HOT FLASHES AND COLD CREAM by Diann Hunt

HOT FLASHES AND COLD CREAM by Diann Hunt

From the back cover:

An eccentric best friend, a leaky Chihuahua, a teenager in trouble, and a workaholic husband with a gorgeous new colleague. Those are the ingredients for Diann Hunt's wise and funny story about growing...well, older...with grace.

Midlife isn't a crisis for Maggie Hayden until the day a former classmate fails to recognize her--and her world starts to spin out of control. With an empty nest, a body that's heading south (generating heat waves all the way), and a marital spark that seems to be sputtering, she knows she has to do something. But what? Exercise? Romantic dinners? Herbal supplements? A job? She tries them all, with mixed success-but nothing seems to squelch that underlying worry that her best days are behind her.

Can Maggie come to terms with her new life and learn to trust what she cannot see? Can she reclaim her marriage and find a new sense of purpose? Can she discover a miracle cure for the aging process?

Well, two out of three ain't bad!

And the fun of this particular journey is just the whipped cream on the double-shot mocha.

Excerpt of chapter one on Amazon.com.

Camy here:

What a fun book! Maggie is wacky and loveable at the same time.

In this book, all the minor characters added color to the storyline. Even her incontinent Chihuahua had a role. The players spun and weaved in and out like an English country dance. While whacked out on hormones.

Since I’m not going through menopause yet, and don’t know anyone going through it, AND because I don’t have children right now, I didn’t quite relate to absolutely everything Maggie did and thought. However, I’ve been told by other friends going through that lovely stage of womanhood that Maggie’s moods and paranoia are COMPLETELY true, which scares me a bit. I might ask my husband to restrain me when I get to a certain age. Like in a straitjacket. Whew! Those hormones are brutal on the mind.

This was still a fun read, even though I’m not quite in the author’s reader demographic, which just goes to show that crazy characters—whether made that way by their changing bodies or naturally that way like me—er, people I know—are always entertaining fiction.

Okay, that sounds really wrong. I truly don’t mean anything bad by that. On the contrary, this screwball cast is nothing but good, clean fun.

I think that 20- and 30-somethings with moms going through this “certain stage” of life will actually find a lot to laugh about in this story. And any woman over 40 will commiserate with and smile at Maggie’s antics.

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