MEET ME IN THE MARGINS by MELISSA FERGUSON is a hysterically funny romantic comedy with a great mixture of characters and an interesting message running through it regarding what really makes up a worthwhile life.
The story takes place at Pennington Publishing where the protagonist, Savannah Cade, works as Assistant Aquisitions Editor. She is a master at multitasking, but never does enough to please her hyperactive and bossy younger sister Olivia, who is looked upon by her family as perfection personified, and, to make it worse, is engaged to Savannah’s ex boyfriend!
Pennington Publishing is strict about the books they publish due to Ms Pennington’s aversion to anything she deems unworthy, such as romance. She rules the office with a rod of iron and it seems at first as though her son William, who has left a prestigious publishing house in New York, is cut from the same cloth as his mother.
I love the witty repartee between the characters and the messages between Savannah and her secret editor who visits her hideaway and comments in the margins.
What a really enjoyable read - a true breath of fresh air!
I was given a free copy of the book by NetGalley from Thomas Nelson. The opinions in this review are competely my own.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I'm so excited to write this review, because I have finally discovered a new favorite rom-com author! For the longest time, Sophie Kinsella has been the queen of rom-coms for me. I've read dozens of other rom-coms over the past year, looking for an author with the same humor, engaging plot, and romance. Luckily, I've finally found her. Meet Me in the Margins is just as good as any Sophie Kinsella novel, which is my gold standard. I am now looking for Melissa Ferguson's previous books and adding them to my TBR right away!

Meet in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson is an amazing, funny rom-com featuring writers and editors. The story revolves around Savannah, an assistant editor at a publishing press that only publishes serious books. Unfortunately, she's secretly a rom-com writer and has been working on her very first manuscript. One day, she hides her manuscript away in her company building, and when she retrieves it, someone has written notes all over the margins. But who is this mysterious editor? Could it possibly be the son of her boss, William Pennington, who has just started working at her company?

Here is a comedic excerpt from an opening chapter:

"I was in the middle of yet another breakup with Ferris when I read one of [Trace Green's] books. And became hooked. Hooked. Flew through all twenty=four of his novels in the span of two months and spent the next three wandering around morosely, craving more. Everybody thought my slump was because I missed Ferris. But no, it wasn't. Not that time. I mean, of course, the breakup was hard, but it wasn't nearly as heart-wrenching as the fact that there were no more Green books to read. The reality that I was going to have to wait a whole nine months before another of his releases was almost too much to bear.
...
The whole experience of stumbling into his books made such an impression on my life that I went down to the registrar's office, set one of his books on the counter between me and the registrar's assistant, and declared I wanted to change majors. No more nursing for me. My life was going to revolve around words."

Overall, Meet in the Margins is an absolutely amazing rom-com that will appeal to fans of Sophie Kinsella or Anne Bell. One highlight of the book was the humor, which was laugh-out-loud funny. Another highlight of the book was the addition of a "goal" in the plot. I love when rom-coms have goals and deadlines, and Savannah's goal of receiving advice and revising her manuscript so that it can be published was very interesting. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of rom-coms in general, you won't regret checking out this book when it comes out in February!

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.

This never really spoke to me or pulled me in, but I think romance readers who are looking for something straight forward may enjoy this novel. The premise of an editor writing a story and receiving mystery edits intrigued me and I was excited to see how it played out. I liked the characters and setting, and was satisfied with the ending. Readers who like their chemistry, tension, and pacing to be on the mellow side will find that here.

Savannah works for a publisher who work on more serious books. She is keeping hidden from them that she is writing a romance novel, as it is not their kind of book, but someone at the office knows and is helping by leaving editing notes for her. She just needs to work out who it is!

