Meet Me in the Margins

 

Shirley J.              Adult Fiction                Romance writing,  Conflicting Publishing Houses, mentoring       Meet Me In the Margins by Melissa Ferguson   384 pages

A good read, the characters are strong and likeable, the story told amusingly.  Savannah Cade works for a publishing house whose owner and hates romance novels and refuses to print them, however, Savannah has been secretly writing a romance novel of her own and is dying to get it in print.   Through a chance encounter she meets Claire Donovan, the editor-in-chief of the most successful romance publishing company in the country and is able to pitch her book idea to her.  Claire likes it and invites Savannah to submit it to her.   The owner of Savannah's publishing house brings her son in as CEO.  Savannah submits her idea to Claire, who likes it but feels it needs polish in several places to be print worthy but assures Savannah she is on to something, its just many of her ideas have been so overdone by the Hallmark Channel.  Desperately trying to edit and enhance her story she has her manuscript with her at work, drops it and is almost found out by her colleagues.   She quickly grabs the manuscript and stashes it in a supply room.   When she goes back for it, she finds someone has added comments in the margins!  Almost the exact things Claire said.  Who the heck did that?  Freaked but also curious she ends up leaving all her updated manuscripts in the room coming back to find critical yet helpful remarks on it again and again.  Who is her mentor?   Why are they helping her?   A good read.  I recommend this to middle schoolers on up.