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

This was absolutely delightful. The plot was well-paced and captivating from start to finish. The characters were charming and the dialogue was so fun. I highly recommend this fun and quick read. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

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!