The hot desk is a sweet romance. Overall the story was good but the character development left a little to be desired. I loved the set-up and premise, but felt the story unfolded in a predictable way.

A weird thing happened with this advance copy. I'd requested (from NetGalley) and been approved for Hot Desk, but when I downloaded and opened the book it turned out to be a completely different book from the same publisher - Love Life by Nancy Peach, which I hadn't requested and which is now archived. I'm a little embarrassed to say it took me a few pages to realise this. Anyway, I re-downloaded it and got the correct one. Strange. But thanks for the surprise extra book, I guess!

Hot Desk is set in a specifically post-pandemic world in which main character Alice is happily returning to office-based working after a difficult period working at home. (Relatable, I also suffer from a non-work-conducive home environment.) Unfortunately her company has taken a hit and is having to downsize, requiring employees to work from home part time and desk-share (it's not really hot-desking as I understand it) the rest of the time. Alice is unimpressed as she hates working from home, loves her desk, and her desk-share opposite number is Jamie, who she once kissed at a music festival (which he has apparently forgotten) and now feels awkward around. And also fancies. She's also having trouble with her pain in the neck ex, Dave.

I did find Alice quite annoying. Her thoughts for much of the story mainly consist of: Jamie is hot but could never fancy me; I love my desk. She constantly berates herself for being stupid, which gets tedious, and the "OMG"s scattered around were childish and annoying. I really hoped we'd moved on from the casual and inaccurate use of words like "schizophrenic", too.

The Covid references are kind of unnecessary - homeworking and hot-desking occurred long before the pandemic, so it's not integral to the plot and is in fact a little jarring.

This book is very chick-lit - I don't really like the term, but there's no other way to describe it. Maybe I'm just too old and cynical now to really enjoy this sort of thing. I'm sure many will, though

Alice has just gone back to the office after covid and is overjoyed as working from home was hard in a tiny bedroom in a shared house with housemates who weren't exactly quiet. As things are tight financially for her company they have decided to rent out part of the office to another company so they will have to desk share and work from home again for some days.
Alice is partnered with Jamie who she has a crush on after a kiss with him a few years ago at a festival but never saw him again
Really enjoyed seeing Alice asserting herself with her housemates, sister and ex boyfriend, a great read

Yet another fantastic book from Zara Stonely. I can’t imagine having to share a desk at work and it working out. This story left me laughing out loud at times and really getting into the story. So so good I highly recommend if you are looking for an easy fun read!

Mein Leseerlebnis

Von dem Buch habe ich mir eine locker flockige Liebesgeschichte mit viel Humor und unterhaltsamen Charakteren erhofft. Und vielleicht wirkt das Buch auf andere Leser:innen auch tatsächlich so. Ich konnte zur Geschichte und den Charakteren allerdings keine Verbindung aufbauen, weshalb die Geschichte komplett an mir vorbei gelaufen ist.

Zum großen Teil lag das sicherlich an Alice. Man lernt sie und ihre Gedankenwelt gerade in den ersten Kapiteln des Romans recht ausführlich kennen und einiges davon kam mir etwas langatmig vor. Bei einigen Details weiß ich auch nicht, warum sie überhaupt erwähnt wurden.

Davon konnte ich mich beim Lesen leider nicht mehr erholen. Die Welt der Charaktere blieb mir auf Dauer verschlossen. Beim Lesen fühlte ich mich, als würde ich alles durch einen dichten Nebel betrachten.

Aufbauend darauf habe ich das Buch nach dem achten Kapitel abgebrochen. Ich zwinge mich generell nicht angefangene Bücher zu Ende zu lesen. Und da mache ich auch bei Rezensionsexemplaren keine Ausnahme.

- abgebrochen -

Für wen?

Schaut vor dem Buchkauf unbedingt in eine Leseprobe rein (möglichst lang) und lasst sie in Ruhe auf euch wirken. Wenn ihr Alice als Charakter, ihre Gedanken und die Dialoge unterhaltsam findet, könnte das Buch etwas für euch sein.

This was let down by my experience of returning to the office after lockdown.

The premise was good but I have found going back to the office a very surreal experience unlike the way this story has been written.

Overall the story itself is enjoyable and has moments that will certainly make you smile.

I suspect the way it has been written will also not allow the story to age very well.

What a cute book! I really enjoyed the characters and the story! A feel-good rom-com all the way around :) Highly Recommended!

This book just really didn’t do it for me. I thought I would like it because it was modern (it talked about going back to work after COVID), but it fell flat. Big time. Perhaps I’m too old as I found this book really silly with no substance - maybe if I was 22 years old fresh out of college, I would have liked it better.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The estates above are mine without biases.

DNF at 18%
I received an eARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.


I was so excited to read this book after seeing the synopsis. The idea of them sharing a desk (on different days) and leaving each other post-it notes? So cute!! But, after 5% I was already not a fan. The main character was going off on internal rants that did not add to the story. At one point she was talking to someone and the next she was having an internal monologue on something that happened years ago. Then it went back to the conversation after the long long long internal monologue.

I decided to suck it up and continue, give the book a chance. It did not get better. The narrator still was blabbing and I found myself wanting to skim. At 18%, I finally decided it wasn’t worth it. This book was just not my taste and the writing was not up to par.

Things are just starting to return to normal for Alice after having to work at home during Covid. Now she finds out she is going to be desk sharing with a co worker who she has somewhat of a past with. Her desk is her safe haven. She can have her things there that she treasures. At first I thought Alice was overreacting to the desk sharing. But as her personality and her past come out I could understand how this would throw her off.
Things are looking up when Jamie and Alice start leaving notes for each other at their desk. But of course it is complicated.! A fun escape read. Nothing earth shattering but fun nonetheless.

