The Hot Flash Club - by Nancy Thayer (Paperback)

About the Book

Meeting at the Golden Moments spa, four women--Polly, Beth, Julia, and Carolyn--discover that they share a mutual problem with meddling, scheming, toxic in-laws, and come up with a scheme to help one another resolve their problems.

Book Synopsis

From the bestselling author of Between Husbands and Friends and An Act of Love comes a wise, wonderful, and delightfully witty "coming of age" novel about four intrepid women who discover themselves as they were truly meant to be: passionate, alive, and ready to face the best years of their lives.

Meet Faye, Marilyn, Alice, and Shirley. Four women with skills, smarts, and secrets--all feeling over the hill and out of the race. But in a moment of delicious serendipity, they meet and realize they share more than raging hormones and lost dreams. Now as the Hot Flash Club, where the topics of motherhood, sex, and men are discussed with double servings of chocolate cake, they vow to help each other . . . and themselves.

Faye, the artist. A determinedly cheerful widow and connoisseur of control-top pantyhose, she's struggling with creative block and an empty, lonely house. Now she's got a tricky problem to bring to the club's table: how can they catch her perfect son-in-law cheating on her only daughter Laura?

Shirley, the healer. Though her yoga-slender body belie her years, decades of dating losers and the strain of being broke make her feel her age. Shirley has a secret dream: a wellness spa that nurtures body and soul. But first she needs to believe in herself, in her abilities, and in her friends at the club.

Marilyn, the brain. A paleontologist who has spent so many years looking at dried-up fossils, she's almost become one herself. Worried that her brilliant but nerdy son is about to marry the very wrong woman, she gets some help from the HFC, who transform her from a caterpillar to a butterfly, with amazing results.

Alice, the executive. Black and regal, she soared to the top of the corporate ladder. Now her shoes are murder on her arthritic back and the younger jackals are circling in for the kill. But as the inspiration behind the HFC, she's about to discover something extraordinary: contentment.

For Faye, Shirley, Marilyn, and Alice, the time has come to use it or lose it--be it their bodies, their brains, their spirits, and their sense of fun. Together they realize that they can have it all, perhaps for the first time in their lives. And though what sags may never rise again, feeling sexy has no expiration date-- and best of all, with a little help from her friends, a woman can always start over . . . and never, ever, give up what matters most.

Review Quotes

"Frank and entertaining."
-JANET MASLIN, The New York Times

"Warm, lively, wise and as much fun as a gir's night out."
-KRISTIN HANNAH, author of Between Sisters

"Funny stuff . . . Thayer's characters are nicely drawn and sympathetic."
-The Boston Globe

"Nancy Thayer's gift for reaching the emotional core of her characters [is] captivating."
-Houston Chronicle

"Thayer tackles her subject with gusto and infectious joie de vivre."
-ELIZABETH BUCHAN, author of Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

About the Author

Nancy Thayer is the author of thirteen novels, including Custody, Between Husbands And Friends, An Act Of Love, Belonging, Three Women at the Water's Edge, and Everlasting, which was a Main Dual selection of the Literary Guild. Her work has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. Her first novel, Stepping, was made into a 13-part series for BBC Radio and her ghost novel Spirit Lost has been optioned and produced as a movie by United Image Entertainment. In 1981 she was a Fellow at the Breadloaf Writers Conference. She has lived on Nantucket Island year round for nineteen years with her husband Charley Walters.