I knew I would love this book when the absolute first chapter had me - quite literally - laughing out loud! Melissa Ferguson writes the most cheerfully cute rom-coms, so when she hinted at her new book in the making, it became one of my most anticipated books of 2021. Meet Me in the Margins is no exception. This story is as cheerfully cute, witty, cozy and has enough suspense to keep you intrigued until the end. I loved it.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Thank You Thomas Nelson for this eARC!

I adored The Cul-de-Sac War by Melissa Ferguson!
So I was very excited for another Ferguson book!

Savannah Cade is an editor at Pennington Publishing.
This may be her day job but she is secretly writing a romance novel!
One day she leaves her manuscript behind in the Book Nook....
She goes to fetch her manuscript only to discover someone has written notes for her on the pages!
Savannah is defensive at first to the criticism....
And later realizes she needs the help of this secret someone!
Soon her life starts getting more complicated and these notes turn into something more.
Can she identify this mysterious editor?

If you are a fan of romance, you won’t want to miss this book.
It is perfect if you are looking for a cute story!
I loved Savannah and Will's character.
This is witty, humorous, romantic, and completely what I needed right now.
From the very beginning I was completely hooked and I read the whole thing in one sitting!
Everything was expertly crafted, from the characters, to the plot, to the romance, to the humor!
The concept of meeting in the margins and in secret was brilliant.

Thank you Publisher, NetGalley and Author for this wonderful ebook!

I loved this book! The story was compelling, and I loved getting to know Savannah and Will. The location of Nashville was different than your typical publishing house story, and that added a fun twist to the story. I also loved the secondary characters, particularly Lyla. There were times I laughed out loud, and other times my heart hurt for the Savannah and Will. Ms. Ferguson did a great job with this story and I look forward to reading more!

This book was such a fun book and something that I have never read before. It was so interesting to go behind the scenes at a publishing house and also to think about what authors go through as they try to have their books published. This is such a sweet, easy read and the characters are so much fun too. I particularly enjoyed Olivia, Will and Savannah.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Page turner full of incredible banter! Love love loved the two main romantic leads and the spark they had.

This was SO GOOD and hit all of my favorite romance beats, except for the fact that it was extremely chaste (very similar to You've Got Mail in that way, in addition to being similar in plot). I wish I had known that going in! It left me a bit wanting in that respect, but in every other way, it was perfect. Would love to see it adapted one day.

Mein Leseerlebnis

“Meet me in the margins” kann mit einer frischen Grundidee punkten und auch ihre Umsetzung konnte mich überzeugen.

Inwieweit die dargestellte Arbeit im Verlag wirklich realistisch ist, sei mal dahingestellt. Man sollte keine allzu realistische Präsentation dessen erwarten. Als Aufhänger und Schauplatz für die Geschichte funktioniert der Verlag aber klasse.

Savannah konnte ich beim Lesen schnell ins Herz schließen. Mag man sie als Charakter, wird man sehr wahrscheinlich auch den Roman mögen. Ich fand sie amüsant und habe gerne miterlebt, wie sie sich durch ihren Alltag geschlagen hat. In so einigen Bereichen ihres Lebens war sie unsicher, wenn es aber darauf ankam, zeigte sie Rückgrat und war eine loyale Freundin und Kollegin. Beides habe ich sehr geschätzt.

William war als Charakter schwerer zu fassen als Savannah, aber auch ihn fand ich interessant und im Verlauf des Romans wurde er mir immer sympathischer.

Der Erzählstrang um Savannahs teils anstrengende Familie mitsamt ihrem Ex war nicht mein Fall. Die Auflösung dieser Situation lief mir am Ende zudem zu glatt ab. An den beschriebenen radikalen Wandel im Verhalten einer Person konnte ich nicht glauben. Auch den Erzählstrang um eine Vorgesetzte Savannahs fand ich etwas flach. Ansonsten hatte ich aber wenig zu kritisieren.