Thanks to netgalley and One More Chapter for the advance copy.

Alice comes back to her office after the lockdown, only to find she has to share her beloved desk with the obnoxious Jamie.

This was just an ok read for me, I really didn't connect with the main character, as she was always complaining how she didn't like to share (sometimes I felt I was reading the same page again and again, as the idea was always the same). The first part of the book was really slow. However, I liked how she finally learned to set limits. I also liked her housemates.

** Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. **

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for inviting me to view an e ARC of this book.

This was my first book by this author and I felt that the writing flowed easily. There are some funny moments thrown in and also some sweetness and steam. I found the reference to Covid times quite amusing and made the story very actual and relatable. The banter between Alice and Jamie was also entertaining and the chemistry between them was well developed.

A large part of the story, however, is taken up by Alice's internal monologue and I found myself skipping over some parts. In my opinion, the communication via post it notes and the banter were the best parts of the book. There is also a revelation that was totally unexpected and I felt that the way it was handled was bit unrealistic and far fetched ?

All in all this was a fun quick read, and although it was not a favourite I will be looking out for this author in the future.

I enjoyed the setting of this book in a post COVID world where staff were having to move between working at home and hot desking in the office. It’s a fun read with lots of humour and a budding romance between Alice and Jamie. Very light hearted, however, I did feel it tailed off a bit at the end and went off on a tangent it didn’t need to.
Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC.

So when I first received my email that I was getting to read this arc through NetGalley I was super excited. Office romance is one of my favourite troupes. However, this book disappointed me greatly.

For the first few chapters all you got was Alice moaning about covid and lockdown and how adjusting to home working was a nightmare. I didn’t realise that including covid would bother me but it did…because for the middle of the book it’s not as prominent as the start plus if it supposed to be last summer the whole concept of hot desking wouldn’t have been a thing.

Secondly, Alice rambles. I don’t mean the character is a bit of a mess (i mean she is) but for a massive chunk of the book all the reader got was a day to day documentary of office life, nothing exiciting, just Alice narrating her boring day.

The romance with Jamie would have been cute… but again the author butchered that too with the whole “complicated issues”. It wasn’t complicated, he just didn’t know how to communicate. And if I had to read Alice explaining the whole Dave and her belongings issue one more time, I swear to god I was going to DNF the book. We get it, your desk is your safe space, you are a pushover and let everyone dictate your life and take your things… don’t know why every deep conversation you have with your crush has to be about that…

Overall, I really didn’t like this book. The plot just didn’t do it for me - really cute cover though!

I was drawn to this book because the concept reminded me of The flat share.
Turns out, it is a bit too much like the flat share, from the post it use to communicate to the stalkerish ex who does not understand when to quit. I am sad to say, however, that this is the only "positive" thing I have to say.
I was not a fan of the secondary plot, the one involving Jaime. It appeared out of nothing and kind of went nowhere, like the entire book. The story just sort of ended like the author suddenly did not feel like writing anymore.
Alice was a very annoying main character but at least she had some character arc and personal growth, in comparison Jaime felt extremely flat.
And this might just be me being super picky but I found the constant use of the word preggers instead of pregnant really annoying.

*thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an Arc in exchange for my honest review*

This is a very nice, easy read. I really enjoyed this book about Alice who is returning to work in the post Covid lockdown. In the first few chapters we really get to know the character and her personality and we hear her deepest thoughts and how insecure she really is. Because of this I think she’s a very relatable character and I felt for her from the opening chapter. We are introduced to a host of characters and they are fun and likeable. I thought the Hot Desking plotline was very relatable and amusing. I also love how the office relationships played out over the rest of the novel. Alices’s housemates really added to the overall fun and light vibe of this novel. I thought that this is a very sweet read. The romance is so cute and I love how you saw the obstacles they had to cross to get to the point that they finally got. It was great to see the development of Alice’s character from beginning to end. I’d recommend this book to anybody looking for a nice uplifting cheerful read.

DNF @22%

I feel quite terrible DNFing this, however we are 22% into this book and it's just a constant stream of Alice's internal consciousness. I think we have had one conversation with Jamie (the love interest), which was constantly interrupted with Alice's internal thoughts, leaving the dialogue very stilted and difficult to follow. This was also how the only two other conversations took place.

So far the premise is still being set up and the majority of the first 20% has been spent inside Alice's head to let us know how sacred her own personal desk space is to her. A lot of the same points were repeated over and over again, which just left me bored (I GET IT, she's always had to share with her sisters). Very rarely any dialogue, or just input from a source that wasn't Alice, to break things up. As a result I found this book to be too difficult to get into and will not be progressing any further.

**Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for providing this arc in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All thoughts and opinions are subjective but my own.**

I really enjoyed this book. It was humorous how the author developed the relationship between the two main characters. It’s refreshing to see a lot of humour and not just sappy romance. Alice was so insecure I could associate with her, trying to have some freedom but too scared of hurting other peoples feelings to stand up for herself. Her family was a riot and I can understand being scared to invite somebody there for a barbecue. Overall the book was easy to read and I didn’t want to put it down. Romances are always predictable but this one was fun. Thanks to One More Chapter, Harper Collins UK and NetGalley for the chance to read this book first.

This is a fun read with the adventures of a shared hot desk. Teasing, silliness, and chemistry. Some reviewers didn't like the post-Pandemic perspective, while this didn't bother me. The story is light, and a laugh, but something I didn't take too seriously. Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. It sounded like a fun read but it really didn’t hold my attention. I struggled to finish it and found myself skimming over parts because I just couldn’t relate to the characters or situations.