09/27/2021
Facing her 50s and recently single, menopausal, and post-mastectomy, Lindsey Friedland is experiencing all that comes with midlife self-discovery and more. After beating cancer and leaving an abusive marriage, Lindsey is determined to mix up her life and try new things, such as dating, exploring her sexuality, and rekindling her forgotten writing career. (Her degree in creative writing and journalism hasn’t paid off.) Her leap into the complexities of being a woman turns out to be more than she expected, but Lindsey ends up proving to herself that she is capable—beyond capable, even, as she discovers courage, restoration, and curiosity beyond what she ever expected.
Stamey’s lovely, inspiring, often funny novel tells this story through Lindsey’s journals (“Hot flash news flash: They’re tapering off!”) and third-person narration, detailing her exciting and passionate new involvements with men, an unexpected career change, her aging parents, and the trauma she finds the courage to face and conquer. She’s dynamic and authentically herself, single-mindedly embarking on a path to reveal what she actually wants out of life and how to achieve it. In that, she’s a resonant creation, one likely to stir readers joy, sorrow, and empathy. There’s laughs, too, such as the high jinks of a cat named HighJinks, or when Lindsey recounts how her spiritual journey leads her to a shamanic drum circle that, just when she works up the nerve to join in, gets shut down for cultural appropriation.
Stamey’s novel stands as a reminder that everyone has a complicated story they carry through life, and a testament to the power of choosing how to react to setbacks, complications, and even trauma. Stamey’s achievement, though, is the realistic, down-to-earth, eminently relatable Lindsey and all she offers contemporary readers. Women, especially middle-aged, will relish Lindsey’s fiery exploration and journey toward healing as she sets out to conquer the second half of her life.
Takeaway: A woman’s complicated self-discovery during midlife will touch the hearts of readers of this wise comic novel.
Great for fans of: Nancy Thayer’s The Hot Flash Club, Nina George’s Little Breton Bistro.
Production grades Cover: B Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: B-
2021-08-21
A cancer survivor experiences her second act in this novel.
Lindsey Friedland has had a tumultuous life. A bout with breast cancer has left the 52-year-old woman self-conscious about her body. She’s two years out of an abusive marriage to eco-activist Nick. That relationship mirrored the marriage of her beloved but complicated parents, for whom she provides care. She still experiences traumatic flashbacks featuring Nick. And then there’s the menopause that leads to frequent hot flashes. Lindsey takes comfort in her diary, her vibrant friends—earth mother Crystal and spitfire Megan—and her surroundings in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. On an average day at her stable but dull job transcribing medical reports for a local hospital, Lindsey runs into Newman Zender, an old crush from her hippie days, handsome and charming as ever, who’s now recently divorced with a teenage daughter. The two reconnect on an emotional and spiritual level, leading to the best sex of Lindsey’s life, but Newman’s not quite ready to commit. Lindsey dates other men, though no one comes close to romantic Newman, and she soon finds herself in a quandary when a family friend lands in the hospital with a traumatic brain injury. Lindsey’s knowledge of his surgeon’s history could save the young man’s life—but cost the protagonist her job. Soon, Lindsey connects with Damon Perrera, the Native American/Mexican editor of the local paper, who sees potential in her writing and shares her passion for environmental issues. But the mutual attraction is stalled when Newman invites Lindsey to join him on a trip to Guatemala. Author and traveler Stamey’s writing is strongest in her vivid descriptions of locations, from Lindsey’s hometown with its quirky settings and stunning forest to the Central American landscape she tours with Newman (“They pass a tilled field of orange dirt, morning sun starting to bake it, then the dense tropical forest closes over them again in sliding tones of green, sparked by an occasional flash of red or yellow parrot feathers”). Lindsey’s banter with her best friends as well as her complex family dynamics feel extremely realistic; the fact that every man she meets is wildly attracted to her, less so. Finally, Lindsey herself is an appealing and capable hero, both intelligent and relatable.
A solid, engaging tale about the importance of self-knowledge.