Love Lettering

November 18, 2019
This whimsical rom-com from Clayborn (Best of Luck) contrasts cute romance with cringe-worthy moments of embarrassment for the bumbling central couple. Meg Mackworth is a New York City calligraphy artist whose intricate hand-lettering is in high demand. No one but Meg was ever supposed to notice the secret messages she doodles into her designs to keep her work from becoming boring. When Meg’s former client Reid, a high-strung math genius, confronts her about spotting the word mistake hidden in the wedding programs Meg made for him and his now-ex, Meg admits to having picked up on the couple’s discontentment. Stalled out on her latest project and feeling guilty for embedding the subversive message in Reid’s wedding programs, Meg impulsively invites him to walk the city with her in search of inspiration in the form of signs both literal and figurative. This leads to a sweet, if frequently awkward, slow burn as the pair grows closer over the following weeks. Though Clayborn’s style occasionally verges on twee, her loving descriptions of New York are deeply appealing. This touching story is full of love and laughter. Agent: Taylor Haggerty, Root Literary.

Starred review from November 1, 2019
A quirky romance between a New York City woman famous for her lovely hand-lettering and the Wall Street mathematician who discovers the secret messages she embeds in her work. Meg, an Instagram-famous hand-letterer and calligrapher, couldn't resist embedding a hidden code in the wedding program of society bride Avery and her handsome but taciturn groom, Reid. When the wedding is cancelled, Reid, a quantitative analyst who discovered Meg's message ("M-I-S-T-A-K-E"), seeks her out. Reid knows the breakup was for the best, but it brings home how lost and out of place he feels in New York. For her part, Meg has been experiencing artist's block as she prepares to compete for a contract with a major retail chain to feature her work in their stationery line. She invites Reid to walk the streets of the city with her, looking for meaning in the words and letters around them. As their romance heats up, Reid has to contend with some major conflict at work, and Meg is coping with the demands of a new celebrity client and the increasing distance of her best friend and roommate, Sibby. Clayborn's (Best of Luck, 2018, etc.) depiction of the artistry of hand-lettering and the worlds that letters open up for Meg is fascinating. Letters and signs organize Meg's experience: "L-I-K-E, after all, is a word I've been turning over and over a lot in my head over these last two weeks, trying to absorb it into my being, trying to keep it from becoming something else." Meg's dry observations are hilarious (her drink is a "defibrillator in a cup"), and even readers familiar with New York will see the city in a new light, through its signs and symbols. Reid and Meg are wonderfully unique, and their romance carves a sweet, winding, and sexy path to self-acceptance and mutual affirmation. Fresh, funny, clever, and deeply satisfying.

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December 1, 2019

Meg Mackworth built a business and a reputation through her fine ability for hand-lettering and is now in demand as the "Planner of Park Slope," designing custom journals and invitations for Brooklyn's well-heeled. On an impulse, and based on her finely tuned intuition, Meg decides to hide a secret message in a wedding program she's designing for Reid Sutherland and his fiancée, warning that the marriage will fail. To her surprise, he appears one year later with no wife and questions her about the hidden word. To assuage her guilt and hopefully overcome her own creative block, Meg invites Reid on walking tours of New York's best signage. Against all odds, the two develop a sigh-inducingly satisfying relationship that's threatened by the secrets they both are keeping. VERDICT Clayborn (Beginner's Luck) delivers an emotionally resonant love story filled with charming details of city life and the artisanal trendiness of hand-lettering and calligraphy that adorns the urban setting. This will be popular among the enthusiastic and growing audience for romantic comedies.--Meagan Day, High Plains Lib. Dist., CO

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