Excited to return to work after lockdown, Alice soon learns that her company is instituting a “hot desk” policy and will be sharing their office space with another business. She will no longer have her own space at work and has to share her desk with Jamie - Jamie who she shared a memorable (at least for her) kiss with years ago at Reading Festival. Unable to forget about their perfect kiss, Alice dreads having to share a space with the man who seems to have forgotten their encounter and is always teasing her.

Before long, Jamie becomes someone Alice looks forward to hearing from. The pair leave each other notes and begin to form a friendship. With Jamie’s help, Alice learns that she doesn’t have to settle.

Alice has always been a people-pleaser. Afraid to say no, she is always making concessions for her family, housemates, and boyfriend. Not any more. Alice finally speaks up for herself and her need for personal space at home and with her family.

While I enjoyed the romance between Alice and Jamie, what really did it for me was how Alice grows as a person throughout the book.

*Trigger warning: this book is focused on COVID in the workplace. Lockdown and COVID okay a prominent role throughout the story.*

When I read the blurb for this book, I was excited to give it a try. It’s a great concept-two co-workers with a briefly shared past have to share a desk.

Alice has spent her life sharing everything and her desk at work was the one place she didn’t have to…until now. She thinks Jamie has forgotten their brief kiss shared at a music festival. Turns out he didn’t and had reasons for not acknowledging it when they started working together.

The writing style was not my cup of tea. In the beginning, it was a stream-of-consciousness from Alice’s mind. It was exhausting, superfluous, and annoying. About 40% through the book, it was like a different author took over the writing. I also did not like how Jamie was CONSTANTLY compared to Dave. It felt over-done was aggravating.

On the surface, this is a romance book that has the love interest and a HEA. However, it’s about so much more. Alice grows throughout the book and learns to set firm boundaries in her personal life. She went from a pushover people-pleaser to someone who takes charge of herself by setting-and sticking with- firm boundaries.

Overall, it’s a decent read if you can past the first third of it and don’t mind the writing style.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Detailed post will be up on my blog during book release week: onceuponabookbabe.com.

The second half of the book made up for the first half, this took me a while to get going. However, once the hot desking commenced, it became a lot more interesting with post it note messages etc.
A good story with a good few surprises.

I feel like this book covers a topic on a lot of workers minds right now, the future of work post pandemic. After working from home for over the past year businesses have to decide how or if they want to continue this practice. Enter Hot Desk, Alice HATED working from home. She lives in a small room in a house share where her food and personal items are frequently used or borrowed by family, and housemates so for her work and her personal desk is the only place that is 100% hers and as such is filled with knick knacks and decor she loves. Well, due to financial issues her company decides to implement hot desking, or desk sharing so they can rent out the rest of their office space and Alice is miserable. Add on that the person she will be desk sharing with is the man she kissed at Reading Festival only to become coworkers later and he doesn't remember her...

This book had a lot going on. I sympathized with Alice in the beginning even though I am firmly a fan of working from home. As the plot progresses and we see more and more how much of herself Alice shares with others willingly and otherwise her reluctance to share a desk and work from home makes more and more sense. I loved the post it notes between Alice and Jamie and their insta-love/lust to work enemies to friends to lovers dynamic. There is a lot of self growth, humor and love in this book. I did struggle a bit with the main conflict in the book, no spoilers but it felt like a strange wrench to throw in their way and I kind of wish the focus had been more on their past encounter or maybe even work drama, also just not my personal favorite conflict for romantic/comedies. But overall this was a lovely read about learning to say "no", setting boundaries and letting go so you can move forward with love and friendship. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins One More Chapter for letting me read this ARC.

I’m a big fan of Zara Stoneley’s books and was delighted to receive a copy of Hot Desk to review.

Firstly, this is a roadmap-to-normality-covid-post-lockdown setting. In other words, it’s where we are right now. People readjusting, companies trying to stay afloat, everyone wondering if normality will ever return or if this is our new normal.

