Menopause in Manhattan by Anne Kleinberg

As I was contemplating turning my mad ramblings into a novel, I wondered if there was actually a market for fiction where the central character is a menopausal woman. When I started my search I found that there weren't many books that fit the bill, but I did come across this one, read it and loved it! It was just another sign that I had to write my book. Certainly, there were other women out there, like me, who wanted to read this stuff! So, I do recommend Menopause in Manhattan and wanted to share the synopsis with you...

Menopause in Manhattan
Anne Kleinberg

Welcome to New York City, and the world of publishing, interior design, fashion and food. 

As Elie Sands turns 50, she seems to have a charmed life. Executive editor of a top design magazine, she’s married to a furniture tycoon and the mother of two accomplished young women. She’s an avid cook, lives on Central Park West and owns a house in the Hamptons. 

Syd Sorenstein is Elie’s mentor and upstairs neighbor. A chic, opinionated financial advisor, widowhood has not extinguished her lust for living. A workout fanatic and world traveler, Syd does exactly as she sees fit, with little interest in what others think.

Michael Delmonico, partner of Daniel, is entertaining and flamboyant. He is also self-centered and hopelessly disorganized, but has an eager list of clients waiting for his interior design services. Michael is Elie’s dearest friend, and Syd’s worst nightmare. 

Life is good. Or is it? Elie makes a distressing discovery, Syd’s reputation is threatened and Michael gets shocking news from his past. Instead of easing comfortably into middle-age, each is forced to deal with unforeseen challenges, unresolved issues and reassessing what lies ahead.


So, if you've read a book (fiction or non-fiction) and would like to share a review here, please email me. If you're an author who has written a book that features 'the change' as a main theme or sub-theme, and you would like to do a guest post, please let me know!

If you’d like to receive my newsletter, book launch announcements or information on upcoming writing retreats, go ahead and sign up for my newsletter. When you sign up you’ll also receive a free copy of my ebook, 10 Steps to a Successful PR Campaign – a Do-it-Yourself Guide for Authors.

Mental Author Feature #2 - Jan Emslie

The Monster The Mentalpause and Me

by Jan Emslie

Book Blurb:

The Monster, The Mentalpause and Me is a satirical look at the life of 52-year-old Molly McIntosh, a third stage Mentalpausal, with a bitter and twisted womb. She has to contend with spontaneous facial hair growth, forgetfulness, and the Wicked Witch of the East-rogen occupying her guest bedroom…her mother-in-law, AKA ‘The Monster’.

Molly’s patience is tested on a daily basis as she pits her wits against her scheming nemesis, Annabel Lextor.

Molly’s newly retired Mr. Husband seems oblivious to his mother’s malevolent ways, as Molly struggles on, dealing with obnoxious neighbours, crazy work colleagues, and deranged octogenarians.

The book spans a hilarious year in Molly’s life. Ending with the realisation that one of Monster’s husbands might not in fact be dead.

I’m a former accident and emergency nurse who went back to a university as a mature student to study Psychology. I also ran kitten adoption in Dublin for ten years and was actively involved in animal welfare in Ireland. Remember "It's cuter to neuter." 

Currently, I live in the Granada area of Spain with my own long-suffering Mr. Husband of 30 ODD! years. Eight rescue dogs and eight cats. Including the 28-year-old GRUMPY cat Alice.

"How did the Monster The Mentalpause and Me come about Jan?" People are asking me ....Well, I accidentally wrote the book! Then I also accidentally bought a cow at a market some years back, so that shouldn't come as a surprise to those who know me.

"What's it all about?"

It's in the genre of the "Sweaty, puffy, hormonal stuffy AKA The Menopause and also known by its more descriptive moniker: 'The Mentalpause.' That's where you leave your brain at....Well, leave it where ever you wish because you are going to forget where you put it anyway, along with keys, a chicken, and a very nice Spanish exchange student called Raul!

The accidental book came from my Facebook page uncannily called The Mentalpause where it evolved, when I started to write about the daily trials and tribulations of a pastry dependent, 50 something-year-old 'GAL' and her Mother-in-Law ..The Monster. Egged on by my fantastic Mentalpauser's. Uncannily similar to my own life, I avoided a lawsuit for libel by changing my name to Molly in the book.(Joke). Mr. Husband is Mr. Husband. 

I'm fond of animals but not that fond of people, which was a drawback as a clinical psychologist. I spent most of my time plotting revengeful ways to dispatch my patients, so I had more time to eat cake and put bows on kittens. Luckily my patients were very naughty people who were locked securely up for the good of society.

