Menopause has gone mainstream. From Davina McCall’s taboo-busting documentaries to Kirsten Miller’s thriller The Change, the code of silence is finally being broken. The topic is – dare I say it – hot. So hot that, last June, HarperCollins announced it was “actively looking” for stories that reflected women’s experiences and portrayed “menopausal women as smart, funny, powerful characters who are liberated, walk tall and fight back”.
Grace Adams is certainly a fighter. In the opening pages, the protagonist of Fran Littlewood’s debut novel is stuck in traffic gridlock in north London. It is a scorching summer’s day and Grace, in the grip of a hot flush, feels “on fire from the inside out”. She’s atrociously late and she’s pouring with sweat. Drivers are blaring their horns and the man in the next car is staring at her, and suddenly she can’t take it any longer. She gets out of her car and simply walks away.
