⚠️ Bonus Episode Warning: Contains Spoilers ⚠️ 

When a book delivers an ending as brilliant and surprising as Room 706 by Ellie Levenson, it deserves its very own bonus episode, one where we can unpack everything without worrying about ruining the experience for anyone else.

If you haven’t read the book yet, please stop here and come back once you have!

Books discussed:

Room 706 by Ellie Levenson

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Although we dive deep into the ending of Room 706, we’ve chosen to keep some of Ellie’s own reflections under wraps, those are for you to discover as a reader.

If you’d like to get in touch with Ellie, you can find her on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ellie_levenson/

I’ll be back next week with another author conversation, and I’d love for you to join me for that too.

In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review Best Book Forward, and don’t forget to tell your friends... it really helps new listeners discover the show.

See you tomorrow, and happy listening. 

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Welcome back to Best Book Forward and a special bonus episode with Ellie Levinson, Author of Room 706.

Now, if you haven't read Room 706 yet, this is not the episode for you, as we're about to dive in a little deeper and unpack that ending.

So this episode does contain huge spoilers.

If you'd like to listen to the main episode, I've linked that in the show notes and maybe you could bookmark this episode for when you have finished and would like to hear Ellie talk more about that ending.

But for now, let's not waste any more time.

Let's jump straight back into a special bonus conversation with Ellie Levinson.

Ellie.

So welcome back to this special bonus episode.

We've just had a lovely chat on the main one.

If you're listening to this and you haven't read room 706, stop reverse.

Come back when you've read it because we are going to be discussing spoilers and I do not want to ruin this book for you.

So save it and come back when you've read it.

Ellie, thank you so much.

I'm so excited.

I'm so excited because as I said before, it's like when you haven't sort of.

It's an early reading, it's.

Nobody can sort of say, what did you think of that ending?

So we can do that.

Let's get into it.

So let's start by talking about Kate again.

She's experienced so much loss in her life from her mom and her best friend, and she's quite isolated in that she doesn't really have.

She has females in her life, but she doesn't have that sort of a good friendship group, solid sort of female friendship groups.

What drew you to that backstory for Kate?

You know what, what was it about that?

And how important is it to.

I'm really worried I'm going to ruin the mystique here because, you know, I want to be able to tell.

Yeah, well, she had all this loss and then therefore, you know, she had a kind of emotional deficit to make up.

But actually what happened was I had the hotel scenario first.

Right.

But if she had a best friend who was alive, then she'd call them.

Right.

But I didn't want to have to write her calling her best friend because the whole point of the story, she hasn't really got anyone to tell.

And again, if her mum was alive, whatever your relationship is like with your mum, I think you'd call your mum to say goodbye or that I love you.

Yeah.

So she Couldn't have a living mum.

And then I thought, well, she can't have a.

She can't be close to a mother in law either, because you'd probably call them, you know.

And then I was like, well, everyone has to be dead, otherwise she would call them.

And there has to be a reason she hasn't got any close friends.

So that came first.

And then I had to kill everyone off.

You took all her lifelines away from her and then just threw her into the deal.

I didn't even kill them off.

That's the wrong order.

Like, I had to when I realized you couldn't have anyone.

I had to create people in order to kill them off.

Yeah.

Oh, so she had a moment.

She had a moment of like a network and then.

Yeah, you took them away.

How fundamental do you think her grief is in leading her to James?

Do you think she was always going to step outside her marriage or do you think it was like the perfect storm of, you know, her relationship with Vic, which is a lovely marriage, they're quite happy.

But as we said before, you know, he needs a lot of support.

She's obviously got the kids.

You know, she's tired, exhausted, frustrated as well.

So do you think that played in?

I think the grief led her to Vic, which is her husband, rather than to James, her lover, because she meets him and he's just in the throes of grief about her mum and she's very young and she's all alone and, you know, she meets him and it's perfect.

Right person, right time.

Yeah.

And I think that's where the kind of grief led.

I don't think she was looking for a lover.

And in fact, she rejects James when she meets him, even though there's a kind of clear connection between them and it's only kind of fate that throws them together again when they pick up.

And that's when she's kind of mired in parenting.

So I don't think it was inevitable, it was just convenient, actually.

Whereas I think grief did lead her to her husband.

Not that she wouldn't have married him anyway, but, you know, when, when she gets together with him, she's.

