“[A] crafty new locked-room thriller of adultery and disaster . . . a fresh take on middle-class marital malaise . . . Kennedy’s page-turner brings [our] fundamental human fears into the blazing light of a towering inferno.”—The Washington Post

Two people, one hotel room, and all the choices and complications that make up a life.

After six years of a stolen hour here, another there, tonight is going to be different for Nick Holloway and Jenny Parrish. They’ve booked a room in a new luxury hotel in Manhattan, where they’ll spend the entire night together for the first time. Expectations are running high for this brief reprieve from ordinary life: they both need a good bout of ravishing sex and witty conversation.

But that’s not what they get.

Because they’ve barely gotten started when a smoke alarm goes off. Nick is annoyed, but not worried about what must be only a minor glitch. Jenny is anxious, guilty—is karma coming for them at last?

This existential thriller seamlessly shifts between Nick and Jenny’s perspectives as the reality of their situation becomes apparent, and all their secrets, evasions and regrets come spilling out. Stripped of their defenses, disagreeing about everything, these two flawed, funny, very different people are forced to be honest—with each other and themselves—about what they want, all they stand to lose, and whether their affair is really as casual as it seems.