I wanted to like this but found that I could not get into the story or the characters much. I went into this expecting one thing and ended up finding it was something else. Thank you for the e-arc.

What a fun read!

After the Covid-19 pandemic, office life has changed! And in Alice's case, it's hard to adjust. She learns soon after going back into the office, that the company is changing policies and now her office life includes working from home (again) and hot desking - where she shares a desk with a co-worker part time in the office. And just her luck, she's partnered with Jamie -- the hot guy that doesn't remember meeting her before they worked together...or does he? A lot of communication issues and a lot of funny post-it notes lead to romance.

It's a light, easy read but there is deeper depths in the story - handling life after a pandemic, learning yourself and boundaries and sometimes things aren't always as they seem.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a temporary, digital ARC in return for my review.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. One More Chapter for this cute read! Quick and entertaining read, that once you start, you won’t be able to tear yourself away from. But it does hit a little home with lockdowns getting lifted and returning to work.

A sweet slow burn story of a woman taking her life back.
Alice is a sweet generous people pleaser who always seems to be making concessions for the people around her; from her sisters to her house mates to her on again off again boyfriend Dave. Her only safe space is her desk and work, where she can keep her Knick knacks and just feel like it’s all hers. That is until work introduces a hot desk policy to save some money and Alice finds herself sharing with Jaimie who is not only a prankster but a guy she shared one hot kiss with years before they started to work together. He seems to have forgotten but she never did…
I like Alice’s journey of self discovery, how she decides to set her boundaries and stick to them; she’s a really strong character and her friends and family are developed around her quite well.
A sweet rom com; I thought it was a little longer than it needed to be but of stream of consciousness type writing inside a sweet romance is your thing, you’ll absolutely love it.

This was a great read. It grabbed my attention right from the first few pages and it never let up.
I’ve read a few books by this author but I think I’d definitely have this in my top 2.

I’ve been in a bit of a book slump recently and was struggling reading a book, so I thought I’d read this one instead and it brought me out of the slump! I couldn’t put this down and really enjoyed the story.

‘Seriously, I don’t think your stuff is crap, it’s part of you and you’re the most creative person in this place, Alice in Wonderland.’

Recently, I’ve read a lot of romance and this one did not disappoint. It took a few chapters for me to get into the story properly but once I’d read them I was hooked. I loved the romance and the relationship that blossoms between Alice and Jamie. Alice and Jamie had met once, years before they had started working together, at Reading Festival, where they had shared a kiss that Alice can’t stop thinking about, but it appears that Jamie doesn’t remember her. Alice has been excited about returning back to work full time after lockdown, but her boss has introduced flexible working, where she will work different days to Jamie, but will share a desk with him. This transforms their work relationship into a flirtationship as they begin to write post-it notes to each other all day. Whilst Alice is learning to work efficiently from home half of the time, she is also having to deal with an obsessive ex, who doesn’t seem to get the hint that she doesn’t want to be with him.

‘The real you, not some fantasy. It would have been easier if you’d just been a dream.’

I thought the concept of the story was very cute and I loved reading the post-it notes that they sent to each other. This book has been on my TBR since January and I’m so glad I finally got to read it, and loved it! I 100% recommend this to romance fans.

I love this authors books so was
Excited to get stuck into this one and read it pretty much in one go. This wasn’t so much of a romance story but a journey of self discovery for the main characters Alice and Jamie who have both met previously and become reacquainted with one another at the same time as having a lot of their own internal demons and life problems to work through. I am sure a lot of people will be able to relate to the trials and tribulations of working from home
During Covid and the isolation and lack of communication it caused. As a post it note obsessed person I loved the exchanges between Alice and Jamie when they became hot desk buddies as this made me smile and also found it relatable as me and my colleagues are always leaving little post it messages for each other. Again the concept of the title of the book hot desking was very poignant and relatable in this new normal we are all living in and a clever base of a plot to form the back bone of this story.

This book was funny heartwarming and poignant and also shows that the best things in life are worth waiting for.

After the Covid lockdown has lifted and Alice is returning to work where she has hated working from home and needs to be back to people and interaction again. Once she returns to work there is a new hot desk policy in place and she will have to share her desk with Jamie, who she fancies and the story unwinds from there!
This was a nice tale but Alice does ramble a lot! That said it’s a great summery read which I enjoyed. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was a decent story but it just wasn't for me. I found myself skimming through a lot of the introspective passages to get to actual action. I wish the author had spent less time setting up the story and used that time to fill out more at the end.