Then I decreed there was not enough laughter in the world, so joined up all the short stories "What I wrote." And the end product, once it had a cover, resembled a book. People said it made them laugh and pee~pee their pants a little, and that was good enough for me. 

Oh! I also have the ability not to take life too seriously and have a good laugh, mainly at myself. THE END....Or is it? I am currently working on the second book in the series. Molly's gone Mentalpausal.

One Night Sweat Over the Line

I thought it would be appropriate at this point to share the story of how my debut novel, Mental Pause, came to be. It was published two years ago on International Women's Day. Parts of this post originally appeared on It’s Not All Gravy during the virtual book tour when it launched.

The Symptoms Come Creeping In

I’ve been a writer all my life but mostly corporate communications and PR but I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic and dreamed of one day writing fiction. About five years ago I tested the waters and submitted a couple of short stories to The Fiction Writers Platform (now The Writers Platform) and both received an editor’s choice award!

Prior to that, I had started freelancing and was doing corporate copy writing while thoughts and dreams of being a novelist did a water ballet in the back of my mind. Simultaneously, I began experiencing some rather uncomfortable peri-menopausal symptoms. I honestly didn’t know what was happening at first, only that I was horribly irritable. So much so that I couldn’t even stand being around myself. I was also having crazy thoughts, tinged with paranoia, along with such startling memory loss that it felt like I had had a lobotomy.  It wasn’t until the night sweats started that it finally dawned on me that I was experiencing ‘The Change.’  It was a shocking revelation as I was still in my early-40s. It made me feel a little better knowing there was an explanation for it all but didn’t make it go away.

Hitting the Keyboard

Then one very sweaty, steamy night as I was lying there in a disgusting pool of sweat, even though the A/C was blasting, and trying not to slime my poor husband sleeping soundly beside me, I did what any writer would do… hit the keyboard and poured out what I believed to be the mad ramblings of a peri-menopausal woman. If anyone had seen me they would have thought I’d lost it! I stifled the giggles so as not to wake my husband and wiped the tears and just kept writing. I thought I might turn it into a blog but wasn’t really comfortable exposing myself that openly. Then the idea hit. I could have even more fun with it if I turned it into fiction.

NaNoWriMo to the Rescue

As luck would have it, I had recently heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which was about to start, my husband had recently retired and we had just moved to Thailand. I hadn’t really met anybody and had a lot of time on my hands. I signed up and plunged in headfirst.

I started segmenting the ‘ramblings’, categorizing and developing a loose plot line. The first chapter sort of spilled out and characters started to take shape. The more I wrote the more I dreamt about my main character, Abbie, her thoughts and feelings, family and friends. I’d wake up with a start and run to my computer to type out a description of one of my characters that I had seen so vividly in a dream. The best plot twist in the book (in my opinion) came in a dream!

The Catharsis of Writing

It was really cathartic to write it because no matter how bad I was feeling, how crazy my mood swings or wild my thoughts were, Abbie’s were always worse. I could also live vicariously through her. Without ruining the story for anyone who plans to read it, I can share that I’ve always teased my mom that we’d both get tattoos when I turned 50 and she turned 90 (which happened just last year)! I’d really never do it because I have absolutely no pain threshold and the thought of even one needle makes me go weak in the knees, so I had Abbie get one.

Focusing on writing and publishing Mental Pause really helped ground me and allowed me to face my change with a more positive attitude. The worst has passed and I can talk more openly about it now and hope that, along with enjoying the storyline, my book can help other women as well. My mood swings have tapered off; the night sweats are few and far between and the hot flashes are barely noticeable since I live in a very warm and humid climate anyways.

I had so much fun writing Mental Pause that after it was published I immediately began working on my next novel with the hope that my diminishing symptoms wouldn’t limit my creativity! Fortunately my imagination seems to still be just as active and Deep Deceit recently launched to 5-star reviews!

If you're an author and have written about Menopause or if you are experiencing 'The Change' and have come across a book that you found helpful, please feel free to send me a note (anne@gobalwritingsolutions.com). I'm looking for guest posts from authors and reviews from readers so I look forward to hearing from you.

Happy Flashing!

'Mental Author' Feature #1 - Samantha Bryant

So excited to welcome my first fellow 'mental' author, Samantha Bryant, as she prepares for the launch of her debut novel, Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel, where she turns those pesky symptoms into super powers! Can't wait to read this one. Here's Samantha to share her journey...

