Melissa Ferguson - Meet Me in the Margins

Savannah Cade is a low-level editor at Pennington Publishing, a prestigious publisher producing only the highest of highbrow titles. And while editing the latest edition of The Anthology of Medieval Didactic Poetry may be her day job, she has two secrets she’s hiding.
One: She’s writing a romance novel.
Two: She’s discovered the Book Nook—a secret room in the publishing house where she finds inspiration for her “lowbrow” hobby.
After leaving her manuscript behind one afternoon, she returns to the nook only to discover someone has written notes in the margins. Savannah’s first response to the criticism is defensive, but events transpire that force her to admit that she needs the help of this shadowy editor after all. As the notes take a turn for the romantic, and as Savannah’s madcap life gets more complicated than ever, she uses the process of elimination to identify her mysterious editor—only to discover that what she truly wants and what she should want just might not be the same. Melissa Ferguson’s latest—a love letter to books, readers, and romance—will leave fans laughing out loud and swooning in the same breath.

Comment: I think I've decided to read this book after seeing some positive opinions, plus it would feature a story with content related to books and those are usually something that I enjoy.

Savannah Cade comes from a family of overachievers but she doesn't seem to be able to accomplish as much as easily. She works for a publishing house that hasn't been doing very well to stay competitive and the owner's ideas about what type of books to provide also limits them a lot. In the meantime, Savannah wants to be a writer and she has a sort of deal with an editor from a romance publisher but her manuscript wasn't up to par. She promised to deliver the perfect corrections but will she have enough time to meet a deadline? Thankfully, it seems that a secret editor found the hiding place of her manuscript and is helping her out. The question is, who is this man, Sam her co worker with whom she can't make enough eye contact or Will, the owner's son who came to help the company improve?

As so often happens with books we want to like, I think the idea of this one was extremely promising and seemed to mix several things I thought would mesh well, such as the couple who would fall in love through words without knowing while in a book related setting. I mean, pretty great idea, but to me, sadly, the execution wasn't as optimal.

This is my first attempt with this author's work so perhaps I have not chosen the best one, but I really imagined the story to be a little more consistent and objective. This is actually rather funny because the heroine, Savannah, is writing a book, and one of the criticism she is given is that her story feels to be all over the place sometimes. I don't think this happened here that much, but it certainly came to mind in several moments. There are many situations to keep track of and not all felt they were important for the plot's development.

I liked Savannah as a heroine because she is a likable and friendly person, has her dreams, does everything she can to do things properly, but her family dynamics tell us that she isn't seen by who she is, and that some people always find flaws in her. I've figured this would be a topic to explore and that was true, namely because Savannah wants her manuscript to work, and in that process she gets to interact with a secret helper  - who, by the way, is very obvious - and that starts off a reaction in the way she sees herself.

In terms of romance, I cannot say this is incredible, things meet the necessary goals. However, I must say that the way this element plays out, along with the whole book improvement thing, feels very contrived most of the time. The way they exchange messages in the manuscript pages, and never meet each other in the process and Savannah even assumes someone else was doing it instead of the person we all know who is... well, there were times this was a bit cringe. I don't think this was working out sometimes.

The book related content, the information about publishers and editors and how things work, seemed realistic enough when compared with things I've read in other books with similar content. But since most scenes where this type of content would be concluded would also contain silly stuff, my attention was easily lost about this too.

As expected, the end is very fluffy and cute and all the doubts we saw the characters have throughout the novel become solved. If I think about the several elements on their own, I cannot say that this was a very balanced story or that those things were placed together in a way that was being delivered well most of the time. I liked some things, I think some scenes were well done, true, but thinking about the big picture, I don't think this was that well accomplished. Sadly, I think that this will be a forgettable story to me.

Grade: 6/10