Five years in the publishing industry has worn the shine off for Nora Hughes.  She's underutilized at Parsons Press, stuck ordering lunches and working with forgotten authors instead of editing and shepherding books to completion.  When her salary is cut, Nora can see only one option: taking a part-time freelance position doing essentially the same role at a rival publishing house.  At the end of the six month contract, either she'll have a full time role at this new house, or a promotion at her current job, and it all depends on where she gets bestselling author Andrew Santos to sign.  But balancing two jobs is harder than she expected, and it gets even tougher when Andrew goes from a client, to a friend, to something more.

I think this was a really solid debut - generally well-written, the kind of prose that will only get better with time and practice, paced well, and with interesting characters.  I guess my biggest issue is with the marketing?  I'm not one to knock covers, most of the time, but this one definitely has light, rom-com vibes and this book is neither of those things.  It's definitely women's fiction (it is not a romance by genre conventions), and it leans hard onto the heavy side.  CW: suicide

At one point, Nora is remembering her passive suicidal ideations as a child as they kind of resurface for her, and while it isn't out of nowhere for the situation, it is kind of out of nowhere for the reader?

  I think this book (and all books like this, tbh) would really benefit from an author's note detailing the mental health concerns presented, because they're a huge part of this book and impossible to know from the blurb.

Overall, I think this is a pretty accurate depiction of the publishing industry, from what I know (thank you Zoe), and of the burnout that comes from trying to make a living off what you love.  I'd pick up another book by this author, but I'd really like for Robinson and Sourcebooks to include more information on the potential triggers.

Thank you Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the ARC!

CW:

Nora is experiencing burnout and her depression is in full force because of this.  She relates a time when she experienced passive suicidal ideations ("it would be nice if I wasn't here, but I probably won't do anything to make that happen") as a child, because she's having them again.  Nora also experiences workplace misogyny.