Meet Me in the Margins: A Rom-Com for People Who Love Books

Meet Me In The Margins is the fourth novel by American author, Melissa Ferguson. Savannah Cade works as an Assistant Acquisitions Editor for Pennington Publishing, known for non-fiction and literary fiction. But Savannah’s real passion is the romance novel she’s been writing since college, tentatively titled Pining For You. Savannah is probably the least accomplished member of her overachieving family: it would be so good to succeed at something, especially beside her highly qualified younger sister. Living with Olivia, super-fit and studying for two PhDs, she (unfortunately) regularly encounters her ex-boyfriend and soon-to-be brother-in-law, Ferris, the awkwardness of which has mostly worn off. Trying to meet a submission deadline for a romance editor she met at a conference, Savannah brings that manuscript to work to do some final edits, then has to quickly hide it away: CEO Patricia Pennington would NOT approve. When she later retrieves it, she finds someone has written comments and criticism in the margins. Savannah is miffed, but also intrigued: who at Pennington has critiqued her work? Patricia Pennington’s son, William has recently joined the team as VP and Publisher of their Pennington Pen division (Savannah’s) and somehow, she has a number of somewhat embarrassing interactions with him. Her colleagues are worried about their jobs: William is there to save Pennington from going under, but out of hours Will and Savannah seem to connect. When she later meets with Claire Donovan, chief editor of a romance publishing house, Savannah listens carefully to her criticism, which aligns with her mystery reviewer: she has to concede that perhaps those remarks are valid. Soon, she has returned the manuscript to its hiding place with a polite request attached for help. She’s almost convinced that Will is her mystery editor, and not unhappy when the comments turn a little flirtatious, but then she spots another colleague near the space where she usually leaves the manuscript… Even if the outcome is predictable from the start, this is still an enjoyable journey to a sweet ending. Ferguson gives the reader some appealing characters and witty dialogue. The Cade family’s idea of loyalty is a little warped, and Savannah draws out the mystery of her editor longer than is perhaps realistic, but romance fans will appreciate the happy-ever-after ending. A fun rom-com. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Thomas Nelson Fiction.

Four and a Half Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭒ Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson is a fun book about books! This adorable romance has sympathetic characters and a fascinating look at a small book publisher all set in Nashville, Tennessee. This book has a You’ve Got Mail vibe and I just loved it! Savannah Cade works for Pennington Publishing as an editorial assistant. Pennington Publishing is a small independent publishing house in Nashville and caters to high-brow literary books. Savannah has secretly been writing a romance novel, a genre that Pennington would never publish, as it’s considered commercial fiction. Savannah finds a little nook, hidden away in the ARC (Advance Reader Copy) room of her building. After discovering the nook, she accidentally leaves her romance novel manuscript in the nook. When she finally gets a chance to go into the nook, she finds her manuscript with a lot of notes, handwritten in the margins. Her first response is to be angry, but after a while, she realizes that her mystery editor is right, and she starts to use his input to make her manuscript better. She knows her mystery editor is a man and using the process of elimination, she works to figure out who he might be. Wow, this was a fun story. I love this trope where they fall in love over the writing and are also falling in love in person. These characters are so easy to care about and I was rooting for them both from the very beginning of the book. I thought the writing was excellent and I enjoyed learning about the inside workings of a small publisher. The book was fast-paced and I just flew through the pages. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a great romance. I received a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Savannah Cade is an Assistant Acquisitions Editor for a small, high-brow publishing company called Pennington Publishing in Nashville. The owner, Ms Pennington, frowns on populist writing such as romance, Sci-Fi, westerns etc, preferring non-fiction titles. Whilst Savannah is very good at her job, she has a secret, she has been writing her very own romance novel! One day, when Savannah retreats to her secret bolt-hole hidden behind a cabinet in the ARC room she finds that someone has read her manuscript and made scathing comments on it. Savannah's personal life is a bit of a car crash. She broke up with her long-term boyfriend, who promptly asked out her younger, thinner, more successful, more driven, sister Olivia and they got engaged within three months. Now Savannah is reduced to renting her sister's spare room and pretending to be happy about house-sharing with her ex. Also her sister is obsessed with exercise and has started an annual Steps-4-Life Step-a-thon to raise money for charity which means she interrogates Savannah about her daily steps. Then things take a downturn professionally when Ms Pennington's son William leaves his fancy publishing house in New York to run Pennington Pub with his mother, amid rumours that the business is performing badly. Then a well-respected editor of a romance publishing house who had expressed interest in Savannah's manuscript tells her that the novel needs a lot of work before it could be published, and she only has a few weeks before she retires. Savannah is devastated by the news, but the editor's comments are very similar to those made by her mystery reviewer. Can she persuade the mystery reviewer to give her further feedback so that she can whip her novel into shape? I have commented so many times this year about the number of re-imaginings of You've Got Mail I've read this year, this is in a similar vein. Savannah gets over her dislike/ fear of William Pennington quite quickly and they become friends, but she is also drawn to the wit and vulnerability shown by her mystery reviewer, who she thinks is a colleague called Sam, even though in real life Sam never seems to have the spark of his review comments. This was just lovely, I really loved the mystery reviewer's comment that Savannah can have one character with a fancy name but not both, because its not opera. I can also sympathise with Savannah reading the Word of the Day and then trying to work it into everyday conversation. It's funny, sweet, charming and I read it in a single weekend when I had much more urgent books to read because it was more appealing than the rest of my TBR pile :) Highly recommended. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.