Claire Newbold is not your typical heroine. Smart and sexy, yes, but she's also been known to sneak into a hotel room or two without paying, seduce a teenager in wet bathing trunks, and just check out of things altogether--like her job. And her marriage. No wonder, though. Claire's been careening off heartbreak. Her only child has died, she may be infertile, and her husband has had an affair. No longer a mother, not sure she wants to be a wife, Claire moves from hotel to hotel, basking in the anonymity of travel and forbidden sex. She even comes to believe she is clairvoyant, able to "read" into the souls of others. Eventually she begins to see into her own soul as she ponders whether or not to return home. As she struggles to repair her marriage and her life, Claire surprises herself -- and us -- by emerging with a new sense of redemption.

Lisa Zeidner is the author of five novels, most recently LOVE BOMB, and two books of poems. Her stories, reviews and essays have appeared in GQ, THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIN HOUSE, and many other places. She is a professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University, Camden. See http://lisazeidner.com for more detail, or her Facebook page, www.facebook.com/LisaZeidner