Hot Desk
New term vibes? Embrace the return to work with this smart, romantic office satire
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
Two rival editors, one shared desk - You've Got Mail meets The Hating Game in the smart new romantic comedy set in the world of publishing, perfect for fans of Nora Ephron and Katherine Heiny.
'Hilarious, heartbreaking, satirical, cutting and FUN'
Laura Jane Williams
'For anyone who loves Curtis Sittenfeld, Nora Ephron, Alison Espach'
Joanna Rackoff
'Super smart and assured . . . Fans of Tom Lake and The Flatshare will love it'
Sarra Manning
'Rollicking and entertaining'
People Magazine
'Captures all the thrills and aches of setting out in the world'
Morgan Dick
1982
When wide-eyed Jane Kinloch arrives at the East River Review in New York, she strikes up a friendship with her fellow intern, the glamorous Rose. But Rose's attraction to their married boss, literary titan Edward David Adams, threatens to drive a wedge between them.
2022
When hot-desking is introduced at her office, Rebecca Blume of Avenue Publishing is furious about having to share her workspace with Ben Heath - an editor at rival imprint Hawk Mills.
What starts as a battle of passive-aggressive Post-It notes escalates after the death of renowned writer Edward David Adams. He has left behind an unfinished novel - and Ben and Rebecca are in competition to publish it.
That is until Rebecca discovers that the manuscript contains a decades-old secret about her mother, Jane.
Rebecca is determined to stop it from seeing the light of day. But can she persuade Ben to let it go?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Dickerman's uneven debut, two editors compete to acquire the posthumous work of a literary legend. Rebecca Blume, 28, has been at Avenue Publishing for five years. After its parent company forces her imprint to move to an open concept layout, she's required to give up her office and share a desk with Ben Heath, an editor from another imprint. When Edward "the Lion" Adams dies without an agent, word spreads quickly about unpublished stories and a possible novel from the "muscular" writer who, in Ben's view, was better than Philip Roth. Ben attempts to leverage his friendship with the Lion's son to land the deal, while Rebecca becomes a contender when she hears from the Lion's widow, Rose, who was once a fellow intern with her mother, Jane, at the Lion's literary magazine in the 1980s. As Ben and Rebecca's battle gives way to a charming romance, revelations come to light about the Lion's troubling behavior when Rose and Jane were interns, threatening his reputation and the viability of his unpublished work. The enemies-to-lovers story line is appealing, as is the office intrigue, but it feels at odds with the heavier material. The result is a dishy but discordant tale of the literary world.
