I'm so upset that I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. It's not a bad novel by any means, but it just felt really scattered. Lars and Miles had chemistry, but didn't really seem to have much beyond that for almost the entirety of the book. I found it a little hard to keep up with all the side characters, most of which I found to be a little annoying. I always love bookish books, I just wish that this one would've hit the mark for me.

On the Same Page is the story of lawyer Miles Franklin who has a secret she is desperate to keep. She writes historical romance novels. Being the only child of two literary snob parents doesn't help her situation. To complicate matters further, her pen name Emma Browning is submitted for consideration of a prestigious literary award, which she, to her surprise, wins. Now everyone is wondering, who is Emma Browning?

This is not an ideal situation for socially anxious Miles, whose parents already disparage her chosen career, and the idea of romance novels.

On this premise alone, I dived into this book. I love a good secretly-an-author story. There were some things I liked about this book, and some things I didn't like as much.

Jack, Miles' best friend, was one of the highlights of this book for me. We all need a Jack in our lives. The other supporting characters all had distinct personalities, which really added to the story. And it was refreshing to see a romance set elsewhere (this one is set in Australia).

An on the subject of Miles' social anxiety, I appreciated how that was dealt in this book. It's easy to say that communication could have solved the problems Miles faced, but the thing about anxiety is that it's not easy to deal with, and it's frustrating to have, and to see other people just not getting it. If you have anxiety, this book will resonate with you.

Now, for the parts I didn't like as much, that would be the love interest, and some of the writing. I just think that the love story needed a bit more development so the readers could actually see some growth in the relationship. As for the writing, I think it was evident that some bits of the story were rewritten. I felt a little disconnect in some passages at times.

But overall, I would still recommend this book.

I give this 3.75 stars.

Thank you, Netgalley and Escape Publishing for this e-arc!

Reviewed for NetGalley:

I tried to like this book, but I just really couldn’t get into it. The characters did not much of anything for me and I didn’t see the Sally Thorne (whom I love) comparison.

Miles is the daughter of two literary heavyweights who are unabashed snobs about romance novels - which happen to be her favourite and also what she writes under a pseudonym while juggling her day job as a lawyer. However, her carefully-constructed secret identity comes under threat when her well-meaning assistant enters her for a major literary prize, with all sorts of unwanted complications attached. Including the CEO of the publishing company behind the prize, who seems very interested in Miles herself.

I found this book refreshing in several ways. It was nice to read a romance novel that wasn't set in London, New York, or a quirky small town. Miles's own writing (and its parallels with her life) was cleverly scattered through the story, and I liked the way it explored attitudes towards romance in general, not to mention the other apposite literary references. I did, though, find the writing style quite complicated and chaotic (as it's in first-person, I guess that could reflect the fact that Miles herself is both complicated and chaotic), and would have liked to get more of a handle on Lars, who we only see through Miles's eyes. In summary, 3.5-4 stars for an engaging and thought-provoking read.

I really enjoyed this one. Although sometimes confused by all the characters names and the pacing, I thought the book was very entertaining and interesting to read from the start.
Not sure I really like the main character (Miles) but I did love Lars and his honesty regarding everything he does. I loved the mention of Miles’ books and book references that were added here and there throughout the novel.
Overall an enjoyable, lovely and quick read I’d definitely recommend if you’re looking for something cute and quirky.

I really liked the idea of the whole story, but I was confused half the time reading it. I just could not keep up w all the names and characters. I really had to push myself to finish it, it just wasn’t a easy fun read I was hoping for.

Thanks to NetGalley and Escape Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't hate this book but I also didn't love it. The plot itself is one I was really attracted to but when it came to the characters, I felt all of them lacked a bit more of development. We really didn't get to see a lot of growth and there were many side plots that kind of made things seem unfinished in a way.

Overall it was an easy and sweet read but, unfortunately, it fell a bit short for me.

I really wanted to like this book but it was very difficult to get through. Like one of the other reviews mentioned, there are way too many characters in this book and some have multiple names. It was very hard to keep them all straight. The plot seemed intriguing and I could see where there could be sparks between characters, but it just fell flat. Overall, this isn’t a book I would be quick to recommend nor have a desire to reread.

thanks so much to netgalley, and escape publishing for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

a quick, fun and easy read!

this was a little hard to get into as it started pretty slow, but that's alright. i love books set within the publishing world, though i don't think i enjoyed our main heroine that much. still, i had a nice time reading this and breezed through it.

A book about a series of books. An author that writes about an author. It's quite the "nesting doll" of a story! I liked it a lot! It started slow at first, but around the 25% mark it picked up quite nicely.

