I love your expression, "the person at Penguin who swallowed loudly", too funny. It probably happened for real.
We don't know if Moehringer was the only choice, there may have been a couple of others, and after reading the first draft, stated, "You are kidding, right?" According to the DM, yes, I know, JR Moehringer appeared to be the only choice. I'm sure the wife really wanted to get into the action big time. Meghan's "statement" that she didn't know what was in the book, I find hard to believe. If she didn't know all that was in it, I would bet she knew the vast majority of the content.