He's provided her with somewhere to live, someone to talk to.

Yeah.

A quasi family and his grandmother.

So he's.

He's everything for her and she needs that because she's grieving.

It's a big safety net business.

And actually, yeah, I think there's a.

Line in it about if he hadn't met her, he would have just been able to fall in love with someone else because he's a.

He's a very kind of emotionally giving person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Was it again, I'm going completely.

Thoughts popping in.

Was it quite fun to explore that side of her, of being this woman who, you know, goes off and.

Because we said before you.

She could have carried.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, my goodness.

Dramatic.

You know, this affair could have carried on for such a long time.

Was it quite fun to explore that side?

Yeah, it was.

It's really fun because you get to live it without living it, you know, it's all just a fantasy, isn't it?

I mean, I guess you'll think so.

Yeah.

I really enjoyed kind of.

How far would you go?

I suppose.

Would you just see them for the rest of your life?

You know, and what do you think?

What do you think would have happened then?

Would they, if they.

I don't know.

I think she might have got bored with him eventually.

I'm not.

I wonder, but.

But then kind of meeting him has become a habit and it's hard to break a habit.

So I'm not.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't think it would have ended yet, other than it is forced to end.

But I think.

I keep saying.

I think.

I mean, it's my book.

I know exactly.

Jane's the lover.

There's some hints in some of their conversations that maybe he feels for her a bit more than he's been letting on.

And I think that might have scared her off ultimately.

So if this hadn't happened in the hotel, she might have thought, oh, my goodness, he's kind of.

Because he makes a big thing to her about how she mustn't fall in love with him.

But I wonder if he's falling in love with her and that would be a bit off putting.

Like the last thing she wants is her lover to fall in love with her.

Yeah.

Well, then it becomes somebody else that she's.

Yeah.

Sort of someone who needs to.

And that's what she doesn't want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I think, because I got the impression that he was, you know, headed that way as well.

And I was like, I don't know.

But then, as you say, it's a habit, isn't it?

So, you know, and I'm sort of picking that.

But I think probably she's quite likes having the secret, isn't she, as well?

It's like it's that, you know, it's not just.

It's something that belongs just to her, whereas nothing else.

And when you're a parent, nothing belongs to you.

Especially you'd say your body doesn't.

You're being touched all the time, which is lovely in many ways.

Yeah, but.

But you don't.

You know, even whatever's in the fridge doesn't belong to you.

I mean, nothing belongs to you.

Unless there's a little secret I hide behind some of those books back there.

Don't tell anyone.

Don't tell anyone.

I. I have a trouble.

I hide things and forget where they are.

I found.

We were recording this in October.

I found some Easter chocolate the other day that I'd hidden.

I said, oh, I didn't know that was there.

I do that.

Yeah, I do that all the time.

Actually, I found Halloween chocolate last year as we're just getting ready for Halloween.

Poison all the neighborhood kids.

Okay, so let's talk then about the hostage situation.

I loved that.

You know, while Kate and James do sort of do some research and they're trying to work out who it is and, you know, what.

What their demands are.

That's not the story, you know, it's not about them.

It obviously does provide a level of threat.

Was that always your plan to have them in a hotel, have the hostages.

I don't know what's going on with me today.

Hostage situation or did you play with other scenarios?

Because it would be quite hard to sort of find somewhere to put them in where they're sort of closed.

I mean, I know you talked about in the main episode about a theater being taken over, but it's the fact that it's just the two of them in the room made it quite intense.

It was always a plan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't think of anywhere else.

I mean, I had this thing that, you know, what if the situation I write about happens in real life before publication and they threaten to pull publication?

And I thought.

I hadn't even thought.

I mean, there's still time, but I mean, not.

Not because I want my bits come out, but obviously it would be a terrible, terrible situation.

And it has happened.

Like there was the hotel attack in Mumbai some years ago.

For examp.

You know, I haven't made up the situation.

No.

But I thought, well, you know what, I could probably set it on a cruise ship or something.

You know, I don't know how, but you, You.

You'd come up with a way.

Yeah, I think there was a story about 911, but I didn't know if it's an urban myth about the person who was meant to be at work in the tower Blocks, but had gone to see their lover.

So then had to explain why they hadn't died.

Yeah.

Isn't it just.

I mean, you'd hope they'd be so happy that you are alive that you'd get a few hours grace before.