Wer der geheimnisvolle Lektor ist, ist absolut keine Überraschung und jede:r erfahrene Leser:in weiß von Anfang an Bescheid. Das hat mir mein Leseerlebnis aber nicht vermiest. Im Gegenteil, es war spannend zu sehen, wie Savannah mit der Situation umgegangen ist und wie sie versucht hat ihre Gefühle zu sortieren.

Alles in allem habe ich mit dem Roman eine gute Zeit verbracht und bin froh, das Buch gelesen zu haben. 🖤🖤🖤🖤

Für wen?

Wer Liebesromane mag, in denen sich die beiden Hauptcharaktere auf eine etwas ungewöhnliche Art und Weise kennenlernen, der sollte sich das Buch näher anschauen. Euch erwartet eine schöne Liebesgeschichte, in der die Heldin zudem einige Unsicherheiten hinter sich lässt.

DNF. Unfortunately, I could just not get into this book. The premise sounded cute, but I was not enjoying the main character. It just wasn't the book for me and I wanted to move on.

Thank you to NetGalley/Published/Author for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this title. I was intrigued by the description of "You've Got Mail" meets "The Proposal." Savannah Cade is an assistant editor for Pennington Publishing. This story follows her through the journey of being an editor while secretly penning her own manuscript.

20 pages in we make sense of who she is during the "Meet Cute" with the "piercing blue eyed" Will Pennington. Through some rough introductions the character of Savannah gets fleshed out as loyal to her family, head in the clouds, but a good-hearted character. I'm probably not the target audience as it took a few tries to get through the first 100 pages; character building was tough for me to get through. Once the narrative transitioned from the Savannah's ambling thoughts to plot-driven hilarity I found the book more enjoyable.

The best things I can say about Meet Me in the Margins are that it really lives up to its premise, and the romance is written very well. The back-and-forth banter in the margins of the manuscript is fun, and Savannah and Will work really well together, but there were some major issues in this book that I just couldn't look away from.

First, Will is Savannah's boss. Maybe even her boss's boss - I'm still kind of unclear on what the exact structure of the company was. This and the potential power dynamic issues it causes are never addressed in the book. In fact, I'm pretty sure the ending said that they got married with him still being her boss. Like, I'm glad it apparently worked out for them, but there are some serious potential red flags there.

And as if that wasn't enough to weird me out, there's a substantial subplot about a man who apparently, in the span of three months, went from being Savannah's boyfriend to her sister's fiancé. Unsurprisingly, he turns out to be a gigantic piece of shit, but even with that as an inevitability, I was just so uncomfortable whenever he showed up.

So, yeah. I realize that this sounds awfully negative for a three-star review. The romance was too good for me to give it a lower rating, but I just don't have much more to say about that part.

CW: sexual harassment, fatphobia

Savannah is an editor who has always dreamed of becoming an author. And she's making her dream a reality at last. She's written a romance, and even gotten the attention of the most highly-regarded romance editor in the business. But she has to keep all this a secret, because she works at a stuffy, old-line publishing company that refuses to consider publishing genre fiction -- particularly romance. Almost caught in the act one day, she hides her manuscript in a secret room of the old mansion that houses the publishing company's offices, then comes back later to find that someone has started to edit her book. There are notes in the margins -- really good, incisive notes that Savannah instantly realizes will help her make her book even better. But who is this mysterious editor? Could it be the son of the publishing company's owner, her new boss ? Or not? This is a terrific, fun romance with a very relatable main character and a fast-paced plot.

<b> Thank you Thomas Nelson for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. </b>

<b> rating: </b> 3.5 stars, rounded up

I absolutely adored the premise of this book. A bookish based romance taking place in a publishing house where they bond through anonymous notes in a margin? Literally sign me up RIGHT NOW. And while Meet Me in the Margins did live up to that premise, there were so many things I wish were better done that had me feeling like the book fell flat.

- While we do see bits and pieces of their interactions together, both love interests, Savannah and Will, actually did not give me enough cutesy moments for me to believe they're actually in love the way they say they are. Even though the book is told from Savannah's POV, we don't see her gradually coming to terms with her crush--its moreso written as an epiphany type thing that I wish was done differently.

