If I had to do it over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer, the one he bought with Thelma ... I picked up the pie, thanked God for linoleum floor, and threw it'
Rachel Samstat is smart, successful, married to a high-flying Washington journalist... and devastated. She has discovered that her husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, 'a fairly tall person with a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs, never mind her feet, which are sort of splayed.' A delectable novel fizzing with wisecracks and recipes, this is a roller coaster of love, betrayal, loss and - most satisfyingly - revenge.

Heartburn is Nora Ephron's roman a clef. It is the amusing revenge of a woman scorned: 'I always thought during the pain of the marriage that one day it would make a funny book,' she once said - and it is.