Spotlight & Giveaway: HOT DESK by Laura Dickerman

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Laura Dickerman to HJ!

Hi Laura and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, HOT DESK!

Hello, HJ Reader!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

In Hot Desk, two ambitious young editors, Rebecca Blume and Ben Heath, are forced to share a “hot desk” on alternating days at rival publishing imprints—they start out in a Post-it war about a mysterious cactus, but things really heat up when they compete to win the estate of a literary lion who has left behind an unpublished manuscript that reveals secrets about the Lion and, surprisingly, Rebecca’s mother, Jane. A dual timeline takes us back to Manhattan in the early 1980s when Jane is an intern at the Lion’s fabulous literary magazine, the East River Review—where she meets the glamorous Rose, and they become best friends. The heart of the book, for me, is the friendship between Jane and Rose and the question of who has the right to tell her story. It’s about mothers and daughters, and it’s a celebration of friendship and women’s voices and of being young and enthralled with New York City, with writing, and with books. All this and a slow burn enemies-to-lovers romance between Rebecca and Ben!
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“Ben recalled the Rebecca Blume of snark, temper, and chocolate-covered almonds strewn all over. Just because someone was beautiful and fierce and sexy and smart and, he admitted, kind of funny, it didn’t mean they were a good person. Maybe he had fallen for a bad person. But he knew, on a bone-deep level, that she was a good person. An annoying good person who could be neater and learn better text etiquette.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• My brother gave me an assignment to write a book about two young editors who are forced to share a desk and fall in love and the characters of Rebecca and Ben sprang fully formed into my head immediately.
• I prefer to write at night from about 9pm to 2 am, fueled by frozen York peppermint patties and seltzer.
• Laura Ingalls Wilder published Little House on the Prairie when she was 65 years old; as of now, I am (still a little) younger!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

I wanted Ben and Rebecca to have fully-formed work lives and family and friend relationships before they fell for each other. Unlike a more traditional romance, I wanted theirs to be a very slow burn; in fact, they don’t meet face-to-face until over 2/3rds of the way into the story. They are both people who care very deeply about books and writing and writers, and that passion spills over into all aspects of their lives and fuels their attraction to each other.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I had so much writing the scene where Rebecca and Ben first engage directly on a Zoom call (though both have their cameras off); everything that can go wrong for Rebecca does go wrong: muting when she means to speak, speaking when she should be on mute, texting the group chat in error, disconnecting by mistake. Here is part of their first private message:

“Ben to Me: ‘water the plant’
Me to Ben: ‘YOU water the plant’
Ben to Me: ‘and you’re supposed to clear the desk every night’
Me to Ben: ‘YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO CLEAR THE DESK’
Ben to Me: ‘I know you are but what am I is your defense?’
Rebecca sat back, blinking. Well, that had escalated quickly.

Readers should read this book….

If they enjoy a mash-up of genres: a sexy romance, a comedy, a nostalgic but poignant history, a workplace satire, and a mystery about an unpublished manuscript.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

Right now, I am really enjoying every single thing to do with publishing a debut novel! I do have a few ideas jostling around for my next book, and one has recently elbowed the others out of the way. The characters are all living in my head, and I already know how it ends and have scribbled many notes. Like Hot Desk, it’s a mash-up of different genres: it begins with a dead body, there’s a second-chance romance between a young woman who comes back to her hometown in Vermont and rekindles with her high-school boyfriend; there’s a dual time line and a group of reconnected friends and a character based on my own eccentric, irascible father.
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Three finished copies giveaway of HOT DESK by Laura Dickerman, USA

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Which time period did you find yourself most drawn to in Hot Desk? The present-day post-pandemic world of publishing in New York City or the glamorous yet gritty world of early 1980s Manhattan? Did you notice mirroring between the time lines?

Excerpt from HOT DESK:

This is the scene when Jane, Rebecca’s mother, meets the glamorous Rose for the first time in the office of the East River Review literary magazine where they are both interns. The year is 1981.