Miles and Lars just can't help but be attracted to one another. Miles fights it hard. So hard. But Lars fights time and again for Miles. He's like a tether ball that keeps coming around for her. And the literary references to classics in this book are little treats that you run into once in a while. The defense of romance novels is something I have come across lately and a point that Miles tries to impress upon those that wish to oppress her writing. In Miles' defense she picks a few great Austen quotes to defend herself.

"Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another: we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried."

Miles isn't perfect, and hell, Lars isn't either. But they both see that in each other and accept each other as is. Most other rom-coms have the perfect polished h and the muscular, tanned H and everything is all dreamy and perfect. Not this story. The characters have their ups and downs and they get themselves through it. The part that bothered me was the lack of consideration and care that Miles seemed to start to show people who didn't do things her way. She didn't answer phone calls or emails to people she didn't want to talk to and replied right away to their coworkers with the same questions. Rude.

This was a quick but somehow still challenging read. There are like a million characters in this short book, and some have multiple names, the female lead goes by 3 names and then her fictional character that she gets compared to as well. It was all very confusing.
The plot itself was intriguing at first, but then felt unnecessarily complicated/avoided.
It was also difficult to get into the romance of this book, it felt very insta-lovey from the male lead. Which is fine if it is attraction, but we did not exactly get scenes where the two connected on a personal level except for references to Emma’s book.
Overall, I did not hate this book but I also did not like it.

The true writer under the pseudonym Emma Browning, winner of the Stapleton Award for her historical romance novels, is about to be revealed.
And Miles wants to do everything to stop that from happening, so she can continue writing.
There were a lot of time skips in this book, which made it frustrating to read. For one, it made it difficult to actually appreciate the romance during the first 65% of the book because the interaction between Miles and Lars is… not there as much as I had hoped.
I liked the premise of this book, it was going places… until it left my mind as soon as I finished reading it. I was more interested in the books Emma Browning had written than the book she was the main character of.
Unfortunately this book just was not it for me.

This is a tough one. On the whole the premise was interesting and kept me relatively interested. But I found that I felt the way about Lars as he did about Edward.... He's a f***wit as he states. I could not get to like him, so I just was not rooting for Lars and Miles to end up together. He seemed to be so judgemental and rude and unkind to Miles yet he got a pass because he was his superior and he was attractive. Not a big fan of romances that reward bad qualities in men.

What a great book! I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the wonderful characters along the way. Written really well and kept me up reading half the book!
I was so engaged with the storyline throughout the book.
The characters are amazingly developed and I couldn't have enjoyed them more than did.
I love a feel good romance story and this was that type of book for me.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Escape Publishing,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review closer to pub date.

Thank you NetGalley, Escape Publishing, and Penelope Janu for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I’m sad to say that I wasn’t a big fan of this book for a couple different reasons.

My main problem with this book was the writing. The writing was not my favorite and I feel like there were a lot of odd quotes that kept me from truly engaging in the story. The author also wrote the characters strangely and relied too much on telling and not showing. The writing made it hard for me to engage and connect with the story, but other people may like it better than me. I still recommend that you give it a chance, because it is a cute read, I just had some issues with it.

I did enjoy the pacing, parts of the storyline, and focus on romance novels. I loved that Miles was ashamed of her work and love of romance novels because I can relate to that. A lot of people around me treat the romance genre like it’s not real and it was nice seeing that represented and how it can make people feel about what they love.

Overall, this one wasn’t my favorite, but it’s not bad! I recommend to give it a chance.

She is a regular lawyer but in secret she writes Romance Regency books under the name Emma Browning . When she is being nominated for a book award she is nervous and believes that she will be discovered . Both her parents are authors for fiction or non fiction books and they judge her for writing love stories . When she wins the award the publicer who now is to represent her want to know who the writer is . She is trying very hard to hide who she is . The CEO of the publishing company is very persistent to meet Emma . She makes him do things that will make him mad but he is the stubborn . Will she be able to keep her secret or everything will came out ? I loved all the scenes of her novels and that she had to perform some scenes so they were realistic .
I received this book from net galley and the publisher as an ARC. Thank you! All thoughts and opinions are my own

I want to preface this by saying that I'm a writer AND am studying to get a master's in Publishing, so I thought this book would be right up my alley. And in its themes, it certainly was. So why 3 stars? I haven't been this disappointed in a book in a long time.

