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Hot Desk

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The hilarious, sexy and smart new romantic comedy perfect for fans of You've Got Mail, Attachments and Good Material

Rebecca Blume knows two things about Ben Heath: He’s a new editor at a rival publishing division, and he has terrible desk-sharing skills.

What starts as a battle of passive-aggressive Post-it notes escalates after the death of literary titan Edward David Adams, A.K.A. "the Lion," when Rebecca and Ben are thrown into a fierce competition to land his estate.

But when secrets about the Lion emerge, they are forced to ask - what role do they want to play in his legacy?

And most importantly, is their Post-it war actually…flirting?

© Laura Dickerman 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Contemporary Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction Romantic Comedy Funny Witty Greek Mythology Ancient Greece

Critic reviews

So charming and so accomplished, Hot Desk is by turns hilarious, heart-breaking, satirical, cutting and FUN. I absolutely loved it, and got way more than I bargained for in this dual-timeline tale of love and lust in publishing.
I absolutely adored this super smart and assured debut novel set in the New York publishing world of now and the 1980's. It's a romcom but also an exploration of how powerful men treat the powerless young women in their orbit. Fans of My Salinger Year, Tom Lake AND The Flatshare will love Hot Desk.
Rollicking and hilarious
Hot Desk is pure, grade-A, reader's delight. Dickerman's satire of the publishing industry across decades is pitch-perfect, revealing all of its blindspots and absurdities. But beneath all the laughs (and there's a lot of them) are serious and important questions about legacy, friendship, and who gets the right to tell a story. It's the sexiest, funniest book party you'll be invited to this year, and I promise you don't want to miss it.
The funniest novel I've read in ages! But also the most romantic! Hot Desk had me, by turns, laughing and swooning. This is a comedy of manners for anyone who loves Curtis Sittenfeld, Nora Ephron, Alison Espach or, well, anyone. So spot-on in its depiction of literary world mores, I nearly sprained my neck nodding in recognition. I challenge any reader not to fall in love with this charming debut.
A fresh take on classic rom-coms, Laura Dickerman's clever comedy of manners captures the timeless romance of literary New York.
A funny, deeply wise novel that captures all the thrills and aches of setting out in the world. Toggling seamlessly between 1981 and 2022 in New York City, Dickerman shows us that while Gen X and Gen Z may be very different, some things - friendship, ambition, the restorative magic of hangover takeout - are eternal.
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