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

This was cute! It was fun to have the subtle enemies to lovers trope turn to a second chance trope I don't think I've read something like that yet before. I enjoyed Alice's family and the scenes where they interacted were so fun and chaotic. Alice as a character felt really relatable.

The only part of the book in which I felt was droning on was when Jaime was letting Alice know that he remembered her and that dialogue was feeling really repetitive and also confusing as to why Jaime was in "trouble" when Alice could have just as easily been like "hey I remember you too".