This had a lot that I like in a book, in a way: a quirky/serious, almost enemies-to-lovers, opposites attract kind of thing. I love that in itself, I just hated how this author went about it. Miles had everything that I could relate to: we're both authors who hide their real names, we both have anxiety and panic attacks, and we're both really clumsy and feel unlovable about 90% of the time. It's just that Miles is deeply, profoundly unlikeable - maybe because of all the things I could relate to. Maybe because I know what it's like to be Miles, in a way (my parents are not literary celebrities, that's for sure), and it felt like she just didn't...do anything. Everything she did was a reaction to something, not anything she thought of herself. And maybe this was just me, but she talked about her characters in a concerning, co-dependent way - but maybe I just understood it wrong. It just felt like she had no motivation, which would be fine, but the books ends on a "it's all my parent's fault and there's nothing wrong with me" note I didn't like. Your parents were assholes, sure, but no therapist in their right mind would tell you that all you had wrong was an "overactive imagination". That's just not true. You need help - especially because your parents are assholes.

Maybe this was just the author's way of writing this character...which brings me to the next thing I didn't like. The writing itself.
Listen, I've been in this game far too long not to be used to what I like to call the "american style" - short sentences, quick paragraphs and everything moving way too fast. I'm used to it and can appreciate it, but it just threw me on a loop in this book. I felt like I never knew where I was at in the book, what was happening and who was next to Miles. The author leaned too much on the /next/ paragraph, on the showing and not telling, and I just didn't like it. I could appreciate it at times, but not always and it was a thing that itched in my brain the entire time I was reading.

Here's what I did like. Actually, here's what I LOVED about this book: the publishing aspect of things, how romance was always underappreciated and how elitist everyone is. How Miles grew up feeling ashamed of her own writings because her parents were a bunch of snobs and forced her to find herself inside the worst kind of snobbery. I loved how the author recognized being a woman was such an important aspect of the elitism. I loved reading about it, and it did not disappoint. I loved Miles argument that Jane Austen would love modern-day erotica and, you know what? She absolutely would.

Which brings me to the second thing I loved: the book references. The discussion about Northanger Abbey. You could tell Miles (and therefore the author, I'd say) had a lot of knowledge. The references felt subtle, though, nicely put into the regular conversion. I bet the literary background definitely helped, but still. I loved it and kept thinking back to the books I'd read and the ones I hadn't. This part of the book makes for the entirety of the three stars I'm giving this book.

All in all, maybe I just expected too much - which is not the author's fault, especially if this was a debut. I thought it was, but Goodreads tells me it's just a new edition. If that's the case, someone is not helping the author achieve her full potential. I can see it, like Miles' 10% of genius. Maybe that's the whole point?

A big thank you to NetGalley and Escape Publishing for the ARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. I really liked this book. I don't know maybe it was my mood, but this is the first book in a long time that I stayed up way to late to finish it!! So for me, it was just fun. I read sure Miles, had major issues, but that for me made her more human. Her parents sucked big time. Her life became Very complicated and I loved it. 4.5 stars This is a fun, light, quick, quirky read. I do have to say that I know absolutely nothing about publishing or writing books-but I can imagine that there is snobbery. Enjoy

On The Same Page is witty and funny and at times irreverent. I adored Miles and Emma—two complex halves of the one whole—and Lars with his clipped and perfect diction, blue eyes and floppy hair. The story had me laughing out loud at some of the antics Emma’s characters got up to, and wincing as one unfortunate incident after another beset poor Miles.
There is more than humour and empathy to this story though. Author Penelope Janu has demonstrated an extraordinary breadth and depth to her reading and understanding of literary classics through the ages, using them to good purpose at appropriate points in the novel. Add to this the clever link between the life Miles is leading and the story she is writing. I was utterly captivated and thoroughly engrossed throughout. This is a truly wonderful story from an exceptionally talented author.

Romance books about romance books (or rather, the larger romance publishing industry) are fun, tricky and sometimes, too self-indulgent for one’s good. ‘On the Same Page’ gives that sort of escapism, though it does in many ways, invite you not to take this too seriously at all.

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to read a bit of parody in the whole storytelling including the stilted writing, but it’s an element that feels woven into every scene, like a playful but ultimately whimsical (sometimes farcical too) meta on the publishing industry, the literary awards, the way characters imitate life and vice versa. If it’s really meant to seen in this light, then expect the fictional to deliberately contain a swath of the unrealistic, from Miles Franklin’s flighty and annoying personality to how the narrative takes on those same winding twist and turns, as though mirroring her fever-pitched state of mind.

Take it all with a pinch of salt as I did; look at the protagonists too closely and they do become unbearable.

I was more puzzled than engrossed as I made my way through the pages; it’s a peculiar writing style that doesn’t suit me to be honest and I gave up halfway when it simply got too much.