Couple of thoughts:
This book needs a trigger warning: covid. It's too soon to be reading about it.
Although her thoughts and thinking process had me snickering several times, especially in the start, the ramblings became too much and exhausting. I found myself skimming over those parts to get to the notes and Alice & Jamie's interactions.
I loved how Alice learnt to stick up for her decisions once she made them and drew the lines.
I loved the relationship between Alice and Sophie.
Overall, it was a good read. I usually don't hesitate to DNF books I don't like, so although I had a couple of issues with it, the fact that I did not DNF it, for me, means that it had more good parts than bad.
I received an e-arc from Netgalley in exchange of a honest review.

Thank you One More Chapter for this cute read!

Quick and entertaining read, that once you start, you won’t be able to tear yourself away from. Expertly plotted and perfectly written, Zara has delivered an addictive and enjoyable read.
Beautiful dialogue, real character growth and a genuinely sweet story about characters you will grow to genuinely care about

Thank you NetGalley, publisher and Author for this great novel!

I will post to my platforms closer to pub date!

This book was difficult to rate because I loved the story but I didn't care for the writing style.. It's a romance with a fresh plot that I haven't seen before, but also a story about the personal growth of the heroine who is too conflict avoidant for her own good.. Her sister was a victim of an acid attack after an argument and this has affected the heroine who has trouble with establishing boundaries and saying no. It has made breaking up with an ex a struggle, and working from home during Covid has been really hard for her because her roommates and family keep distracting her during office hours. Her sisters have always borrowed her stuff without asking and the ex attempted to declutter her mementos, so she's created her desk as a home away from home, with assorted strange and wonderful things that are meaningful to her, to keep them safe. Now the office moves into hot-desking and she has to share her desk on alternate days with Jamie, a hot but annoying co-worker she snogged two years ago at a festival. They start leaving each other funny notes and she finds out that Jamie is rather kind and not so annoying after all. She begins to trust him, but Jamie doesn''t share much about his life with her.

So I really liked the plot but I thought the book would have been improved if it was a little more tightly edited. It's written in a first person train of thoughts and it's a bit rambling. Every offhand thought does not need to be reported. .

I would give this book 3.5 stars.

Alice is a bit of a pushover when it comes to her personal life, but at work she is anything but. This mostly has to do with her coworker Jamie, who is constantly teasing her. What Jamie doesn't seem to realize is that Alice has met him before and they've kissed. When their workplace decides to downsize, Alice is forced to share her desk with Jamie.

I really liked this book. I know that some people may not like the stream of consciousness that Alice has, but I think that it is very accurate for a person who tends to overthink. You can see her development through how she thinks about herself and her space. I also liked that events were shown and not described. So in the book we had both what was happening at the current moment and what she was thinking as it was happening.
I found Jamie and Alice to be really fun characters. Alice was definitely an overthinker, but she was so realistic. As an overthinker myself, I was able to relate to her on that level. She also had her quirks, like keeping things that have memories behind them. Jamie was also, I feel like, an overthinker because he had many of the same reservations as Alice about their kiss. I liked that he was a dad and that he prioritized his child over his own wants because that is what good parents do. I also liked Alice's family, as they too were very realistic. Especially Sophie because what sister doesn't steal your clothes.

*I got a free copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

I DNF'd this at about 50%.. I couldn't do it after that. The main character's inner ramblings were just too much for me. Her rabbit holes took up PAGES and I just found myself skimming. It had a really cute premise and I think I would have loved the plot. But I couldn't get past the rambling. It made me dislike the character and everyone around her. I wanted to love this so much! I'm sad about it.

What a sweet, fun book. I liked that it discussed COVID and coping with changes. This book had me laughing out loud in some situations. It was also a more realistic romance book as life does always provide challenges. Nicely done.

I wish that Netgalley would come with trigger warnings, since I would not have picked up this book if they did. The first few chapters of this book are about the main character's experience with Covid. She lost her job and is in lockdown. I tried to give this book a chance in spite of that, but we are still deeply in Covid and it just all felt too soon. I was not able to finish this book since I read to escape and this was decidedly not an escape from today's world.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Hot Desk. Out of respect to the author I will not be publishing my review on other platforms at this time.

