Double Spotlight and Giveaway: Love and Saffron & Meet Me in the Margins

Today we are featuring two novels that are a perfect fit for this month, even if Valentine's Day is already over: Love and Saffron by Kim Fay and Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson. Thanks to Putnam and HarperCollins, we have one copy of each for a lucky reader!

In the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road and Meet Me at the Museum, this witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.

When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter–as well as a gift of saffron–to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she’s never tasted fresh garlic–exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.

Food and a good life—they can’t be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen’s decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen’s friendship—a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.

A brief respite from our chaotic world, Love & Saffron is a gem of a novel, a reminder that food and friendship are the antidote to most any heartache, and that human connection will always be worth creating.

“Fay’s brilliant novel explores the magic of food and how one letter with a special ingredient can forge the unlikeliest of friendships—awakening the taste buds of life, meaningful friendships, and love along the way. Á table! Savor this story one delicious and heartwarming page at a time.” 
—Samantha Vérant, author of The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux and Sophie Valroux’s Paris Stars
 

Credit: Cortney Kelley
Photography 2021

Born in Seattle and raised throughout the Pacific Northwest, Kim Fay lived in Vietnam for four years and still travels to Southeast Asia frequently. A former bookseller, she is the author of Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam, winner of the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards’ Best Asian Cuisine Book in the United States, and The Map of Lost Memories, an Edgar Award finalist for Best First Novel. She is also the creator/editor of a series of guidebooks on Southeast Asia. Fay now lives in Los Angeles.  

Visit Kim online:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

You’ve Got Mail meets The Proposal—this romance is one for the books.

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.

When she returns, she’s dismayed to discover that someone has not only been in her hidden nook but has written notes in the margins—quite critical ones. But when Claire’s own reaction turns out to be nearly identical to the scribbled remarks, and worse, Claire announces that Savannah has six weeks to resubmit before she retires, Savannah finds herself forced to seek the help of the shadowy editor after all.

As their notes back and forth start to fill up the pages, however, Savannah finds him not just becoming pivotal to her work but her life. There’s no doubt about it. She’s falling for her mystery editor. If she only knew who he was.

“Meet Me in the Margins is a delightfully charming jewel of a book that fans of romantic comedy won’t be able to put down—and will want to share with all their friends. Readers will lose themselves in Melissa Ferguson’s witty, warm tale of Savannah Cade and the perfectly drawn cast of characters that inhabits her world. This literary treat full of missed opportunities, second chances, and maybe even true love, should be at the top of your reading list!” 

—Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times bestselling author of Under the Southern Sky

Melissa Ferguson is the bestselling author of titles including The Dating Charade, This Time Around, and The Cul-de-Sac War. She lives in Tennessee with her husband and children in their growing farmhouse lifestyle and writes heartwarming romantic comedies that have been featured in such places as The Hollywood Reporter, Travel + Leisure, Buzzfeed, and Woman’s World. 

Visit Melissa online:
Website * Facebook * Instagram * Pinterest

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Giveaway ends February 21st at midnight EST.

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