A great read!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.
I really enjoyed this book from Melissa Ferguson. It was lovely being in Savannah's world and getting to know Will through their interactions. He is just so easy to like. The plot was slightly predictable at the end but maybe because it ended the way I hoped it would. Anything else and I might have been disappointed.
I think the only thing I found vexing, was the relationship between Ferris and Savannah. Would you really be able to put up with your sister being engaged to someone you were with for eight years? Maybe if the time was less... I don't know. Maybe Savannah didn't care enough.
The banter between Savannah and Will, and how he kept saving her, gave this book a definite 'swoony' feel. A fun and easy to read romance.
4.5 stars

Savannah works for Pennington Publishing, where commercial fiction is frowned upon - there's no way she can ever reveal that she's written a romance novel. She hides her manuscript in a secret room, hoping to avoid prying eyes, but someone finds it and starts leaving notes in the margins. Savannah might be losing her heart, but who exactly is she losing it to?

What a fun, delightful romcom. I've always had a weakness for books that are a bit meta and this is definitely one of those. Savannah was easily likeable, sympathetic and relatable - especially to other writers. I enjoyed many parts of Meet Me in the Margins (the courthouse scene made me cackle out loud) and do wish some of said parts had been expanded more, but all in all this book made for a pleasant afternoon of reading.

As an assistant acquisitions editor of a publishing house in the midst of some restructuring, Savannah Cade is living a life of drama, almost akin to rom-com plots. It is interesting to see what goes on between publishing house and authors, along with a smaller, more version of the editing process happening in Savannah’s own manuscript. All of which form a microcosm of the business of books, their publishing houses and imprints in the contemporary age, which Melissa Ferguson captures pretty well.

I’m not going to recount the plot too much here, as much of it lies in the actual blurb, but it’s clever in some ways, though sometimes too clever for its own good. There’re even some distant ‘You’ve Got Mail’ vibes, minus the catfishing—a trope that admittedly hasn’t aged too well—played out against the kind of non-stop activity in the publishing business in the social-media age.

Amidst all of this, a lot of Savannah’s musings are internalised: almost a stream-of-consciousness-type kind of hyper-hysterical rambling that does have a tendency to go hard on the purple prose and shoot off in various different directions all in a page—and that is a bit distracting, yet it’s the kind of writing that seems to be a result of an author’s assuredness of their own prowess with the pens I guess. But that also does manifest in paragraphs that feel superfluous when everything is painfully laid out, talked through as though happening in exaggerated slow motion yet very little actually happens in the first few chapters as the forward momentum of the plot just…stalls.

It’s akin to having the volume knob up to 11, or as manic last-minute Christmas shoppers rushing through the high street as the ‘noise’ level in the flurry of Savannah’s mental sprint every which way and that left me mentally exhausted by chapter 3. I slipped in and out of enthusiasm as the pages went by, liking some bits a lot while skimming through the others, and still felt like I didn’t really miss out on much when a slew of characters flitted by as Savannah name-dropped a little too casually and frequently.

The pick-up is slow and sure and I definitely loved the last third a lot more (it took a lot to come to this point!) when Savannah’s mystery editor and her interactions with Will Pennington finally came to a head. And while you do feel for her, Savannah's and Will's romance is very muted however and for readers who like a grittier, lustier edge in their stories, ‘Meet Me in the Margins’ offers instead a softer, cleaner type of storytelling where the focus lies more on the female protagonist than a couple’s development together.

This was SO fun and cute! I loved the characters and Will!!! Will was awesome. I loved him start to finish. The setting being a publishing house was really a fun aspect since having attended library conventions etc it had such a relatable quality for me. Super fast paced (able to read in a sitting). I want to read more from this author!

Meet me in the Margins was a very cute book. I love books about writers or potential writers.
Premise
Savannah Cade’s dreams are coming true. The Claire Donovan, editor-in-chief of the most successful romance imprint in the country, has requested to see the manuscript Savannah’s been secretly writing while working as editor herself—except at her publishing house, the philosophy is only highbrow works are worth printing and commercial fiction, particularly romance, should be reserved for the lowest level of Dante’s inferno. But when Savannah drops her manuscript during a staff meeting and nearly exposes herself to the whole company—including William Pennington, new publisher and son of the romance-despising CEO herself—she races to hide her manuscript in the secret turret room of the old Victorian office.
The writing style on this one was very conversational and cute. I really felt invested in the story and was curious to see how Savannah’s journey turned out!