Lola and her mother Alice are on a flight to Cancún for a long weekend away together. Each woman drives the other crazy: Lola, with her unforgiving scrutiny and high-strung discomfort with pleasure; Alice, with her vague entitlement, new spaciness and a secret she cannot quite bring herself to tell.
A year after the death of Burt - Alice's husband and Lola's beloved father - Alice is seeing someone new. Someone Lola knows. But once they arrive at their all-inclusive resort, there never seems to be a good time to say it, especially not once both women find themselves drawn into a strange connection with Diego, an employee at the hotel.
Over three days in paradise come cocktails, heartbreak, a sex injury, a race through the resort and a love triangle neither woman saw coming. As Alice and Lola lose one another and find themselves, Sunbathing becomes a witty, tender and sharply observed novel about grief, privilege, pleasure and the complicated love between mothers and daughters.