The Perfect Rom-Com: A Romance Novel for Book Lovers by Melissa Ferguson 
on February 11th 2025
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 301
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.
She’s written dozens of smash-hit romance novels. Too bad no one knows it.
Aspiring author Bryony Page attends her first writers conference bursting with optimism and ready to sell her manuscript with long-shot dreams of raising awareness for The Bridge, her grandmother’s financially struggling organization where she teaches ESL full-time. But after a disastrous pitch session, she stumbles into correcting another author’s work in a last-ditch attempt to make a good impression with the agent. And she, as it turns out, is spot on.
No one is more surprised than Bryony when the agent offers her the opportunity to be a ghostwriter for Amelia Benedict, popular rom-com novelist. Bryony agrees on one condition: she’ll write books for this vain, demanding woman just as long as Jack Sterling, literary agent of the legendary Foundry Literary Agency, works to sell her own book too.
What nobody predicted, however, was that Bryony’s books would turn Amelia Benedict into the Amelia Benedict, household name and bestselling author with millions of copies sold around the world.
And just like that, the Foundry Agency can’t let her go.
But on a personal note, Jack is realizing he can’t either.
I enjoyed the story more than the romance.
Bryony Page desperately wanted someone to read her story based upon her grandmother’s life. Bryony loves teaching ESL at the small community center which her grandmother started, but funds are running low and the fact they might have to close down is making her pretty desperate. Bryony just needs one “no thanks” to become a “we love it.” She knows the sale of her book would focus a spotlight on The Bridge as well as add much needed funds to the coffer. So she waits with the other “vultures” hoping that someone chickens out of their meeting with a book rep or maybe got lucky enough during the conference and already received a contract, damn them. Problem is the only one who seems to have free time–a lot of free time–is Jack Sterling of the Foundry Literary Agency. Jack is notorious for his very tiny list of authors that he represents. If he doesn’t think you are amazing enough to be worth his time, he will send you on your way, quickly. Bryony knows he will be amazed by her story…and he’s absolutely not. But before he sends her on her way, he shows her another manuscript and asks her what she thinks. She has nothing to lose so she tells him exactly what is wrong with it before she storms out.
While Jack still isn’t interested in Bryony’s story, he thinks Bryony has what he needs to be one of the ghostwriters for NY Times best seller, Emilia Benedict. Seems Emilia doesn’t actually write her own books and Jack can see that Bryony has writing potential and he needs someone to write those million copy best sellers for his company. Bryony agrees because the money will at least help keep The Bridge funded for awhile longer but only if Jack agrees to try and find a publisher for her book as well.
Two years later and Bryony has become the sole ghostwriter for Emilia Benedict since every non-Bryony book has failed with critics and fans. The biggest problem they all face is the fact that Emilia hasn’t even bothered to read any of the books that she supposedly writes. And when Emilia fails to answer any of the questions correctly at the meet & greet on her latest tour, the publisher forces Bryony to hop on the bus with Emilia to coach her through the rest of the tour. It is going to be a disaster because the one person who isn’t a fan of Bryony’s writing, it is Emilia Benedict herself.
THOUGHTS:
I enjoyed this story which is publishing centric. It is a peek behind the curtain of my favorite hobby and puts into perspective any wish I might have to be a writer. Even if I had a talent and a unique idea, I don’t think I have it in me to fight amongst the thousands of books written each year for a publisher and to survive all those “no, thank you’s”.
In the two years Bryony is ghostwriter, she wrote a lot of very successful books. I felt it truly wasn’t fair that Bryony is writing those wonderful novels for someone else, especially someone who doesn’t appreciate the work. She did get paid really well, as she got a percentage of the sales, but still. The problem for her is the fact that publishing as Emilia Benedict, there is already an audience and those automatic purchases. We all have our list of authors that we buy and read whatever they put out there. Trying to convince the publisher, who is more interested in profits, and agency, who are more interested in profits, that they should allow Bryony to publish these books as herself would be a very hard sell as it could be an instant hit or it might take her years to collect the same audience as Emilia Benedict. No one is willing to lose that kind of easy money when they don’t care whose name is on the book jacket.