For many, the covid backdrop is too real, too painful. Many readers will have got through the last 18 months with tales of woe relating to a lack of loo rolls and pasta in shops and working from home with poor internet and baby/pets/teenager/flatmate distractions interfering with working life. However, for many, the last 18 months have meant job losses, financial ruin, ill health, bereavement, parents in care homes that we can’t visit, being unable to attend family funerals, and so on. Therefore. A covid backdrop to a book is a brave step and one that should be handled sensitively.

I liked the idea of the book, desk sharing, communicating through notes (this reminded me of the Flatshare to start with). But I felt the book focussed far too much on Alice’s connection to her desk. I got to the 25% point and felt like the first quarter of the book was all about her quest for privacy and the only place she could get that was at work. However, this information built Alice’s character and allowed the reader to understand her behaviour.

It was a slow burner for me, but once I got past the 25% mark I started to feel engaged with the characters and storyline.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review 📚

3.5 ⭐️

I must admit, I nearly put this one down. COVID in novels just seems one of those “for the sake of it” things at the moment - a quick nod at the times which is going to annoy people at the moment and really date a book in later years. And unfortunately this is the case here - the Covid references add nothing to the novel and it could exist completely without it.

That said, once I got past the flippant use of a pandemic, I actually quite enjoyed the story itself. I enjoyed watching the relationship between the characters develop and it certainly raised a smile. Definitely an easy read - nothing profound and there are some plot issues - but there is some real heart here that cannot be ignored.

Unfortunately, this will be a DNF for me. I really thought I would be able to read a romance set in the times of Covid, but considering we are still very much in the midst of the pandemic, it is much too soon. Perhaps if I had started this book years later I could have gotten through it. As it stands, I will not be finishing this story due to the many triggers and flippant portrayal of the deadly pandemic. I appreciate the chance to read and review this ARC, and please note that my rating does not reflect the entirety of the book, as I did not finish and cannot therefore be completely objective about the story as a whole.

Call me different, but reading about COVID while still enduring COVID is low key fun to me. It makes me feel like I'm in this story, too. I liked the characters and she had me chuckling a few times but I couldn't find myself rooting for this romance. It was still really cute!

2.5 stars.
***Spoilers***




A romance that acknowledges Covid, which may be a first for me.

I wanted to like this more than I did. I love the setup (post-Covid, office downsizes, leaving people to share desks. The main characters communicate by post-it notes.), which seemed familiar to The Flatshare, one of my favorite contemporary romances.

However, there were a couple of issues that fatally flawed the book. Spoiler warning. First, the main characters shared a kiss at a music festival years ago. I hate the conceit of “one perfect kiss with a stranger changed my life.” It’s lust at that point! Which isn’t a bad thing, but doesn’t mean that it’s love or that you’re fated to be 2gether 4ever.

Second, Jamie, who’s the male part of the couple, finds out that he has a kid. Which is actually a fairly good obstacle in terms of plot. However, the resolution is ridiculous. He’s … going to travel to Cornwall sometimes to see his kid? And maybe spend summers there? Throughout the rest of the book, Jamie is portrayed as conscientious. It boggles my mind that the solution he comes up with isn’t immediately moving to Cornwall to be close enough to see his small child on a regular basis. It just made me think, “oh this is a terrible non-resolution.”

I did like that Alice worked on becoming more assertive and drawing boundaries. It was a good way to show character growth. But Alice could have at first refused to move to Cornwall and then gone to Jamie and said, “look, I’m better at drawing boundaries and I’m also aware that I love you and I want to be with you and Alfie and so I’ll move with you.”

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I received an advance copy of, Hot Desk, by Zara Stoneley. I did not really care for this book, Alice is a very weak character that I did not like.

I've never read Zara Stoneley before and I'm sat here asking why I left it so long to read her books.

This book was brilliant. You will follow Alice through love and friendship. You'll meet her family and her work colleague's. You'll even meet Mabel, a blue footed booby bird (not a real one, a toy one), who if you're an animal lover like me, you will research and find out they are a pretty interesting animal.
I connected with Alice a little more than I'd like to admit as she is very like me but I think most women who read this book will find themselves connecting to her in some way. There's some good life lessons in this book as well.

