A Book Full of Jolly Japes you say? Oh F...flip!

 When I asked my publisher what were the hot new trends in the book market, she answered 'joy and cheerfulness' and I thought 'GREAT' because my new book is set between a death and a funeral and features some very dark themes.

But...

Also in her list of 'wants' was the word 'hope' which I consider an essential in books of my genre. You can drag a reader over hot coals, but you must leave them with hope that we can overcome just about anything. This is what our readers want, some of them even need it because they look for guidance in our words.

It's the fault of a lady I was sitting with at an event why Together, Again turned out the way it did. She was sweet, ordinary - in the nicest way, warm, the sort of person you think would be an affectionate mother and granny. And as we chatted, our discussion got very deep. I have a theory that people like to tell authors their stories, not because they want them turned into a book but because they feel understood, because we deal with big issues sensitively and with insight and they sense that we are safe places (that may be bollocks of course). But certainly in my experience, people I talk to tell me their innermost secrets even though I have just warned them that I harvest any information that may be given to me. Anyway, the story she told me of her early life was horrendous. A mother who pimped her out to her boyfriends, who was cold to her but strangely much warmer to her brothers. Only one day of the year - Christmas - did her mother defrost and she was given a load of presents... that promptly disappeared on Boxing Day. She left home when was just sixteen and has never seen her mother since. Yet she confessed she loved her mother and people couldn't understand that. I got it. Something inside us tries to compel the force of shared blood and though we may feel love for something, we may have to resist having to do something about it. We are often at war with our feelings. Our heads and hearts are not always congruent.

I felt as if it was a story I had to write, even if the market was crying out for jolly japes. My last book - The Woman in the Middle - was about a loving family, a matriarch who would kill for her offspring. What fun to write the total flip side of that, about a narcissist mother who had children for reasons other than to love them and care for them. To have a family who had everything on paper to those looking in, but for the children to be starved of that most essential of nourishment growing up - love.

And more importantly, as the three girls grow up, feeling they are failures from the off, what are the repercussions of such a childhood, born to parents who create them but can't be bothered putting anything but minimal effort into them? 

There are many who blame their present failures for their backgrounds, but there are more who are determined to shake them off, to never put their own children what they went through and that requires a lot of will because the propensity must be to repeat patterns, exhibit learned behaviour. The woman I spoke to over tea and scones showered her family with the love she never had. She might have classed herself as someone unspectacular but I marvelled at the resilience and strength I doubt she even knew she possessed. She was an embodiment of hope that children can come through the most horrific upbringing and rise from the ashes like a magnificent phoenix. 

So, my story is about three women who have never really bonded because they were born seven years apart and what happens to them when they are free from the shadow of their mother, even though she continues to play with their heads from beyond the grave - an enigma to the last. It pulled the lungs from me writing it, I couldn't get it right at first and I was frightened I had attempted something beyond my capabilities. I could see what I wanted to do, but I couldn't get to it. Then I met that lady and everything just slotted into place.

I had a LOT of letters from readers about The Woman in the Middle because it touched a nerve with so many of them that they were women in the middle, swimming in a sea of familial duty and feeling as if they were getting nowhere, and berating themselves for everything they got wrong yet ignoring everything they got right. I am preparing for many letters from people who read Together, Again and recognise themselves in the pages - sadly. And I just hope their letters tell me that they too have survived and become strong and found happiness. Because it's more than possible for any wound to heal, to escape the past, savour the freedom of the present and look forward to the future.

Together, Again is Milly's 20th novel. Please check out her website for news, appearance dates, how to get hold of signed copies. 

HRT or Not HRT - That is the Question

 

So yesterday this appeared in the Daily Mail and eyes rolled everywhere in our writing community. There are two issues of course. The first is that there is a misconception that there are no books out there for women of a certain age, featuring women of a certain age. The dawn of a 'new genre' - sorry, loves, that sun isn't just peeping over the horizon, it's been shining brightly for years. 

