There was so much exposition in this book, I could not get interested in the characters. We barely get to see actual interactions and instead see a rehashed version of Alice’s thoughts over and over.

Trigger Warnings for references to life after the Covid pandemic

Publication Date 31st August 2021

Thanks to #NetGalley, the publisher @onemorechapterhc and the author @zarastoneley for providing me with a digital ARC of Hotdesk in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way. I thought this book was bit slow to start but really got into it and enjoyed it. I loved the character building and the romance between Jamie and Alice was lovely. I particularly liked the post it note swapping and would love to read more by this author.

Hot Desk is certainly timely but the story never quite got its momentum going until I was just ready to DNF--the writing is not as tight as it could have been, which is a shame because he's a cute story and in the age of covid it's certainly very very timely. I expect this will find an audience as it's definitely a cute story about the pandemic, or at least as cute as stories about the pandemic can be!

I loved Zara’s previous book and this one is just as good! Really fun and hard to put down!! I loved it

I received a copy of this e-book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really quick, fun read. I enjoyed it a lot.

Really enjoyed I was drawn right into the story and hated to put it down.Well written involving another good read by this author.Will be recommending #netgalley#harpercollinsukchapterbook.

Fun little romance. Quick read. Appreciate it that it did have some substance to it. Loved the sister relationships in addition to the romance relationships. The co-parenting situation did seem to work out a little more easily than it probably would have in real life.

The concept of this book was great, especially since the big Cov now affecting everyone's life, a lot of us are facing the situation where we have hot desks at work.... But no love coming along with it :P

The characters were lovely. The author did great transporting us in with them and going on this journey, but i feel as if the execution was a bit off. Alice's inner monologue was a bit draggy at times. I also wish that Jamie's big issue near the end was not in the book, I think it just didn't fit.

Don't get me wrong, the book was adorable, love the post-it notes, but for me, it was just missing something.

I think it's too soon for me to read a book that so heavily focuses on covid, considering...we're still in the middle of a pandemic. The plot sounded interesting, but there was no mention of covid at all. Maybe if the book was set several years in the future, I could have dealt with it, but it was too much. I didn't want to hear the main characters' inner ramblings about how awful working from home is. Being in her head was a lot, and she came across very immature.

I was really looking forward to reading this as the write up was so good and it certainly didn’t disappoint me at all from the first page I was hooked and just wanted to read more to see what was going to happen. It’s full of work and relationships and romance and being happy and honest with others. The characters are able to draw you in and the plot is well written and you just want to keep reading.
Alice years ago kissed a bloke who she always has had something for but she is with someone at the moment who she knows isn’t right. She on her way to work and gets an email saying they have a meeting that mortgage and she thinks after the pandemic and working at home she is going to loose her job as the business is going under. But once in the meeting she learns they are slim lining the office and you will work part at home and part in the office and she will share a desk with someone who she learns is Jamie who she knows is this bloke she kissed years ago. He doesn’t seem to realise she thinks and while they share a desk he leaves notes for her and she can’t wait for what the next note will say. They soon start getting closer but there are still secrets to come out and one major one as well and how will Alice cope when she learns Jamie does remember the kiss they had and he does feel for her but what else is he hiding and will she support him and find a life with him or not and how will work life go sharing a desk together.
Worth far more than five stars as so well written.

It took me a little while to get into this story but it turned out to be a lovely, warm, uplifting read. I really warmed to the characters as they developed, particularly Alice. A story about date, love and finding yourself.

Thanks to HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter and Netgalley, I was chosen as an early reviewer!

*****Coming out August 31, 2021*****

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What happens when Alice a highly disorganized person , finds out that she will be sharing a hot desk with another coworker, Jamie, who is organized and whom she had a drunken fling with? This is exactly what happened when their company decided cutting costs with sharing hot desks would be the solution with their employees coming back to work after strictly working from home due to Covid-19. Will she be able be productive and figure out how to share a desk with someone she is attracted to? Will Jamie accept who she is and be able to make it work?

A fun light read that highlights the struggles of working during Covid-19 pandemic. Be sure to add this to your end of summer TBR list. A great book club pick!

💜 Thank you, @netgalley, @harpercollinsuk, and @onemorechapterhc, for an e-arc of Zara Stoneley's upcoming novel, Hot Desk!

💛 I loved this book and blew through it in 2 days! Set in today's world (read: Covid exists) Alice's office has to down-size and she now has to share her desk and personal space with her co-worker, Jamie. Their professional relationship starts to blossom into more through cute post-it notes left for each other on their desk…but there will be a few bumps in the road.

💙 I especially enjoyed this being written in first-person from Alice's POV - she is literally all over the place sometimes and while that may be annoying to some, I loved it! I learned so much about her, her family, and her quirky housemates!

💚 Hot Desk is set to release on August 31st.

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.