And I probably got the details wrong there anyway, but.

Yeah.

So I think I could have rewritten it somewhere else, but the plan was always a hotel because also you get hotels everywhere in the world.

So although I think the book is a really London book, like, I'm from London, to me, I think the characters are very London.

The.

The location is near the Thames.

I wanted it to be.

You know, anyone who knows what a hotel is in anywhere in the world would be able to think about it in those terms.

And something that's brilliant about it as well is the setting.

So it being in this room, obviously you have the backstories where you can sort of go to other places and things, but, you know, when Kate walks in to reception, she's not aware, you know, and it was that sort of playing out in her mind of like, was there something going on?

Did I miss it?

But actually being in a hotel room, it's like, particularly on a different floor, it's so hard.

So they can see what's going on outside.

But it really adds.

I mean, obviously they've got, like their, you know, water.

They don't have any.

Well, she did have a sandwich.

One sandwich there.

She had to share it.

Yeah.

I wouldn't have.

I don't.

I really don't.

Like, you secretly have it in the toilet, wouldn't you?

That's why I've got chocolate back there.

Although it's not a thriller as such, there are some quite scary moments, I think, like, my heart was racing several times.

So there's a scene where they can hear people moving in the corridor.

And it's like that.

Which is really also emotional because it's like, do you help?

They know there's a child out there.

But as you see.

So Kate manages to contact the police to tell them where she is.

And they're like, turn your phone off.

Turn the TV off.

So there's no lights flicking underneath the door.

And then she flushes the toilet.

And I was like.

But it is.

You do.

Right.

You just.

I thought she'd probably done a number two.

Yeah, exactly.

And.

And the whole point was, I didn't want it to be a kind of delicate woman who kind of doesn't go to the toilet.

I wanted it to be real life.

And at some point, you would need to go to the toilet and then you'd be quite embarrassed if you were with your lover, wouldn't you?

To have, like, something smell.

So I don't think it was an accident.

I think she deliberately flushes the lee because she's done a smelly poo.

But.

And that.

That would.

That's worse than being caught by the terrorists.

That was my thought process anyway.

I love that.

But here's me thinking it'd be like just one of those things you do, like, you know, going to the.

Going to the kitchen.

Yeah, that's what she says.

But I. I don't think.

That's not what she's doing.

You think she didn't.

Oh, bless her.

And now we've sh.

Ashamed her.

Only if you see it as shameful.

That's true.

That's.

Well, she.

She'd almost got them sort of.

Well, she didn't almost get them caught, but, you know, she put them at risk of the sound.

So we have to talk about the ending now.

So they can hear banging and they can hear shouting on doors coming down the corridor.

So.

But they don't know if it's Secret Service or terrorists.

And then there's a bang on their door and then you leave us and we don't know, Ellie.

But the thing is, if I had said who it was, like, people who thought it was the other would be.

Be disappointed.

Now.

I disappoint everybody equally, I think.

No, I say I disagree, actually, because I was worried that you would have a resolution to it because I was like, I couldn't work out what I want.

Sounds horrible.

I couldn't work out whether I wanted them to be okay or not.

Because whatever happens outside that room, there's consequences.

Anyway, if it's Secret Service, she's got to explain, you know, where she's been, who she's been with, and she comes up with like a whole story, but it's, you know, there's holes.

But if they don't live, then her body is going to be found with her lover and that's going to be explained.

So, I mean, we've talked about Open End.

Was it always your decision to have it left like that?

I didn't think there was any other way because actually, I don't think it is an inconclusive story.

It's just a story is her love for her husband not what's happening in the room.

So I'm allowed to do big spoilers here?

Yeah.

We can assume everyone's ready.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, look, actually, the last Bit isn't the bang.

The last bit is her kind of pondering her future and realizing that it's with her husband and that when she's an old lady, she wants to be with him.

And so I think it's fully concluded that that was a story all along.

He just didn't know it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's what you hope.

What I love about it, when it's left like this, is I think when a book is left with questions at the end and it's well done.

And I said to you, like, I felt connected with them.

I know I'll revisit it more than, you know, however it ended, because I will be like, you know, what did Vic say to her?

How did they recover?

How did they rebuild?

What happened with James?

You know, how did she feel?

Because there's going to be so much guilt that she'll carry, you know, if she survives, she's going to have all that sort of going on as well.

So.

I love.

