I Hope This Finds You Well

Sue debuts with a delightfully quirky office comedy about a 33-year-old administrative assistant’s interpersonal battles in a Canadian supermarket chain’s regional office. Jolene’s days consist of eight hours of mind-numbing work, followed by drinking to forget about the accidental death of her best friend, Ellie, when they were in high school. At the office, she adds cathartic notes in white font at the bottom of emails (after thanking “morale club” leader Rhonda for a reminder about a meeting, she invisibly adds, “Deep in my core, I find you insufferable”). When Jolene forgets to white out a nasty note to her nemesis Caitlin, who subsequently complains, she’s forced to complete an antiharassment course and have her emails monitored. Instead of adding the restrictions to her computer, however, the HR guy accidentally gives Jolene access to all her fellow employees’ inboxes and direct messages. Among the funny discoveries is a thread between a coworker and his parents in which he sends photos of Jolene and claims she’s his girlfriend. 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 for fans of Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End. Agent: Melanie Figueroa and Taylor Haggerty, Root Literary. (May)