Blog Tour: Last Minute Love by Romi

Follow the tour HERE

Author Bio:

I am Canadian, and here are some strange personal facts:

-I wore denim-top-to-bottom in high school (there is a direct inverse relationship between how much denim I wore and how few tongues were launched down my throat at school dances...or anywhere in high school at all).
-A homeless lady in New York once told me "You're just a bitch on vacation with no money!"
-I always hated those insufferable couples who would cuddle and make out on the subway...until I became half of one. But now I'm back to being none of one so I hate them again.

The thing I love most in the world is writing. When I first started publishing on Amazon it was my "crazy" humour side ("The Book of Awful," and "NOT Love Poems For Real Life"). Since then, everything has focused on my "Year of the Chick" series, because it's the most important thing to me in the world right now. I guess that would tend to happen, when your writing is inspired by real life, including all the satisfaction and risks that come from that.

My "Year of the Chick" series can be described as "edgy rom-com," which helps me account for the blunt conversations and mortifying family moments in the book ;-).
Book 3 in the "Year of the Chick" series will be written and released in 2013; until then I have some adventures to go on! 

Connect with Romi!

• Facebook Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/RomiMoondi
• Twitter: http:///www.twitter.com/romimoondi
• Blog: http://romimoondi.wordpress.com

What's a girl to do when she meets the Internet man of her dreams, he's better than she expected, but he lives an ocean away? And let's not forget her parents,who are trying to lock her up in arranged-marriage doom...

In this fast-paced story of culture clash and romantic pursuits, there's a big fat Indian wedding, the struggle to keep a long-distance flame alive, and an unexpected mystery man who could set a new course in motion. 

All the while, our heroine abandons what was once an all-

Q.  What is your favorite thing about being an author?

 Without a doubt, it’s getting feedback from readers. The e-mails, the Facebook posts on my author page, I just love finding out that a reader connected with something I wrote. Quite simply, I believe the world becomes a better place when more people connect with each other, and the author/reader relationship accomplishes that, if you’re lucky enough to pull it off.

Q.  What is the toughest part of being an author?For me it’s the challenge of making each book better than the last. Success to me equals believing that my next book improved upon the last one. Actually accomplishing that? And being satisfied enough to move on from a book and publish it? That’s excruciating. But I guess it’s better to be one’s own worst critic as opposed to thinking everything you do is great ;-).

 Q. Can you tell me a little about the inspiration behind your book cover(s)

I now have three book covers with the “calendar theme.” It started with “Year of the Chick,” then the short story prequel, and now “Last-Minute Love.” I think I always knew that the first book “Year of the Chick” would have a calendar element, because the book is literally about the quest to find love in a year and avoid arranged marriage. With this clear vision I encountered a wonderful cover artist named Tara West, and she’s been doing my covers ever since!

Q.  If you could not be author, what would you do/be?

I still have a full-time career in a corporate office, so I almost couldn’t be an author as it is! The only way I’ve managed to publish 3 books in the last 16 months is by not sleeping enough or not going out enough…I am, in short, a dork, haha. And if I couldn’t even put out these books? We’ll then I’d love to be an archaeologist. In fact I absolutely adore Ancient Egyptian history, I even have a museum membership! (this once again confirms my “dork” status).

Q.  What would the story of your life be entitled?

Hmm…well so far it’s entitled “Year of the Chick” and “Last-Minute Love,”….hahaha. Okay, these books are fictional, but they’re very much inspired by real life (I love getting e-mails asking me if “James” and “Erik” are real!). And if it was an all-encompassing memoir of my life? Well I guess the title of that book would be “Avoiding Arranged Marriage and Being Terrible at Dating.” Ahem.

Q.  What is your favorite book of all time?

My favourite classic book is “Jane Eyre,” without a doubt. I just love how she never compromises who she is for a man (which is especially brave for the time it was written in!). I also love that after staying true, she somehow still (SPOILER ALERT!) finds her happy ending.

My favourite modern-day book is “Shantaram.” It would take me a long time to describe how amazing it is (it’s nearly 900 pages!), so I’ll simply say it’s addictive, and written in the most beautiful, sweeping, and cinematic style.

