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The Karman Line
Set in the independent Boer State of the Transvaal in Africa and spanning four decadesthrough to the Sharpeville massacre of 1955, this is a tale about the boundaries imposed on people by a ruthless bureaucracy.
Born in the Transvaal and ‘whiter than the moon,’ Jada is considered lucky, even as a ruthless bureaucracy intrudes deeper into her life, and the lives of those she loves. Her fortunate appearance can lead her to a better life - if her lies hold up. If she avoids enmeshment among illiterate dockworkers and dour, dark men building the riverbank town of Franksstad, she has a chance.
When she meets Adam, an educated black man living in a time and place where neither of these things are an advantage, their love story unfolds against the turbulent, frantic expansion of their rapidly growing city. As the apartheid laws grow more oppressive, the couple find themselves accidental criminals, their life together no longer allowed.
But some stories will be told, and Jada’s secrets remain a necessary reminder that some people remain unconquerable, no matter how much more there is to her story.
Born in the Transvaal and ‘whiter than the moon,’ Jada is considered lucky, even as a ruthless bureaucracy intrudes deeper into her life, and the lives of those she loves. Her fortunate appearance can lead her to a better life - if her lies hold up. If she avoids enmeshment among illiterate dockworkers and dour, dark men building the riverbank town of Franksstad, she has a chance.
When she meets Adam, an educated black man living in a time and place where neither of these things are an advantage, their love story unfolds against the turbulent, frantic expansion of their rapidly growing city. As the apartheid laws grow more oppressive, the couple find themselves accidental criminals, their life together no longer allowed.
But some stories will be told, and Jada’s secrets remain a necessary reminder that some people remain unconquerable, no matter how much more there is to her story.
229 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 20, 2025
2 people want to read
About the author
Clyve Rose
15 books228 followersClyve Rose is an award-winning author of historical Regency romance fiction. She also creates literary novels under an alternative pen name.
She has been writing historical romance for the best part of two decades. Clyve researches various mythologies and historical periods in between her devotion to fiction writing, often basing her characters on actual historical personalities.
One of her novels was longlisted for a 2010 Hachette Fiction Award, while her paranormal short story, The One Below, is an award-winning piece. Her debut novel won awarded a BookFest Gold Medal in 2020, and her first novella won an IRWIN in 2021.
Connect with Clyve Rose at clyverose.com and Instagram.com/ClyveRose.
She has been writing historical romance for the best part of two decades. Clyve researches various mythologies and historical periods in between her devotion to fiction writing, often basing her characters on actual historical personalities.
One of her novels was longlisted for a 2010 Hachette Fiction Award, while her paranormal short story, The One Below, is an award-winning piece. Her debut novel won awarded a BookFest Gold Medal in 2020, and her first novella won an IRWIN in 2021.
Connect with Clyve Rose at clyverose.com and Instagram.com/ClyveRose.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 14, 2025
Review of The Karman Line by Wendy Waters author MIRIAM – La Colombe Blanche
“A split second later he is weightless; dissociated from everything Earth and earth-bound. Even gravity, the most basic law, is broken. One more “unnatural act” he commits with impunity. The unlabelled, unclaimed Universe surrounds his Vega, pushing him into the vast unknown; not yet bounded by empires and traded for gold, diamonds and a handful of silver mines.”
Adam is a black man, an astronaut against all odds, in fifties apartheid South Africa where his movements are restricted by laws so punitive it is difficult for us to imagine how they were sanctioned. But prejudice and fear have a stronger hold than gravity and their pull on the privileged is hypnotic and super-imposed by the suffocating hypocrisy of group-think, white group-think.
Ms Rose tells a story of horrifying prejudice and violence in such a magnificently musical and poetic way that I had to reread entire passages to absorb the full impact of her extraordinary craft. I call her Mastery craft but really it is Art with a capital “A”. This is a writer whose genius will reverberate for centuries. This book and the many to come, yes she is young enough to leave a huge body of work, will be classics. Rather than bemoan the state of a publishing industry in Australia that has failed Ms Rose, among others, by not amplifying her brilliance, I will instead applaud Andrew Sparke ANDREW SPARKE | APS BOOKS/APS PUBLICATIONS for recognising a modern classic and making it available to the world.
“He smiles all the time he is in orbit, showing his teeth. Up here, he is not invisible; refuses to blend with the dark Universe. Cannot be absorbed into the lost property of space, one of thousands of particles to lie out there unclaimed. Up here where he can actually see the blackness, the holes, the spaces in space, he is closer to his father’s star and his own faded memories; closer to the silence that leads to recollection and reaction – and yet, uncertain of how much space in his stories he really wants to fill. Emptiness has presence; infinite cold depths no man must plumb. Holes in the story are necessary, magical and full of possibility.”