The blurb had me so excited to read this, it gave me Flatshare vibes. I was also intrigued to see a book with the pandemic in its universe. However, it sadly didn’t work well for me.

I found the stream of consciousness style narration from Alice incredibly immature and difficult to get though. It read like YA but the characters were too old. Alice wasn’t particularly likeable, and at times she was very repetitive and frustrating. The first 30% of the book setting up the hot desk situation was slow to get through. She catastrophised so much.

The romance element didn’t really jump out the way it was described in the blurb. I didn’t see the build up or tension as much as I’d usually like, and I found the ending abrupt. I didn’t understand why Alice and Jamie liked each other, apart from having a hot kiss a long time ago.

The richer parts of the plot were the issues involving Alice’s ex, and the twist with Jamie, but I don’t think either storylines were given enough time or weight to make them meaningful. Dave needed an intervention - Alice probably needed some mental health care.

There were also some questionable uses of terminology that didn’t sit well with me e.g approaching something in a “schizophrenic way” - I think it’s important for new releases to be paying attention to potentially ableist turns of phrase.

The pandemic references were there, but I didn’t feel the pandemic existing in the day to day life e.g no use of masks, and there were mentions of characters travelling

I did like Alice finding her voice, and learning how to let go of things. I liked Jamie’s character, he was cute and sweet.

I think more mature narration and more relationship building would have improved this experience for me.

As soon as I read the description of this book, I was intrigued. It reminded me a lot of Stuck on You by Portia MacIntosh, which I loved, and I could not wait to dive in.

Unfortunately the description did not mention the inclusion of covid / lockdowns in this book. The area I live in literally broke its record this week for the most covid cases we’ve had, since covid came to the area 17 months ago, so it’s a really touchy subject right now. I feel like there needed to be some mention of the pandemic in the description of this book; I’ve seen many comments from people online who are eager to read books that include covid, but there’s also many who read to escape and want to avoid it. With the amount of mentions to it, I just feel like a heads up would have been appreciated.

Moving on from that aspect, unfortunately this book also did not work for me because I did not like the main character. She annoyed me pretty much right from the beginning of the book, and I just couldn’t connect with her.

So this book wasn’t for me, but sometimes that happens. I hope someone who relates to Alice and loves her character finds this book & falls in love with it!

Thank you to HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter & NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book!

Alice is young, a mess, and reading every thought in her head is kind of exhausting.

‘Hot Desk’ is a co-workers-with-semi-romantic-issues with a current world setting that reflects the realities of a Covid-pandemic world and the impacts on how we work and relate. I kind of hesitate to call this a ‘romance’ because the main character - Alice - is working through more issues than just a handsome co-worker with whom she shared a shattering kiss at a music festival a few years back...and it seems he doesn’t even remember her.

The London setting comes across - and how: This book is fully Kinsellafied (yes, I made that word up). If you dig a lot of English references to food, and British slang - this is definitely your book. However, with all the issues Alice is working through, I would not call this a romance. Is it chick-lit? Women’s fiction for younger women? Something like that.

Alice’s main problem is boundaries - setting and enforcing them with her family, her roommates, and an ex who can’t seem to get with the program. That portion of the plot actually made me uncomfortable. Her ex’s easy access to her home and workplace was really unsettling. Alice also seems to flip flop when it comes to getting through to a sister who borrows clothes without asking and apologizes to roommates who take advantage. She’s a work-in-progress, I guess and I suppose we all are but I found that frustrating especially once she’d stood up for herself.

As for her relationship with the co-worker crush Jamie - the shared-workspace Post-Its storyline was actually a lot less significant than the blurb implies. There’s a cute bit about signing a contract about how much personal stuff they can keep on the desk they share, but it seems to be sanded over by all the other stuff Alice is trying to sort out. The romance relationship aspect stutters quite a bit and there’s a surprise from his previous relationship that’s turned into a stumbling block as well. The way they chose to communicate about their feelings came off very immature and they didn't truly sort it out until the end of the book.
And that’s my final point. This book has a very abrupt ending. I think some readers are going to hate it.

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for providing a copy of the book in return for my honest review