- The pacing of the book felt very off. I couldn't tell how much time took place between each chapter or page, for that matter, despite the contingency that her manuscript should be finished within a set amount of time. I kept finding myself confused and going back to try to figure out time frames.

- The plotline with her sister and that fiancee. Honestly? I just deemed it unnecessary. It took up to0 much page time and took away from the plot. Once again, this goes back to how I didn't see the full appeal of the love interests. The love triangle here was just cliched and wasn't needed for a book like this one, where Savannah already was theorizing between two guys potentially being her "mystery editor". That was already enough to keep you wondering about the romance, I just don't think that this plot-line seem needed. Maybe you could argue it gave more background to Savannah as a character, but everything was on the surface, no depth.

There was too much going on in the book for there to be a deep interest, and even the romance, which was the whole grabber of the book, felt surface level. All in all, while a very fun book, I just wish it gave more.

Savannah is an assistant editor in a small publishing company, one which focuses on, let's say, the more serious side of literature, which makes her dream of publishing a romance novel something of a covert operation. When she leaves it in the room of the publishing house that she thinks is her secret space, only to find that someone has added edits to it, a relationship "in the margins," begins. Her mysterious editor and she work out a system of never crossing paths while working her manuscript into something publishable, but what if she wants to know her mystery man in person?

If there's one sub-genre of books that I like almost as much as books about food, it's books about books and book lovers. This story was so cute: the publishing/editing setting, the bookish banter, the secret manuscript and editor storyline - it was all so engaging and fun.

As a note, since I mostly review Christian fiction here, this would fall on the side of "clean" fiction, but don't expect any faith building or spiritual elements here.

I give this book 4 stars; without spoiling anything, I would have liked a different trail within the story, but overall I loved it!

I received a digital copy of this book, via NetGalley, from the publisher, in exchange for my honest review.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

3.5 stars. It was cute, but nothing ground-breaking. I loved the premise and I think the plot was pretty easy to guess, but that didn't bother me. I wish we had seen more interactions between Savannah and Will. Toward the end, when they realized they really liked each other, I felt a little like I was left hanging. I wanted to see more of that. I think overall, I just wanted... more.

I absolutely adored this book and everything about it! I loved the characters, the story line, the setting, everything! If you know me, you know my fave genre is romance- and this book was all about the sweeter side of it. It’s so different than the romances I usually read, but it’s so well-written that I wouldn’t want to change a thing. And bonus, it’s a book about a book- loved it!! I enjoyed it so much, that I know I’m going to but a physical copy- and how cute is the cover! 😍

Ferguson's novel is a delightful rom-com, full of laugh-out-loud and feel-good moments, that is hard to put down. I will definitely be checking out more of her work.

Books AND romance?!? Swoon!! Completely enjoyed this romance set in the publishing industry. I also loved the getting to know you through a manuscript (rather than online) was super clever.

Savannah is an editor at a publishing house that specializes in non-fiction and serious fiction while she herself is an aspiring romance author. Suddenly she gets an opportunity to send her manuscript to a reputable romance editor at a major publishing house and scrambles to get her novel into a presentable shape. Once she forgets it in a secret room at her publishing house and later finds it filled with editorial notes in the margins. She decides to continue getting help from her mystery editor while slowly falling for him.

It's very hard to put into words how much I loved this book. Savannah is a likeable character and I really enjoyed her journey to being a published author. It was great to see the inner workings of a publishing house and what an editor's job might be like. The romance was sweet and the interactions between Savannah and Will brought a smile to my face more than on one occasion.

The story is PG-rated and nothing beyond a couple of kisses is shown on the page (if that is something that might influence your decision to pick up a romance novel).

Huge thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC of the novel.
All opinions are my own.

I love this cute book! It was adorable, charming, and a page turner! This was such a good plot taking place close to home. I loved the characters and overall had so much fun reading this!

Absolutely adorable, witty, and the right amount of mystery. Meet Me in the Margins is the perfect read for any book lover.

Melissa Ferguson really captures your attention from the start with Savannah Cade and her journey in the publishing world. I enjoyed character growth and touches that make you feel like you can really relate to Savannah and Will.

4/5 stars | 1/5 peppers | 17 +