In general it was a really good book and one that I will definitely be recommending it and probably buying a paperback copy of it once its published as I can see myself wanting to reread it.

Thanks Netgalley for the chance to read this ARC.

I really wish I could give this book more than a 2 star rating. Within the first few percentage of the book, you get slapped around with Covid left, right & center and considering our current world state, I just can't read that yet. I'll give this one a chance in a few years time when everything hopefully is back to a somewhat more normal state again.

A feel-good romantic comedy for a fun light and cheerful read. Thank you to NetGalley, Zara Stoneley, and the publisher for the ARC of this book.

Alice has a job she loves and wants to keep it. She then finds out that the company is switching to flexible working and hot desking. She's less than thrilled. Alice loves her messy desk and does not want to share. To make matters worse she's sharing her desk with her least favorite coworker, Jamie.
He's obnoxious and loves to tease Alice. They start communicating via post-it notes and their relationship evolves. Will they stay enemies or will they become lovers? Fans of the enemy to lovers troupe will enjoy this story! I'm typical a fan of that troupe but I found the first few chapters of this story to be tiresome. It really took a while to get this story moving to the point where I was invested. I liked the characters and the story but for me the writing held me back from ever falling in love with this story.

Really enjoyable story with lots to keep you wondering how it is going to end up. Hard to put down so be prepared to binge this book.

Thank you to Harper Collins UK One More Chapter and Netgalley for the electronic ARC of HOT DESK by Zara Stoneley.

When Alice goes to a music festival she meets a man and shares the most unforgettable kiss of her life. The last thing she expects is to start a new job months later and have him start at the same place on the same day. His name is Jamie and he doesn't seem to remember her. Even when they have a similar encounter at a work social function he seems to have no recollection.

When Alice and Jamie's employer institutes hot-desking and reconfigured working weeks, Alice and Jamie find themselves sharing a desk and alternating days. In Flatshare-ish fashion the pair begin leaving each other notes about mundane things to transition between days. They form an easy friendship and are heading for more when something happens to de-rail everything. Sprinkle in an ex of Alice's who won't take no for an answer and it doesn't look good for this couple.

Hot Desk is a slow, gentle romance. The early chapters are heavily weighted Alice musings about life, love, routine. She comes off as a tad whingey and painful and it required a little effort (and some skimming) to maintain my interest early. It's set during and in the later stages (if we can even say that now) of the COVID-19 pandemic and the humour might not be appreciated by some readers (ie. Effing COVID-19 killed off 3 of my clients, any of yours go tits up?)

Alice's focus on sharing the desk is reflective of her feelings about sharing everything in her life and not having her own space - but it a tenuous link and the reader could be forgiven for thinking "it's just a desk love, chill". For mine, Jamie is the saving grace and I largely enjoyed how his character was written. There's some chemistry and a little angst, and consideration of life lessons about being in control and focusing on the things you can change. A quick read, a resolution you can live with and promises of things to come - there's just not anything that sets this book apart from turning a nice read into a great one unfortunately.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 for goodreads purposes

I received this ARC from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. Overall I liked this book and thought it was a cute. Girl meets boy during her college years, falls in love at first kiss..2 years pass and they finally run into each other again at work. One of them has been pining for the other, and one of them doesn’t remember the other.. awkward! There are parts we can all relate to related to working from home due to COVID.

I’m sorry reading this book wasn’t the right time for me,,I tried to persevere by scan reading it but didn’t help, the death jokes were just a step too far, probably just me and it was too soon after COVID for me to be objective, I would like to say to anyone struggling with the ‘new normal’ do this book justice and please wait before reading this book.

Too soon for me with the covid story line and the jokes about death so was unable to progress.

Also took forever to build to a reveal that I assume was that they had to host desk instead of all being made redundant which seems a little insensitive

Overall a cute storyline but I found myself skim reading some of the longer rambling sections and generally really struggled to escape into this book in anyway. We're still in the Covid pandemic, reading flippant comments about deaths and the experience of it overall just felt far too soon for me.