Holes in the story are necessary…and yet there are none. So meshed, so blended, so magnificent are the threads that Ms Rose has woven into this tapestry of shame, passion, bloodlust, hatred, decency, empathy and humanity that the whole picture finally resolves as love. And yet there are great gaping holes in the fabric of a society unhinged by fear and a prejudice fuelled by privilege and lies…sound familiar? I despair that what Ms Rose has unmasked in this transcendent novel is the human condition. I despair that humanity cannot learn. And yet…
And yet, here is a young female author triumphing over her own struggles – lack of recognition, the inevitable lack of gender parity, the innate fear of brilliant women – to create a work of Art so word perfect, for every word shines and there is no padding, that it will outlive her, outlive us all and find its place among the stars just as her protagonist Adam does at last when he erupts into the night sky – a black man mapping the black sky with a white marker.
I hope this work of Art finds traction worldwide and in summing up I will precis Ms Rose’s own brilliant words: At first it is only a trickle… The trickle becomes a tributary, a river, a litany of truths and years of pent-up secrets held tightly, desperately and now urgently becoming “known” flowing into minds, hearts, eyes, souls and emerging lip-to-lip until it is known as truth and new generations drink it all in, tasting how refreshing and open and wonderful and light truly brilliant literature is when gifted by a Master wordsmith like Ms Clyve Rose.
After a second reading of this book I am even more convinced that Ms Rose is a master wordsmith whose brilliance will sustain into the next century. A classic in the making.
The Karman Line is available The Karman Line by Clyve Rose, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
The Karman Line by Clyve Rose (Ebook) - Read free for 30 days
The Karman Line eBook by Clyve Rose - EPUB | Rakuten Kobo Canada
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-karma...
The Karman Line by Clyve Rose Paperback Book | eBay
The Karman Line : Rose, Clyve: Amazon.com.au: Books
“A split second later he is weightless; dissociated from everything Earth and earth-bound. Even gravity, the most basic law, is broken. One more “unnatural act” he commits with impunity. The unlabelled, unclaimed Universe surrounds his Vega, pushing him into the vast unknown; not yet bounded by empires and traded for gold, diamonds and a handful of silver mines.”
Adam is a black man, an astronaut against all odds, in fifties apartheid South Africa where his movements are restricted by laws so punitive it is difficult for us to imagine how they were sanctioned. But prejudice and fear have a stronger hold than gravity and their pull on the privileged is hypnotic and super-imposed by the suffocating hypocrisy of group-think, white group-think.
Ms Rose tells a story of horrifying prejudice and violence in such a magnificently musical and poetic way that I had to reread entire passages to absorb the full impact of her extraordinary craft. I call her Mastery craft but really it is Art with a capital “A”. This is a writer whose genius will reverberate for centuries. This book and the many to come, yes she is young enough to leave a huge body of work, will be classics. Rather than bemoan the state of a publishing industry in Australia that has failed Ms Rose, among others, by not amplifying her brilliance, I will instead applaud Andrew Sparke ANDREW SPARKE | APS BOOKS/APS PUBLICATIONS for recognising a modern classic and making it available to the world.
“He smiles all the time he is in orbit, showing his teeth. Up here, he is not invisible; refuses to blend with the dark Universe. Cannot be absorbed into the lost property of space, one of thousands of particles to lie out there unclaimed. Up here where he can actually see the blackness, the holes, the spaces in space, he is closer to his father’s star and his own faded memories; closer to the silence that leads to recollection and reaction – and yet, uncertain of how much space in his stories he really wants to fill. Emptiness has presence; infinite cold depths no man must plumb. Holes in the story are necessary, magical and full of possibility.”
Holes in the story are necessary…and yet there are none. So meshed, so blended, so magnificent are the threads that Ms Rose has woven into this tapestry of shame, passion, bloodlust, hatred, decency, empathy and humanity that the whole picture finally resolves as love. And yet there are great gaping holes in the fabric of a society unhinged by fear and a prejudice fuelled by privilege and lies…sound familiar? I despair that what Ms Rose has unmasked in this transcendent novel is the human condition. I despair that humanity cannot learn. And yet…
And yet, here is a young female author triumphing over her own struggles – lack of recognition, the inevitable lack of gender parity, the innate fear of brilliant women – to create a work of Art so word perfect, for every word shines and there is no padding, that it will outlive her, outlive us all and find its place among the stars just as her protagonist Adam does at last when he erupts into the night sky – a black man mapping the black sky with a white marker.
I hope this work of Art finds traction worldwide and in summing up I will precis Ms Rose’s own brilliant words: At first it is only a trickle… The trickle becomes a tributary, a river, a litany of truths and years of pent-up secrets held tightly, desperately and now urgently becoming “known” flowing into minds, hearts, eyes, souls and emerging lip-to-lip until it is known as truth and new generations drink it all in, tasting how refreshing and open and wonderful and light truly brilliant literature is when gifted by a Master wordsmith like Ms Clyve Rose.
After a second reading of this book I am even more convinced that Ms Rose is a master wordsmith whose brilliance will sustain into the next century. A classic in the making.
The Karman Line is available The Karman Line by Clyve Rose, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
The Karman Line by Clyve Rose (Ebook) - Read free for 30 days
The Karman Line eBook by Clyve Rose - EPUB | Rakuten Kobo Canada
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-karma...
The Karman Line by Clyve Rose Paperback Book | eBay
The Karman Line : Rose, Clyve: Amazon.com.au: Books
Displaying 1 of 1 review