How could a steamy affair full of secrets possibly go wrong?

If it's part of a Laurel-Litman novel, it will happen in a juicy, twisted, unexpected

way.

Laurel-Litman will be here to talk about her latest suspense novel, Sunburn.

What's going on in romance fiction this season?

My colleague Tina Jordan joins us to talk about the latest in love.

Alexander Alter will give us an update from the literary world, plus we'll talk about

what we and the wider world are reading.

This is Inside the New York Times Book Review.

I'm Pamela Paul.

Laurel-Litman joins us now from New Orleans to talk about her latest novel, Sunburn.

Laurel, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

So set us up here with the premise of this novel.

The easiest way to describe it is imagine the postman always drinks twice, except it's

1995, and the stranger passing through town is a woman instead of a man, and she's a woman

who has just left her husband and young daughter on a beach vacation with no explanation

and just the most cursory of notes.

And how did you come up with that setup?

You know, I can't come up with the exact moment which bugs me because I usually sort of

have that origin story of my novels.

I know that I had always thought that the idea at the heart of Antilars' latter of years,

...