I always wished I had had a twin. Someone like me, but different. Someone who would know me better than anyone else, and who’d always be there for me. I knew what my twin relationship would have looked like because my mom was a twin and I had grown up watching my mom and my aunt interact in that coveted twin bubble where it was just the two of them against the world (the world defined as seven small children, of course).

The odds were that I might have twin children, so I hoped for that, since I wasn’t a twin myself. I knew what not to do — don’t dress them alike, don’t assume they have the same interests. Every pregnancy I waited for my twins. Instead I had three (wonderful, amazing, awesome) singletons.

So — the only thing left was to write about twins, and thus the Fenster twins Helena and Rosaline were born. Of course, I wanted to take what I’d learned from my mom and my aunt about twins and use it. I decided that in my novel The Next Best Bride they would switch places at the altar (no, mom and auntie did not do this).

My Once Upon a Wedding series is Victorian historical romance and seemed a perfect atmosphere to make that story work, as long as I could find a happily ever after for everyone. Switching places at the altar is not like switching places on a date (which my mom and aunt may or may not have done, depending on who is reading this). I had a challenge on my hands. Fortunately, it was a lot of fun because Helena is an artist whose only urge to roam far from family is on her canvas and Rosaline is an adventurer who needs unknown lands to explore (this dichotomy may — or may not — be modeled after my own mom and aunt).

To this day I feel lucky that my mom and her twin still have a great relationship (which includes copious amounts of getting on each others’ nerves of course). So far, my grandchildren have been singletons. But if a pair of twins come along, I know how to be the best granny for them (hint: always treat them like individuals, because they are).

Do you have twins in your family? Are you a twin?

Kelly

BIO: Kelly McClymer is the author of the Once Upon a Wedding Victorian historical romance series featuring the Fenster siblings. She also writes a cozy momlit romance series with a mystery shopper mom heroine. She also writes fantasy, science fiction and anything else her muse dictates.

BLURB: Rand Mallon, Earl of Dalby, is an unrepentant rake in need of an heir and two weeks away from his wedding day when his fiance informs him that she intends to jilt him. Desperate, he is willing to consider her twin sister as his next best option.

Helena Fenster has her reasons for agreeing to her twin sister’s audacious plan to switch places. The earl has made it clear he doesn’t care which twin goes to the altar with him, and plans to allow his wife her freedom once he has his heir. Unfortunately, the plan get complicated when love begins to blossom in two unwilling hearts.