I’m in that odd holding pattern every author knows too well—the moment when everything that can be done is already done. The writing, the revising, the back-and-forth with my editor, the formatting, the cover, the publishing checklist… all of it’s behind me. Promotion for my new M/M romance release, A Job Well Done, is officially in motion. And now?

Now I wait.

And honestly? The waiting might be harder than the writing. At least when I’m drafting, my hands are busy and my brain has somewhere to go. But this in-between space—especially when you’re a self-published romance author—is full of silence. And in that silence, nerves get loud.

I keep wondering:

 Will readers see the characters the way I see them?

 Will they connect with them, root for them, ache for them the way I did?

 Will this romantic suspense story capture them the way it captured me while I was writing it?

I never fully know what’s going to spark a new book. A Job Well Done started the way most of my stories do: with a simple “what if.” And that question led me straight to Alex—my cold, efficient hitman whose world is built on precision and emotional distance.

Writing him was its own journey. Here’s this assassin who’s built his entire life on clean lines, strict rules, and zero attachments. And yet, as the story unfolded, I loved watching him shift in unexpected ways. That transformation—watching a man trained to be a threat discover something he never expected—was one of the most fascinating parts of crafting this M/M romantic suspense.

So here I am, sitting in the strange quiet before a book release, hoping readers feel that same pull. Hoping Alex and Bryce find their way into your imagination the way they found their way into mine.

And until then… I’ll be over here refreshing my dashboards way too often and pretending I’m not nervous.