[Image: cartoon drawing of the top part of a round, off-white face, with only panicked brown eyes showing]

Today is my last official day as an unpublished romance author. I've just now realized that.

I'm feeling all the expected feelings, plus some unexpected ones, plus some things I haven't quite identified yet.  I'm excited, nervous, giddy, slightly nauseous, hopeful, anxious, stressed, distracted, happy, proud... You name it.

Yesterday was good. I very much enjoyed participating in the Bookstore Romance Day virtual panel celebrating plus-size protagonists; it was lovely to meet fellow authors Danielle Jackson, Jenny L. Howe, Amanda Cinelli and April Asher to talk about the responsibilities and challenges of writing love stories for characters who were for many years erased from romance. Katie Garaby of Parnassus Books was a wonderful host and asked great questions. That panel was recorded and will, I believe, be posted on YouTube at some point, if you missed it and would still like to catch the discussion.

TOMORROW (Tues. Aug. 22, 2023), however, there will be no blending-into-a-panel for me! I'll be flying mostly solo, with the help of Annie from Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis.
I hope if you can you will join us for this virtual event tomorrow night;  I'll do a short reading from "Curves for Days" and then chat with Annie of M&Q about writing the book and then there will be an audience Q&A.
The event is free and will last approximately one hour. It starts at 8pm Eastern, 7pm Central, 6pm Mountain, etc. Please join me/us! Register here for access.

I'll try not to be QUITE as wild-eyed as I am today, but honestly? No promises.

Here we are, one week out from the release of my debut, "Curves for Days."
I am feeling the most peculiar combination of feelings... hope, angst, enjoyment, excitement, mischief, accomplishment, worry, imposter syndrome, pride, and a desire to retreat to a wilderness cave.
But I've been doing some fun stuff, such as an author interview with Emily Downey of the Baking Up Good Reads blog. She asked really interesting, thoughtful questions and it was a joy to respond to them. You can see the interview and a brief review of the book here. She's planning to make a recommendation for a yummy baked good to pair with "Curves for Days," so I'm looking forward to seeing what she suggests!
I've just looked over Book 2 (July's story) in what will be its book format, which is exciting. Also exciting is that we're coming up with a great title and cover for that one and I'm really tickled with what I'm pretty sure we've chosen! But I'll have to share that later.
I'm on a deadline to submit Book 3 at the end of this month, so that's what my hands are full with this week.
Finally, I'm pulling myself back up on the wagon after falling off into review spaces. I know better, it makes me miserable, and I don't know why it's such a struggle to stay away! I'm just going to have to do a DuoLingo lesson or play another game of Sudoku or something when I find myself wanting to check one of the review sites. Or take a walk. Yeah, I should take a walk.
I hope you're well and up to lots of fun stuff yourself. Take care. <3

...named "Curves for Days" on its Best Books of the Month list! 
You can see the full list here
or see their buy link here.

Thank you so much, kobo! I'm thrilled and honored. <3 

[Image below: Against a shade-of-purple prism background, the cover of "Curves for Days" by Laura Moher shows a youngish fat white woman with curly dark hair, standing in a garden and looking back over her shoulder at the viewer. The caption reads "One of Kobo's Best of the Month," followed by the Rakuten kobo logo.]

Well, here was a source of much squealing in MY house today!
Apple Books chose "Curves for Days" as one of "3 Debuts we Love" for August!  This is a great honor. Thank you, Apple Books!

[Image: 3 book covers ("I Will Greet the Sun Again" by Khashayar J Khabushani, "Curves for Days" by Laura Moher, and "Small Town Sins" by Ken Jaworowski) against a green background, with the heading "3 Debuts We Love"]

As you might have seen from the graphic on the Home page, another honor came in this week: a starred review from Booklist! 
I can't describe how it feels to work so hard on this story--to write it and rethink it and rewrite it again and again--and get helpful input from first readers and my wonderful agent Sara Megibow and my equally wonderful editor Deb Werksman and her Sourcebooks team and rewrite it another couple of times until finally it makes it into the hands of outside readers, and then have at least some of them appreciate it enough to write such lovely things.
My first book baby has flown into some loving hands! 
Here's a snippet from the review (or you can read the full review here):
"It is lovely to see two people who have issues with body size discover that the other’s perceptions can be different than expected while they try to navigate a relationship they never thought could happen. Readers of this heartfelt debut will hope for more from Moher."

... and not just temperature-wise. 

As the photo above (which features the cover of "Curves for Days" set in a whimsical floral border with the heading "Goodreads Giveaway") shows, Sourcebooks is giving away 100 copies of the book starting tomorrow (Saturday 7/29/2023) and running through 8/21/2023.  I'm really excited about that, and I hope one of you wins a copy!   For more information, see here. 

Writing-wise, I got some feedback on my first complete draft of book 3 (Andi and Kevin's story--Andi is the best friend of July (whose story is told in book 2), who becomes one of the best friends of main character Rose in "Curves for Days."

I really am blessed with the best beta readers; one of them suggested a slight reordering of the story to make the plot flow more smoothly, and the other suggested a couple of important things to emphasize character-wise. Sometimes writers get contradictory feedback on their work, and then they have to either choose one set of advice over another or decide to leave it as is and risk not pleasing anyone! I am lucky to have kind, smart, insightful readers whose suggestions will work together to make book 3 smoother and give it more punch. Thank heavens for them (You know who you are!).

Something else on my radar as we wind down this last month before my book baby comes out... 
I'm going to make two virtual appearances to talk about "Curves for Days" and other romance books! 

The first is part of the big Bookstore Romance Day weekend, which bookshops all over the country participate in; that one is Sunday 8/20/23--two days before the release of "Curves for Days"--and involves a panel of authors who have written plus-size protagonists. Besides me, the panel includes Taj McCoy (whose book "Savvy Sheldon's Feeling Good as Hell" I am currently reading and enjoying immensely), Jenny L. Howe (whose book "On the Plus Side" was a recent advance review copy I really enjoyed), April Asher (author of another fun recent read, "Not the Witch You Wed"), and Amanda Cinelli (I haven't read one of hers with a plus-sized protagonist, but I did enjoy "The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage," which features a main character on the autism spectrum). 
That Aug. 20 "Dangerous Curves Ahead" panel is scheduled for 4pm EDT, 3 CDT, and is sponsored by Parnassus Books of Nashville (whose owner, author Ann Patchett, nearly killed me with her beautiful, harrowing book "Bel Canto.") and will be led by Parnassus bookseller Katie Garaby.
It's a free event, but you need to register to get tickets here. 
I think I'll survive this, my first event, and if I don't, well, I'll die in good company.

THEN, on Tuesday 8/22/23, the evening of my actual book release, Magers & Quinn of Minneapolis is hosting a virtual event for me to talk about my book via YouTube! That's at 8pm Eastern time, 7pm Central. Again, the event is free but you have to register here. I'm very tickled about this; the Twin Cities has many cool bookshops, but Magers & Quinn was the first one I found and explored after moving up here, so they've got a special place in my heart.

With all this exciting stuff going on, you can probably understand why my head is spinning. Now I need to go double check everything to see what I've forgotten... Oh yeah, the edits to book 3...