Q.  Which part of your book(s) was the easiest to write?

The exciting parts about connecting with a stranger and falling for him.

Q.  Which part of your book(s) was the hardest to write?

The parts where all that wonderful hope for true love encountered so many road-blocks.

Q.  Which character from any book are you most like?

For this, I’ll definitely have to go with the main character, whose name is…Romi. Haha.

Q.  What is your favorite season?

I love warm summer nights, but the writer in me absolutely adores the crisp autumn season. It’s the time when I get to wear my sparkly scarves, buy pumpkin-spice lattes, and curl up in a café facing the window with my laptop open as I write.

Q.  Tell me something funny that happened while on a book tour or while promoting your book(s).

I had my book release party for “Year of the Chick” in a night club. It seems like a strange venue, but given what the book is about it really fit! The party was amazing, and as we were crossing the street at 3am to go find a cab, an Indian-looking guy approached me. He asked me where I bought my dress, because he wanted to take his “girlfriend” (I question her existence so I put it in quotes) salsa dancing one day and she needed a dress. I told him where I bought it, and when he found out I’d just come from my book party he seemed intrigued. I gave him a “Year of the Chick” button (that’s me, ever the marketer), and he became my Facebook fan the next day. Two days later he invited me to a party (right, so about that girlfriend…suuurrre…haha). I did not attend said party.

Q.  Are you working on something new?

In late-autumn I would like to start adapting my first book “Year of the Chick” into a screenplay. I wrote a screenplay last year and it did well in many contests, so now it’s time to write another one. My other motivation is that so many readers have told me they could see my series as a movie(s), so I might as well be ready for when the big movie producer calls, haha. Then, in late spring of 2013, I plan on writing book 3 of the “Year of the Chick” series!

Q.  Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?

I’d like to thank the followers of this blog for getting all the way through this post, because you probably don’t know who I am and you’re probably short on time, so if this was interesting enough to read then I’m grateful!

Excerpt set-up: a classic Indian banquet hall party, complete with elderly Indian ladies who gossip and judge every unmarried Indian girl over twenty-five...like Romi)

Just then, two plump old ladies in pastel sarees shuffled their way to our table. That was the thing about wearing a saree a.k.a. a piece of endless fabric expertly wrapped so it didn’t fall: you had to shuffle around like a penguin.

Along with the old ladies’ fat rolls hanging out from their bare-skinned sides (old ladies for some reason always chose the bare-skinned way to pin a saree), their judging stares could be seen from a mile away.

“Ranjit!” they both cried in unison. They quickly sandwiched my mother in a hug, as the rest of the table paid little attention to their appearance. Once settled into their seats, they didn’t waste a second before scowling at the stage, where the engaged couple sat on an opulent-looking love seat.

“He’s a doctor and he’s going to marry HER?”Plump lady number-one in the pastel blue clucked her tongue.

My mother snickered. “And she’s wearing red just for an engagement? This generation…” She shook her head disapprovingly.

“No style sense,” added the second plump lady in the pastel purple.

Plump lady number-one turned around and pointed a finger at me accusingly. “When is THIS ONE getting married?”

“Fuck!” I whispered under my breath.

Plump lady number-two waved her hand as if to flag me down. “Do you know boys your age want a girl twenty-five or less? And you? Almost thirty? A-hay!” She shook her head in despair.

This insulting ageist comment was nothing new to me, but what I realized in that moment for the first time ever, was that Indian grown-ups always called unmarried adults “girl” and “boy.” As if that made any sense? When was the last time a thirty-year-old man was referred to as a boy outside of Indian culture? That didn’t mean there weren’t some man-boys out there in the sense of maturity deficiencies, but in Indian world the terms “boy” and “girl” were used exclusively for unmarried specimens. It was probably a way to keep believing unwed adults were virgins.

Whatever.

My private contemplation was interrupted by my father’s glare, his response to this whole conversation. My sister meanwhile had been pointing and laughing at me. Thanks. My mother was doing the usual, which was smiling through gritted teeth, and planning to yell at me later.

I grabbed a pakora and stuffed it into my mouth.

More chewing less talking...

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