Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. If you're in the mood to snuggle up this

February with a book that is cozy and romantic and about an uncomplicated, loving relationship,

well, I don't know what to tell you. You're not going to find that here. Instead, the new novel

we're bringing you today opens with an affair, and then the guys

with guns come busting in. The book's called Room 706 by author Ellie Levinson. She spoke to NPR Scott

Simon about why she wanted to write about modern life and love through such a pressure cooker

premise, and how diehard was a key influence on the book. That's after the break.

Kate Bright loves her husband, Vic, and their two children. She's also enjoying the latest

installment of a long-standing assignation she has with her married lover, James. When the news

begins to buzz the very hotel in which they are ensconced in

room 706 has been taken over by gunman. And that's the setup for Ellie Levinson's new novel,

Room 706. She's a journalist who's written for The Guardian and Cosmopolitan UK and joins us

from the studios for the BBC in London. Thanks so much

for being with us. Thank you so much for having me. Help us understand what brings Kate to Room

706. Well, in the book, it's termed a kind of me time. Kate justifies her affair by thinking it could

be a secret drink after work by herself or a facial or maybe

a kind of habit buying shoes or something like that. It's purely an escape from her everyday life.

And does this crisis, this sudden crisis, cause her to review her life and who and what's truly

important in it.

That's right. So she's stuck in the hotel room. She doesn't know how long she's going to have in there or, indeed, if she's going to live or die.

So she starts to kind of think through her life, the kind of idea that maybe life flashes before your eyes when you're going to die, except it doesn't so much flash

because she's got a lot of time, so it goes quite slowly.

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