Trapped in a London hotel room with her lover, a woman must contend with her life and her marriage in this exhilarating debut.

When asked what matters to her the most, Kate would, of course, say her children and her husband. Because she loves her life. Even when it involves making a costume late into the night, scouring the supermarket for the only bread rolls her children will eat, and working during any spare moment in between. And she has found the way to hang onto her sanity in the Hours stolen away, once every few months, to have sex with another man.

Until one such rendezvous when Kate turns on the television to discover that the very London hotel they’re in has been taken under siege. And with that, she knows that nothing will ever be the same.

In the confines of a room with everything at stake, Kate is left to contemplate what has led her here, in hiding with a man who is not her husband while her beloved family waits at home. An exploration of marriage, identity, and desire, Room 706 traces the complicated story of one woman’s life as she faces what her future might hold—if she even makes it through the day.

This is the perfect example of me going into a book expecting one thing and getting something that was so much more. I expected a juicy, action-packed thriller. What I got instead was a character study that made me really think.

Kate in a London hotel room with the man she’s been having an affair with for years when she turns on the television and discovers the hotel has been taken over by terrorists. That’s the setup. And if you’re expecting a fast-paced thriller full of shootouts and narrow escapes, you’re going to be disappointed. This book is not that.

Instead, once Kate realizes she’s trapped, the story flashes back and forth in time. We learn how she met her husband. We learn about how she lost her mom. We learn about her relationship with her best friend. We also learn how she met the man she’s currently hiding with in room 706. And as the siege continues, we watch Kate grapple with the very real possibility that she may not make it out alive. That she may never see her husband and kids again.

What makes this book work is how it uses the terrorist attack as a catalyst for Kate to examine her entire life. She’s stuck in this room with nothing to do but think. And she thinks about everything. Her marriage. Her kids. Her choices. The affair she’s been having. And the more she thinks, the more she realizes how little she actually knows about the man she’s been sleeping with. She also realizes she doesn’t really like him. At all.

The terror of the situation is absolutely present. Kate is scared. She doesn’t know if she’ll survive. But the book isn’t interested in the mechanics of the siege. It’s interested in what happens to a person when they’re forced to confront their life in the face of death. And that’s what makes it so compelling.

Levenson does a great job of painting a vivid picture of who Kate is. She’s a mother. She’s a wife. She’s exhausted. She’s juggling too much. She loves her life, but she’s also drowning in it. And she’s found a way to hang onto her sanity through these stolen hours every few months with another man.

The book doesn’t judge her for the affair. It doesn’t excuse it either. It just presents it as part of who Kate is and lets you sit with the complexity of it. She loves her husband. She loves her kids. And she’s also been seeking something outside of that. Something just for her. And now she’s trapped in a room, possibly about to die, wondering if those stolen hours were worth it.

The flashbacks give the story a ton of depth. We see Kate at different points in her life. We see the moments that shaped her. And slowly, through all of these memories, we understand why she’s here. Not just physically in this hotel room, but emotionally. Why she needed this escape. Why she’s been running from something she can’t quite name.

I will say, if you hate open endings, this book may not be for you. I love a good open ending and don’t require everything to be tied up neatly. But I can honestly say I would have loved about five more pages. Just a little bit more. That said, the ending works. It stays true to the tone of the novel.

This book is tender at times and tense at others. It’s quiet in a way that makes the moments of fear hit even harder. It’s not trying to be a big, loud thriller. It’s trying to be an honest look at one woman’s life at a turning point. And it succeeds.

I read and listened to this one and the narration by Hattie Morahan is spot-on. She perfectly voices Kate and hits all the highs and lows with true emotion.

If you’re looking for action and suspense, skip this one. But if you’re drawn to character-driven stories that explore marriage, identity, desire, and what it means to really know yourself, this is absolutely worth reading. It really surprised me and I’m still thinking about it.