Jane looked up to see a tall, willowy girl unfolding herself from the window seat. “Willowy” was the right word, she thought, and also refined and . . . not beautiful; “beautiful” was too boring to describe her. The bones of her face and her limbs were long and a little sharp; Jane might have said she was too skinny, but there was strength and litheness to her. Her hair was bouncy like a Wella
Balsam shampoo ad. She was wearing green cowboy boots, a long petticoat, a tight white undershirt, a chunky silver necklace, and a cropped black leather blazer.
Jane had taken in all this in the amount of time it took Parker to say, “This is Rose. Rose Bergman, right?”
“No, Larry, it’s Bergesen,” Rose answered coolly. “Three e’s.”
Jane hid her smile from Parker, who, flustered, waved generally around the room. “All right, so this is it: here and the kitchen we came through, and, uh, there’s a bathroom to the left. Those are the places we’re allowed, right? Don’t go exploring. Remember, people live here.” He gestured to a spiral staircase that Jane could see through the doors. “Never up there, obviously.”
“Right.” Jane nodded. As if she would wander around. As if. She ran her hand against the side of the pool table.
Parker noticed. “EDA’s pride and joy. He’s been known to challenge a few of us. Don’t ever play him for money!” He laughed a little too loudly and glanced quickly at Rose. Jane knew Rose had the upper hand as girls who looked like her usually did. “Rose can tell you about the rest of it. We’re pretty easy here. No punching the clock or anything. Well. Gotta bolt. Later.” He flipped up the collar of his shirt and left. They were both quiet until he had disappeared.
“‘Gotta bolt. Later,’” Rose said, breaking the silence.
“Larry,” Jane added.
They both burst out laughing. Jane couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so hard. Every time she tried to take a breath and get a hold of herself, she collapsed into more laughter. Rose was also hysterical. “Stop, stop,” she gasped. “I’m going to pee!”
Jane doubled over, her bag slipping. It wasn’t even that funny. Her ribs ached and tears slid down her cheeks. Rose crumpled to the floor. “I can’t. I can’t . . .” Her laughter pealed like a bell, then suddenly honked.
Jane, who was starting to calm down, instead started up again. “‘Later,’” she snorted.
“Larry . . .” Rose buried her face in her hands, a column of silver bangles clanking down her wrist.
Jane went over and sat down on the floor next to Rose. It seemed like the only thing to do. She hiccuped and quieted. She could tell she was bright red. Rose dropped her hands and shuddered. “I’m wrung out,” she said weakly. “I love your shirt. I love velvet.”
“It’s velour,” Jane admitted.
“The color is perfect on you,” Rose continued. “Crimson. Brings out your eyes, stunning against your black hair. You look like Snow White.”
“Snow White if she had crimson skin, you mean,” Jane deflected, but she felt a glow spreading in her chest. She had, just this morning, secretly thought to herself that the shirt brought out her eyes. She sneaked a glance at Rose, who was looking at her with frank interest.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Younger meets Writers and Lovers in this rollicking, charming romantic comedy about friendship, ambition, and love.

In the post-pandemic publishing industry, two rival editors are forced to share a “hot desk” on different days of the week, much to their chagrin. Having never set eyes on each other, Rebecca Blume and Ben Heath begin leaving passive-aggressive Post-it notes on the pot of their shared cactus. But when revered literary legend Edward David Adams (known as “the Lion”) dies, leaving his estate up for grabs, their banter escalates as both work feverishly to land this career-making opportunity. Their fierce rivalry ultimately forces each to decide how far they’ll go to get ahead, what role they want to play in the Lion’s legacy, and what they mean to each other.

As their battle for the estate gets more heated, Rebecca learns of a connection between her mother, Jane, and the Lion. The story travels back four decades earlier to when Jane arrives in Manhattan and meets Rose, soon her best friend. Jane and Rose are two strong, talented young women trying to make their mark in the publishing world at a time when art, the written word, and creative expression were at their height. But one fateful day during the April blizzard of 1982 will change the course of Jane’s life, and of their friendship, forever. As Rebecca learns more about her mother’s surprising past, the story lines converge, and all three women must reconcile with the decisions they have made and come together to navigate the choices that lie ahead.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes
 
 

Meet the Author:

Laura Dickerman has an MA in Fiction from NYU and an MA in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. She has taught high-school English at the Hopkins School, the Collegiate School, and Germantown Friends. She was an intern at The Paris Review many, many years ago. At her lowest point, she spent a month temping for her youngest brother who was critical of her photocopying skills. She’s been a book club leader, tutor, and recipient of an NEH grant. She lives in Atlanta with her husband.They have two grown daughters. Hot Desk is her first novel.
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