Kate Clayborn’s Love Lettering Book Review

Hello reader friends! Today I’m going to be sharing my full Love Lettering book review. I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from Kensington Books and Netgalley and just finished reading it the other day.

After reading only a few pages of Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn, I knew I was going to love this story. Meg, the protagonist, is a girl after my own heart. She’s a hand letterer and artist. She works from a cool boutique stationery story in New York City. She’s a professional planner girl, which is just such a cool career to have in my opinion.

I had high hopes from the beginning and this story did not disappoint. Keep reading for my full Love Lettering book review. And if you enjoy this book discussion, you can check out some of my other reviews here.

What is Love Lettering About?

Meg Mackworth’s hand-lettering skill has made her famous as the Planner of Park Slope, designing custom journals for her New York City clientele. She has another skill too: reading signs that other people miss. Knowing the upcoming marriage of Reid Sutherland and his polished fiancée was doomed to fail is one thing, but weaving a secret word of warning into their wedding program is another. Meg may have thought no one would spot it, but she hadn’t counted on sharp-eyed, pattern-obsessed Reid.

A year later, Reid has tracked Meg down to find out how she knew that his meticulously planned future was about to implode. But with a looming deadline and a bad case of creative block, Meg doesn’t have time for Reid’s questions—unless he can help her find her missing inspiration. As they gradually open up to each other, both try to ignore a deepening connection between them. But the signs are there—irresistible, indisputable, urging Meg to heed the messages Reid is sending her, before it’s too late . . . (from Amazon.com)

About Kate Clayborn

Kate Clayborn is the author of Love Lettering, which was first published in December of 2019. Some of her other works include the Chance of a Lifetimes Series, Love at First, Georgie, All Along, and The Other Side of Disappearing. She mainly writes romance novels althought I believe The Other Side of Disappearing is a contemporary novel featuring a mystery.

The Beginning

I love planning. I’m not the best at artwork, but I love to make lists in my bullet journal. I immediately loved Meg and her backstory right away because she’s a true artist. She used to design beautiful wedding invitations and now designs custom planners. She’s in very high demand for her design work.

At the beginning of the story, Meg is taken by surprise when a former client, Reid, comes to visit her at the shop. After reading it in his wedding invitation, he wants to know how she knew his marriage wouldn’t work out. Right away that had me intrigued. How did Meg know? And how did she let him know? And why is Reid finally ready to hear the truth, a year later?

It’s an interesting turn of events. A secret message in their wedding program was what caused the breakup between Reid and his gorgeous fiancée. He should be furious with Meg over what went down, but he’s more curious to know where the idea for the hidden message came from.

Meg & Reid

Meg and Reid are the main characters and they are total opposites, which makes for some very interesting conversations. Opposites attract is one of my favorite romance tropes. But I will say… witnessing Meg and Reid try to get to know each other is a little bit awkward. I felt very tense as they learned to talk to and be honest with each other. It felt like one of them would say something weird and the other would take it the wrong way and then things would get very complicated.

But I loved them both. Meg is kind and artistic. Reid, who works on Wall Street, is serious and focused. But he always shows his caring side when listening to Meg.

Meg’s Character

I loved Meg’s POV and Meg as a main character because she really was just trying her best. Her and Reid are both imperfect characters. She knew that putting a secret message in Reid’s wedding programs was wrong, but also subconsciously she was trying to help him. She’s a New York City woman and an instagram-famous hand-letterer which comes with a lot of pressure, because she works with New York City’s Elite as her customers.

The Planning Aspect

Did I mention I’m a planner girl? If I didn’t, it should be pretty obvious from the journaling and planning posts on my blog. I loved that a big part of his story has to do with Meg getting over her creator’s block. She has a big job that she wants to apply for, but in order to do so she has to create many different planner pages for it, kind of like an audition. I loved her adventures with Reid around the city as they work to gather inspiration for her plans.

It was fun to read about her different designs that she eventually came up with. She’s used to creating beautiful custom journals for her clients at the stationery shop, but now her goal is to use her hand-lettering skills to create different spleads for a planner company. Meg is an instagram-famous-hand-letterer and I definitely feel like I would be following her account if she was a real person! lol.

I like to imagine that she was trying out for a company like The Happy Planner. I’ve been a huge fan of The Happy Planner for years and they have so many cute designs.

Hand Lettering is really cool!

After I read this story, I went on instagram to look up different stationery and bullet journal accounts. And some of the spreads that they do are really amazing. It was fun to imaging what Meg’s instagram account would be like and what her lovely hand-lettering would look like. It was also interesting to consider what Meg’s message would look like on the pages.

The Side Characters

A witty romance novel is nothing without it’s side characters! We know this from basically any romantic comedy movie. Author Kate Clayborn created a great world for this story to take place in. There’s Meg and the stationery boutique where she works from. She has a lot of great conversations with the women who work there, about Reid and dating. There’s Sibby, Meg’s roommate who she has a fractured friendship with. The increasing distance of her best friend really takes a toll on Meg and is something she works on throughout the story.

And then there’s Reid! As a quantitative analyst and math genius, he has an office that he works at on Wall Street. He’s more guarded so we don’t learn about his relationships at first, but then it comes to light that his ex fiancee is actually his boss’s daughter. It’s a little awkward that they broke up, isn’t it?

Would I recommend Love Lettering?

Yes, I definitely would! This is my first Kate Clayborn book and I really enjoyed it. Part of the reason why I loved it so much was the characters, but it was also about a topic that really interested me: planning. I also really enjoyed the side characters, like the other women at the shop and Meg’s strained relationship with her roommate.

All in all it’s a really fun story with a complicated, but satisfying romance. This is my first Kate Clayborn book but I’ve already checked out one of her others from the library, so I can read that next.

In Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my Love Lettering book review. This is the story of a hand letterer who is just looking for professional success and a happy ending. That’s not too much to ask for, right? But in all seriousness, I’m really glad that I decided to read this quirky romance book. It’s a heartfelt love story that also touches on finding true happiness and friendship and enjoyment out of life.

And thank you to Kensington Books and Netgalley for a review copy of this book, in exchange for my honest thoughts!

But wait, there’s more!

If you enjoyed this blog post, you can read more of my book reviews here.