When I started, though I enjoyed reading books about twentysomethings... they were no longer relevant to me and I wanted to write books for women like me who I could identify with: sparky women of forty, fifty, six, even seventy. Strong women, not 'nana's who crocheted incessantly while chomping on Wethers Originals, but who had sex and fun and were chiselled from wisdom and experience.  There are LOADS of great books out there written by my big name contemporaries that champion older women and for this article to say 'new genre' sticks in my craw because it's as if they aren't even on the radar!

The second issue is 'the menopause'. Yes we know middle-aged women go through it. It's like Covid though - you can skirt over the issue or acknowledge it. In one of my books, I did feature it. A group of 'Old Spice Girls' in my Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage. I wanted to  talk about it because I sensed a tide turning. That said, it was never more about their hot sweats than the women themselves. THEY took centre stage, not their symptoms (though some made for good comic effects).

The book featured in the article 'The Change' is excellent. I was sent an advance copy and I enjoyed it. It's got a lot more to it than just women going through a natural stage in their life, there's magic in the pages - literally - and I hope it does brilliantly, I'm sure it will. BUT Clare Hey, who is my editor and mentioned in the article is absolutely right that S & S are proud to publish older female authors writing for and about women our own age because I've been with them from the beginning and I know this for a fact.

Women in our books walk tall and are comfortable in their own skin anyway without needing the menopause to empower them. I suppose there will be people reading the article and already penning their menopause thrillers and maybe that's what the market wants. But is this just the flip side of the 'chick lit' tag? Will it spawn a whole library of books focusing on memory loss, bloating and er... memory loss rather than strong characterisation and plot because if you chuck some Tenaladys in, no one will notice the lack of them? Do you have to throw in a daily dose of HRT to make your women strong? Are they competent because of the menopause or in spite of it.

I think Ronnie Henry had the perfect comment on this whole thing. She said that she 'likes her women to be defined by a bit more than their hormones, though obviously that can be part of their make-up. But they are more than hot flushes and mood swings.' 

There you have it. If the menopause has to feature, let it not absorb all the interest or we are heading for 'chick-lit II' and - dear god - we really don't want that. We've enough battles on our hands to be taken seriously! I'm waiting for the male writers to catch on and write the equivalent. 'Dan is on the trail of a serial killer. He was a second rate cop but since his prostate started to swell, he finds his detective skills have sharpened...' Or maybe 'The Saturday Erectile Dysfunction Club - four men who... ' I can't even be bothered finishing off that sentence. Suffice to say, I somehow don't think that's going to happen.

And should you want some books that feature older women who aren't dotty drips groping for their calcium supplements... 

Christmas at the Beach Hunt - Veronica Henry - a plot driven by menopausal women running away from Christmas

The Singles Series - Elaine Spires -  the series follows a peri menopausal woman Eve who takes groups of tourists all over the world while living her best life. 

A Scandinavian Summer - Helga Jensen-Forde - whose books always feature over 45s

The Library, The Girls - Bella Osborne - both books have fabulous older women as lead characters

Sunshine and Second Chances - Kim Nash - is about 4 x 50 year olds going away to celebrate their joint birthdays

Her Last Holiday - CL Taylor - a thriller with a 52 year old main character

Elaine Everest books - who writes about older women in her sagas as they are so colourful and worldly wise

Cathy Bramley, Jill Mansell, Jo Thomas, Catherine Jones, Katie Fforde, Judy Astley - all write fabulous mature women

The Old Girls' Network - Judy Lee

The Spa Break - Caroline James - '70 is the new 40'

Five French Hens - Judy Leigh - 5 women in their 70s on a hen do in Paris. 

Karin Trunk Holmqvist - a Swedish author who writes about older people, books which are funny as well as wise.

The Winter of Second Chances - Jenny Bayliss - a fab book about a menopausal woman starting over.

Alex Brown - whose last TEN books all have older heroines

Woman of a Certain Rage - by Georgie Hall

Mental Pause - Anne Louise O'Connell - a thriller about a woman going through the menopause who is accused of murder

So... not really a 'new genre' then eh?