Hot Desk - Zara Stoneley (Review)

Date of Reading: 8/8/2021

Author: Zara Stoneley

Publisher: One More Chapter

Publication Date: August 31, 2021

Source: NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

About the book:

Same desk, different days. A post-it note is just the beginning…

Alice loves her job and wants to keep it – whatever the price. But then she’s told the company is switching to flexible working and hot-desking…Alice’s desk might look like a mess, but she knows exactly where everything is. Or she did. Until she found out she’s going to share it with the most annoying guy in the office.

 

Jamie can work from anywhere. He’s quite happy to sweep his work life into a box at the end of the working day. But can sharing a desk with Alice be as much fun as teasing her in person?

 

With no option but to try it and see, will their relationship turn into open warfare or will it ever progress beyond a post-it note?

A must-read for fans of Beth O’Leary, Mhairi McFarlane and Sophie Kinsella!

Review:

        One of the major drawbacks of Zara Stoneley books (as per my view) is the ending. The story will be great, so does the narration, but the ending . . . it just lacks that sizzle and the bang. This particular book solves some of these. There is a bang for sure, not at the end, but on the crisis part. And not in my wildest dreams I was expecting that. As for whether it was a nice sort of surprise, I still need to sort that out.

        Romance through post-it notes is not an entirely new concept, but it works like a charm. No exceptions here. I loved the growing attachment between Alice and Jamie, that is until Jamie's bombshell came through. It all got awkward after that, sort of like the merging of two storylines. Shouldn't he be taking the other path? Won't this create fissures in their relationship . . . in future? Well, love conquers all and it is blind too. So it might work in the end, though I have some misgivings.

        The romance part didn't work for me, obviously. Why the four stars then? Alice, without a doubt. My brave, soft-hearted heroine. I know how hard it is to say 'no' to our dear ones and getting out of a possessive relationship is harder. Kudos to you girl. Lockdown days has made us all vulnerable. Making the right decisions, sticking to them and learning from the initial mistakes . . . one cannot but admire that. Long interior monologues with the 'to be or not to be' theme usually irritate me. But in this story, that is what captivated me the most.

Meet the author:

Zara Stoneley is the USA Today bestselling author of The Wedding Date.

Born in a small village in the UK, she wanted to be a female James Herriot, a spy, or an author when she grew up. After many (many) years, and many different jobs, her dream of writing a bestseller came true.

She writes about friendship, dreams, love, and happy ever afters, and hopes that her tales make you laugh a lot, cry a little, and occasionally say 'ahhh'.

Zara now lives in a Cheshire village with her family, a lively cockapoo called Harry, and a very bossy (and slightly evil) cat called Saffron.