As far as the romance, Bryony and Jack are like an old married couple. They go out to dinner a couple times of week and Jack has even joined Bryony’s bowling team. Jack even goes with Bryony on the tour bus with Emilia to make sure she doesn’t get mistreated. Problem is, they actually aren’t dating, and the why is kind of stupid. Bryony has a “boyfriend” who she was seeing for four months before he was transferred to Russia to each English to students and two years later, he really hasn’t come back but Bryony’s very faithful to this ridiculous relationship. What would have made more sense is the fact that we hear in the beginning of the story that Jack was in trouble for dating one of the ghostwriters who suddenly quit when she realized Jack wasn’t that interested in anything more. Apparently Jack has dated a few co-workers and writers which caused some problems. A better reason to keep them from actually getting romantic would be the fact the literary agency and the publisher would have drawn the line at Jack pulling this same stunt with Bryony, their literal cash-cow. Obviously, if Jack dated Bryony, broke up with her, and upset her, she might walk away so the very real threat against a relationship could be for Jack to keep his hands to himself. They can then grow close without getting physical giving us that will-they or won’t-they that everyone likes in their romance. Especially when the absent boyfriend officially calls it off and all we get between Jack and Bryony are a few chaste kisses. This book had the Scoville scale of a bell pepper.
Sorry to say there wasn’t much Rom in The Perfect Rom-Com but I did enjoy the story.
Favorite Scene:
A ding rings out from my phone at the same time the elevator annoucnes its arrival, and I look down before the doors open, seeing the Uber notification that my car’s waiting downstairs.
“Start when you sat down at Jack’s table. No! Start when we got off the phone.”
“Fine.” The doors open and I step into the elevator, staring at my own frowning, impatient, exhausted face in the elevator mirror along the way. Grimace. I look worse than I thought. Eyeliner rubbed off one eye fully and not the other. (Tears always come more fervently on the left side. Is that just a me thing?) Flyaways in my tangled ponytail abound, thanks in large part to the post-episode brisk ten-block walk from the pitch session straight to the hotel. I didn’t finish the conference. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I just left as insignificant and alone as I came. I’m wearing sweatpants, the comfy kind with threads at the knees from the thousand times of going through the washer in the past decade. A thick brown cardigan is wrapped around my T-shirt a the waist–bulky. Ready to beat the chill of the airline air.
Bryony Page. What agent would be crazy not to want this? “The sad, sad story of Bryony’s life began,” I say, yanking the ponytail elastic out with the one hand so I can at least try for a better ponytail in public, “when she sat for six hours with the other conference vultures while other more successful conference attendees shook their heads with jeering eyes and odious expressions–“
“Ooooh, she’s going for the rage words,” Gloria says gleefully, knowing how my vocabulary expands when I’m heated up. “–only to secure after said six hours, the most eremitic, vainglorious, and least desirable agent of all times–“
“Vainglorious, I love it,” Gloria interjects.
“–and when time came for the doors to open, she directed herself to Jack Sterling’s table–“
“Via staring at people’s shoes because she was too embarrassed to look up–“
“Thank you. I’d forgotten that,” I say. “And then eventually at the back of the room she bumped into Jack’s–“
And then something in the mirror catches my eye, and I stop. Dead stop.
Right there.
As I grip the handle of my suitcase and forget to breathe. You hear these things about Tennessee. Of bedazzled belt buckles. Of barefoot children carrying around chickens under their arms like cats. There are rumors. Inflated stereotypes. Except for this moment. At 6:12 p.m. on Saturday evening, January 23, in Nashville in a bedazzled pink elevator in a bedazzled pink hotel with “Friends in Low Places” playing over the speakers. Where Jack Sterling’s reflection in the multiple mirrors around us penetrates me with his startling green eyes that look at me from all directions. It’s a nightmare. A honky-tonk nightmare.
After a small eternity of staring at each other, a tiny smile lifts one side of his face.
“Vainglorious,” he says, breaking the ice. “Well. That’s a new one.”
I think…I’m going to…die now. Yes. I believe that’s the only possible response in this moment. “You know, it’s about time, Bryony of Florence. I was two more elevator rides up and down away from banging on your door. Honestly. I didn’t take you for a person who tends to be late. But” –he waves a hand at my appearance–“Then again, I didn’t take you for being so…athletic either. It’s a good plan, by the way. Much preferable to those stilettos you kept trying to face-plant in.”
“What?” I stammer. Then look down to the rolling suitcase in his hand an back up again. “What?”
My cell phone is dangling in my palm now, my hand going limp from my ear. Vaguely I can hear Gloria through the line asking about what’s going on. The elevator door dings as the doors open on the next floor down. A mother and her young son stand on the other side. She takes one look at me (and probably my tortured expression), grabs the shoulder of her son to stop him from stepping on, and the doors shut.
Jack resumes. “Anyway, I like that. ‘The most eremitic, vainglorious, and least desirable agent of all time.’ Snappy. Maybe I’ll add that to my byline.”
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