I love it.

I think it's brilliant.

I can't wait for people to read it so we can have this conversation.

I was like, have you.

What's been the reaction from people who have read early copies?

It's really mixed, actually.

I thought, yeah, I think we knew all along it's going to be a bit Marmite.

And some people love the ambiguous ending.

I mean, I would argue.

I've just written a kind of essay for somewhere else about this, about how all endings are ambiguous.

Because actually, you know, even a fairy story that says, you know, and then they lived happily ever after, well, you don't know what happens tomorrow.

You know, that's just an expression of intent rather than what actually happened.

And so nobody knows what happens after the last page of any book.

So it's no more ambiguous than anything else, really.

Suddenly, I'm revisiting all my books now.

And, I mean, there are bits that are more.

Some bits are more ambiguous than others.

I mean, after I submitted.

So I hadn't read it before I read the Paper Palace.

I don't know if you've read that by Miranda Kali Heller, and that's got quite an ambiguous ending.

You know, loads of films, cliffhangers are basically ambiguous endings.

Yeah.

But I mean, I know what happens anyway.

As in my head, I know what happens.

I don't know if you want me to tell you, but I. I know what I think happens to the characters next, but they sort of my gift for you to know.

Okay.

I mean, it doesn't belong to me anymore.

Once I done the last page, it's.

So hard to know, is it?

Because I always think, I always come back to when I think of things like this.

The Handmaid's Tale, which I read for the first time, like in my 20s, and I went through so much my life, like, going like, I'd be walking down the street, like, well, who was in the van?

So when the Testaments came out, I was like, do I want to read it?

And I read it and I enjoyed it, but I kind of wish I hadn't read it because I was like, you know, it's brilliant.

But I loved that, you know, that that made that book mine for so many years.

So do we want to know?

Should we leave it?

That if people read the book and they want to know, would you be okay if people dropping you messages on Instagram?

Absolutely.

Or like, like, rather than.

Because I've been thinking, I do want to know, but I don't know, it's like, it's like finding out if Father Christmas is real.

What do you want to do?

I'll leave it up to you.

Do you want to give what you.

I'll tell you what, like, we'll leave it and then, yeah, if people want to ask me, you know, we'll, I'll see what mood I'm in that day.

But that, but that's just my ending.

I mean, I, I have accepted that it belongs to each reader and they will have their own ending.

Like, I, I, I'm a bit of a control freak in real life, but I've accepted that I, I can't control how people respond to the book.

Yeah.

And that's okay, I think.

Okay, so let's end this one then with a question which I probably should have asked in the main one, but you know, this.

So this is coming out January, which is when this episode will come out.

Are you, have you already started working on your next project?

Is there something else?

Yeah.

Are you able to tell us a little bit or.

Yes and no, because my agent hasn't seen it yet, and it's entirely possible she's going to read it and say, no, this is no good.

Right.

And I, I mean, I'm sure, but, you know, so nobody, nobody has seen it yet.

Okay.

So I don't want to talk too publicly about what it is because I'll get kind of egg on my face if I have to scrap it and start something new.

But when I told my agent about it and I outlined it, it's very much not a thriller.

I don't think.

I mean there might be a bit of menace, I guess.

It's hard you can't tell when you own book, you know.

I didn't think room 76 was scary and everyone tells me that it is.

But she thought for a moment and said is it another middle aged woman stepping outside her lane?

And I was like yes, that's exactly what it is.

Exactly.

I didn't know it was.

But you know this White is an agent obviously.

So yes, that's probably as much another London book as well.

But okay, yeah.

I'm only loath to talk about it in case kind of it then doesn't happen and you know, I don't want.

To be in that sort of situation.

That's fine.

Yeah.

I'm sure whatever you do will be brilliant.

I wish you every success with room 706.

It is fabulous and thank you for taking the time for the second episode.

It's been such fun.

It's so nice to talk about myself all morning.

Thank you.

It's so lovely.

Thank you.

So I hope you've enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.

We recorded recorded it back in October of last year and since then I have still been playing the ending of room 706 over in my head.

I think it is such a brilliant read.

Hopefully if you've just listened to this episode you've also read it.

But if not do grab a copy.

You are in for such a treat.

I'll be back on Thursday chatting to another author and I really hope that you'll join me for that episode too.

In the meantime, thanks so much for listening and see you soon.

Sam.