never would have known, even if you spent ten years holding their hand and making googly eyes at them. A person may learn new things about themselves. One concept that fascinates me is that a particular partner may bring out something in a person that was previously unknown. It’s a concept I explored in my book, Master Me. Personally, I feel a bit let down when I read books where the sex is glossed over with a bit of choreography, or worse, the bedroom door is closed and nothing that happens in the bedroom is ever mentioned. In those cases, I believe the opportunity to understand the characters and their relationship on a whole other level has been wasted. Erotic romance allows me to delve into aspects of personal relationships that I feel are too often ignored.

One thing that may surprise readers—being that my books are erotic romances—is that my hero and heroine don’t get intimate until quite a way into the book. In most cases, longer than the characters in many standard romance novels. The reason is this: I love sexual tension in books. I also make my characters do the hard yards before they get to the good stuff. When I eventually get them there, I’ll investigate all aspects. Apart from the physical, I’ll look into the emotional, and even down to a psychological level. You could say when I finally give you the sex…I go deep. I have a strong urge to insert a wink emoji here, but I shall refrain.

It is indeed. I feel that to write real and believable characters, I need to get into the heads of those characters, so to speak. Even though there’s quite a lot of humour in most of my books, there’s also much angst and emotion. When you write about topics like abuse (physical, emotional and sexual), as well as things like sexual slavery, it can be quite difficult at times. Especially when you’re so emotionally invested in your characters. I’ve received messages from my readers telling me they’ve both laughed and cried while reading my books. I’ve done the same while writing them.

It’s tough to choose one favourite author. But since I have to pick, I’ll go with Douglas Adams. Here’s a list of authors who have really made an impression on me: Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate was one of the most beautiful books!); Eric Lustbader (The Nicholas Linnear Novels); Ann Rice; Jung Chang; Kresley Cole; J.R. Ward; Charlotte Brontë (Jayne Eyre is the most-read book on my bookshelf); and J.R.R. Tolkien. Now that I write romance, I tend to read more romance than anything else these days. I like paranormal, historical, contemporary and erotic romance books, as well as romantic suspense and romantic comedy. My favourite books within those categories tend to have high levels of emotion and humour. As is probably the case with many authors, I write what I love.

My vampire obsession began when I was perhaps eleven or twelve years old. I used a watch a TV series—I can’t even remember the name of it—where there were many different storylines, one of which featured a vampire. I became absolutely fascinated by the concept of this kind of being. I may have fallen a little bit in love with the hero of the story. Of course, he was no Nosferatu sort. This vamp was quite dashing. In my twenties, I read all the vampire books I could get my hands on. When I wrote my first novel, it had to be about a vampire. With regards to the Twilight novels—I have read them. I will admit that I prefer reading about characters who are in an older age bracket. High school romance is not really my jam.

I have a science degree with majors in both microbiology and biochemistry. My first job was in the field of white cell serology. Which, strangely, was not within the realm of my studies. So I sat in on immunohaematology lectures at university and read truckloads of journal articles and textbooks to get up to speed. I also enrolled in a nighttime course and received my phlebotomist certification. The job itself involved some clinical testing, but mostly research. Later, I was employed a Project Officer, tasked with setting up a skin bank. In case people aren’t sure what skin banking is all about, here it is in a nutshell: Retrieving skin from deceased donors; processing it; and using it for the treatment of burns patients.

I have also been the manager/buyer for furniture retail stores. During that time, I was able to do one of my favourite things, which is interior decorating. I also had the opportunity to travel to China to import furniture and artwork into Australia. During my time in retail, I was in charge of advertising for seven electrical and two furniture stores, which meant writing many, many ads for TV, print and radio.

Moving to Thailand for my husband’s work meant my employment opportunities diminished. Since my Thai language skills leave a lot to be desired, I did the one thing I could, which was teaching English. I obtained a T.E.F.L. (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate and I taught primary school students. As my author bio states, “Hanging about in a roomful of extremely loud, pint-sized humans is not one of her great passions.” After resigning from my teaching job, I began writing. I absolutely love writing. The only other career I’d contemplate is interior design. That’s something I’ve always been very passionate about.

