Hot Desk

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 When Edward “the Lion” Adams dies without an agent, word spreads quickly about unpublished stories and a possible novel from the “muscular” writer who, in Ben’s view, was better than Philip Roth.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the Lion’s troubling behavior when Rose and Jane were interns, threatening his reputation and the viability of his unpublished work.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. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Book Group. (Sept.)