Can't get enough of the office? This book will be like taking it home with you. However when there's a handsome, adept new techie hire, maybe that's a good thing. Emma works for a magazine and the computer system has more bugs than a Louisiana swamp. Guy arrives to keep everything running, and he's a water polo player and coach along with his skills at creating server backups and updating software. THE TECH GUY has to work alongside Emma, but her life doesn't need complications.

Burdened with a colleague who drools over men and suspicions that co-workers may be passing information to rival magazines, Emma also has a personal life more based on obligation and habit than on excitement. Down time doesn't exist in magazine publishing, she reflects; no sooner is one issue out the door than the next has to be assembled. She's not too sure that she's got her husband's entire attention, three years after their Vegas wedding. Next up, she and Guy are sent to a conference in Vegas. Lectures and workshops are a lot of work, and Emma deserves some relaxation - right?

Lia Fairchild gets involved in the complex lives of all her characters, from a girl who's badly treated by her boyfriend and then gets a proposal from him, to Emma's Pop and neighbours. I would actually have liked more details about producing the magazine, and more of the computer technical challenges, than the constant gossip. But between family meals, sports days, a formal evening and so on, there are changes of scene to keep the story moving. And when Emmie asks her friend who's got engaged, "Do you really think he's the best you can get?" and the other girl is undecided, we see reality for many middle-range office workers, who don't think they'll ever meet anyone more interesting. Emmie has a secret, and it's not helping her life. Confronting her friend helps her to realise that, and then she has to start turning matters around.

THE TECH GUY deepens when people start actually facing up to their problems instead of just doing what feels safe. Readers may feel encouraged to get out and demand more from life.