The near future will be dedicated to continuing the Blood Kissed Series (paranormal romance). Following that, I’ll be completing The Dante’s Purgatory Series (erotic romance) with one final installment. After all that’s done, I have a plan for another paranormal series, this time featuring angels.

My immediate personal circle is a small one, consisting of two of the most wonderful people on the planet. (No bias there.) My husband and daughter are my number-one priority, and as such, I’ve made it my mission in life to ensure they have the best and happiest lives possible. My extended family is a humongous multicultural bunch, sprinkled all over the world. The bulk of them reside in Australia and I see some of them every couple of years or so.

I decided, even before I hit double digits, that I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. Don’t laugh. All the little kids laughed when I made that announcement in front of the class. They then whispered behind their hands, asking each other what a neurosurgeon was. Later, I wanted to be an interior designer. In high school, I ended up in the maths/science stream (long story), which led me to studying science at university. The idea of writing books didn’t occur until I was in my mid-twenties. I was already a research scientist by then. My idea began as an abstract one. It wasn’t backed up by a strong belief that it would actually happen. It was along the lines of, one day I’d like to write a book. If I ever have time. Perhaps after retirement. But life happens, and the opportunity came much earlier than expected.

I have authored and co-authored papers that have been published in scientific journals. However, if you do a literature search, you won’t find any articles in The British Journal of Haematology or Vox Sanguinus written by Sayara St. Clair. The scientific writing is under my real name; all the fiction is under my pseudonym (with the exception of a screenplay that was written and sold before my pseudonym existed).

I also love playing tennis and badminton and going swimming. When I was a kid, music took up most of my spare time. I learnt the organ and piano; was part of a musical performance group; and played the xylophone in my high school orchestra. My first job (unofficial because I was only about ten years old) was playing the organ at the local shopping centre to entice customers to visit the music store or enroll their children in the music school. These days, I play the piano rarely. What I’d really like to learn next is drumming. The other thing I love, and do constantly, is dancing. If there’s music, you won’t find me standing still. I’m also teaching myself belly dancing. Thank goodness for YouTube videos!

I feel that writing book reviews is important because it really helps other authors. The more reviews an author receives, the more their books will be seen. Also, if I talk about another author’s work, it may be noticed by someone in my social sphere and will hopefully attract some new readers for that author.

I thoroughly enjoy the interviews. You can read an author’s books and/or interact with them on social media, but when you interview them, you learn things you never would have otherwise. And I find authors to be such fascinating creatures.

Some erotica/erotic romance authors put details of their sex lives out there for public consumption. People begin to expect that of authors writing in these genres. I’m quite happy to discuss the sex in my books, but I keep my own life private.

Writing in this genre means you are hassled on a regular basis by the pervy-stalker set. The ones who believe that if you write erotic content in books, you should be available as their personal sex hotline. Sometimes dudes become demanding and even threatening. I won’t provide details of the kinds of messages I receive (they’d probably curl everyone’s hair), but I will say that I’m not prepared to give these people any more information to add to their arsenal.

In a word—fantastic. I will give you more details, though. There are many reasons to like AllAuthor. First, the site is really well-designed and user-friendly. For that reason, it’s a rare circumstance that I’ve needed to contact the company to ask a question. However, the couple of times I have requested assistance, the staff have been prompt with their responses, as well as extremely helpful. Second, AllAuthor has some great features, e.g., the ability to create review GIFs and book teasers, and the fact that AllAuthor staff investigate the books themselves to create appropriate tweets for their clients. Third, and the thing I find most impressive about AllAuthor, is that they’re constantly coming up with new ideas and promotional materials for their clients. I heartily recommend AllAuthor to writers in all genres.