I Hope This Finds You Well - by Natalie Sue

About the Book

Trapped between petty revenge and a life-changing opportunity, Jolene navigates coworker drama, hidden secrets and forbidden feelings to save her job, risking exposure of an email vendetta and the walls she's built around her heart.

Book Synopsis

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - Recommended by the New York Times Book Review, Today show, People, Elle, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Harper's Bazaar, and more!

"Fans of The Office will delight." -- SHELBY VAN PELT - "Wickedly funny." -- PEOPLE - "I could not put it down." -- JULIA QUINN - "A workplace sitcom transformed into a romantic comedy novel." -- ELLE

In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues' private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job--a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you'll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don't seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department's private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss's favor, convince HR she's Supershops material, and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworkers' private worlds and realizes they are each keeping secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble--especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Eventually she will need to decide if she's ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if that means coming clean to her colleagues.

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes along with it.

Review Quotes

"Let's not underestimate the schadenfreude of delving into fictional office drama from a safe distance . . . Natalie Sue's I Hope This Finds You Well over-delivers in this department, putting a funny twist on misery in cubicle land. . . . Sue takes a clever concept and ratchets up the stakes while "shining a light," as corporate folk like to say, on the dusty plants, awkward birthday cakes and printer paper politics that loom large in workaday life." -- New York Times Book Review

"Wickedly funny skewering of office culture. . . This sparkling debut will have you snickering in the break room." -- People, Best New Books Pick

"This laugh-out-loud funny workplace drama is a balm for anyone who's ever gotten fed up at work." -- Good Housekeeping (Pick of the Month)

"An amusing, accessible debut that's no less warm for its depressing setting, I Hope This Finds You Well is something of a workplace sitcom transformed into a romantic comedy novel." -- Elle

"I Hope This Finds You Well is like a donut in a break room: unexpected, surprisingly sweet, and totally made my day. Which is to say: I devoured it! . . . Fans of The Office will delight." -- Shelby Van Pelt, New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures

"This one was so good and also so unexpected . . . This book is snarky and funny, and then it sneaks up on you by being way deeper and more emotional than you'd guess from the premise. I could not put it down." -- Julia Quinn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Bridgerton series, Today.com

"Snarky, romantic, and wickedly heartfelt, I Hope This Finds You Well is like the first perfect cup of coffee out of the office coffee pot. If you're looking for your next favorite read, this book has everything--vengeful coworkers, fake engagements, and a hero with a heart of gold. Natalie Sue's debut is an absolute stunner!" -- Ashley Poston, New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics

"Natalie Sue delivers an amusing workplace comedy that gains depth as it goes along." -- Parade

"If you enjoyed the dry wit of Monica Heisey's Really Good, Actually, then you'll love I Hope This Finds You Well. . . . A darkly funny satire that cuts right to the quick of modern office life, this will resonate with anyone who's ever rolled their eyes at the water cooler." -- Harper's Bazaar

"I Hope This Finds You Well is a delight. . . . This book had me stay up late reading on a Sunday night. I laughed out loud, I ugly cried, and I ADORED it. Tender and sweet, while unafraid to dive into the dark and the difficult, this was a witty and brilliant exploration of corporate culture, and the masks we wear to fit in. This book was messy, complicated, and unputdownable." -- Ameema Saeed, Shedoesthecity.com

"I've been savoring this debut . . . I've been calling it a rom-com for nosey people, aka me. . . There's something about it that reminds me of the best parts of Bridget Jones (the book), The Office (US version), and Severance (my new obsession on Apple+)." -- Yulin Kuang, Bookbub

"Bright, hilarious, witty, and so moving, I absolutely loved Natalie Sue's debut novel, I Hope This Finds You Well. Sue portrays the tedium and triumph of life in an office cubicle, along with its water cooler chats, bad coffee, awkward happy hours... and the magic that happens when lonely people search for connection." -- Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters and The Lifeguards

"A hilarious and heartfelt exploration of the secrets we keep in order to get ahead and what happens when those painful truths no longer hold us back. Full of wickedly sharp banter and spectacularly funny office shenanigans, Jolene's story stole my heart, and I cheered her on through every page of it." -- Elle Cosimano, New York Times bestselling author of Finlay Donovan Is Killing It

"An absolute gem. I don't remember the last time a book made me laugh and cry this much. Natalie Sue's depictions of office life are painfully spot-on yet hilarious, as are her characters. Anybody who's ever worked a dreary job or struggled to connect with another person (and isn't that all of us?) will relate to this gorgeously quirky and undeniably touching story." -- Margarita Montimore, bestselling author of Oona Out of Order

"Office Space meets Fleabag in this utterly unique, hilarious, and lovable novel. Natalie nails the minutiae of being a cog in the machine of corporate capitalism, but more impressively she gets to the heart of what it really means to be human. An absolute delight." -- Colleen Oakley, USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

"I knew I would fall in love with I Hope This Finds You Well from the first page, and I was right. This is a book you're going to want to read as slowly as possible to savor every hilarious, heartfelt moment with these lovable, broken, all-too-real characters!" -- Jesse Q. Sutanto, USA Today bestselling author of Dial A For Aunties

"A hilarious skewering of office culture and its mundanities, I Hope This Finds You Well is also a poignant tale of human connection. Natalie Sue deftly shows us that, as much as our coworkers annoy us, most of them are just trying to do the best with the hand life has dealt them--just like we are." -- Mikki Brammer, author of The Collected Regrets of Clover

"Darkly funny with a brilliant premise: our endearingly petty protagonist Jolene accidentally gets access to her colleagues' emails. Think The Office, but for burnt out Millennials." -- Emma Gannon, internationally bestselling author of Olive

"Sue speaks to the realities of contemporary workplace etiquette with humor, cutting wit, and heart." -- Iman Hariri-Kia, author of A Hundred Other Girls

"In her debut, Sue creates a vivid portrait of a truly lonely, heartbroken woman. Anyone who has worked in an office will appreciate the level of detail Sue uses to describe the experience--the particular bleakness of a sad office party, the petty gossip, the alliances and enmities. . . . A beautiful, honest, and often funny look at loneliness and the courage it takes to simply keep going." -- Kirkus (starred review)

"Delightfully quirky . . . The workplace hijinks produce steady laughs, and Sue adds depth through the backstory of Ellie, with whom Jolene found solace as a fellow misfit. This is a must-read." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"In this sharp office culture read, Jolene, the novel's protagonist, is accidentally granted access to her annoying coworkers' personal emails and DMs. This crackling comedy follows what happens when she delves deeper into the secrets and private worlds of her colleagues. -- Brit+Co

"A sweet and smart reminder that no one has this stuff figured out."
-- Stylist

"A love story for our relentless information age, this comedic debut novel from author Natalie Sue proceeds from a delicious premise: Jolene, unhappy employee at Supershops, Inc., has accidentally been given access to her entire department's private emails. Things get weird. Author Sue delivers a workplace adventure with humor, heart, and some highly relatable temptations." -- Goodreads, The Big Books of Summer

"This is likely the cutest-ever take on an inexcusable, wholly unethical invasion of privacy. ... This is a cheerful book about people who do terrible things but are not, themselves, terrible. Who can't relate?" -- NPR