Turn and Face the Change: Writing Menopausal Superheroes

Menopause and superheroes might not seem like a natural progression at first blush. After all, most women in superhero stories are barely dressed and eternally twenty-three. At mid-life, most of us have given up spandex and clothing with peek-a-boo cut-outs. I know I have.

Author Samantha Bryant

But there's no denying that the feelings (physical and emotional) that women experience during "the change" are powerful indeed. Hormones are overwhelmingly strong at different times in our lives: puberty, pregnancy, and menopause being the highlights in that particular movie reel. (My personal hormone movie has been mostly a comedy, though it sometimes feels like an overwrought drama when I'm living it).

Hitting 40 - Enter Night Sweats!

After I turned forty, I began to get my first direct hints of what this journey was going to be like for me. I woke up hot and sweaty. My skin did weird things. My moods shifted around me like sand on a beach. The doctor says I am still premenopausal, but the writing is on the wall. The process has begun.

Honestly, it scares me. I remember feeling at the mercy of my hormones and the effects on my body when I was a teenager and again when I was expecting and nursing my children. I'm not looking forward to going through more of that. I don't like feeling out of control.

So, I wrote about it. That's what I do, as an author. I take the things that scare the heck out of me and spin them into stories. Art is cheaper than therapy.

Hot Flashes or Power Surges?

This book took a lighter turn. Sometimes we need to make light of the things that get under our skin to take away their power. So, when I woke up sweating, I wrote a woman who could project the heat from her hot flashes out of her body, giving her the ability to wield fire.  When my back itched all the time from the dryness of my skin, I wrote a woman who was transforming into a lizard creature. When I felt depressed, I wrote a woman who became so light she flew. And when I bemoaned the strange growth of hair in new locations, I wrote a woman who turned into a man!

Of course, there's more to my characters than just what happened to them and what they decided to do about them.

We're all Superheros

I'm a long time reader of comics and fan of superhero movies and television shows. As I developed the idea for what became Going Through theChange: A Menopausal Superhero Novel, I wanted to write a superhero story that women like me could identify with. That meant developing characters who were grown women with the problems and worries that grown women have: partners, children, family, careers, feelings of self worth, ageism, weight gain, health, and so on.

Each of my women is on a personal journey, one that just became complicated by some more unusual symptoms of menopause. Writing this series has been cathartic and, honestly, a great deal of fun. I hope my readers will find it so, too!

Samantha Bryant is a middle school Spanish teacher by day and a mom and novelist by night. That makes her a superhero all the time. She believes in love, magic, and unexplainable connections.

Samantha writes blogs, poems, essays, and novels. Mostly she writes about things that scare or worry her. It’s cheaper than therapy! Someday, she hopes to make her living solely as a writer. 

Learn more about Samantha at http://samanthabryant.com follow her on Twitter @mirymom1 and join her on Facebook.

Good luck with the rest of your blog tour Samantha!! Let us know where you're headed to next so we can join you there ;)

Returning and Reinvigorating

I haven't posted here in a very long while but I have a very good reason (I know... excuses, excuses)! I've been working on my latest novel, Deep Deceit, and it finally launched in March (same date as Mental Pause two years ago, International Women's Day). The past couple of months have been a flurry of launch activities to get the word out so poor Mental Pause has sort of taken a back seat.

I've been pondering what to do with this blog... forget about it or rejuvenate it. After long and careful thought, and seeing a pitch from an author whose debut novel, Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel, which is coming out soon, I decided I would bring it back alive but change the focus just a bit. I plan to use it to highlight other books about women going through 'the change' (both fiction and non-fiction).

So, I'm officially sending an invitation to:

1.  All avid readers and women (or partners/family/friends of women) who are entering and/or in the midst of 'Mental Pause', or have left it in the dust (as mercifully I have done for the most part) to send recommendations on books you'd like to see featured and, even better, submit your own reviews.

and

2. Any authors who have written on the subject who would like to do a guest post or simply submit a synopsis of your book (complete with links, cover image and head shot).

Email me at anne@globalwritingsolutions.com ... it's as simple as that! I don't have a huge following yet but I'm hoping that you'll be able to help me change that! If you'd simply like to leave a suggestion in the comments below, that's fine too! I'll take the suggestion, take a look and take it from there.

In the meantime,
Happy flashing!

If you’d like to receive my newsletter, book launch announcements or information on upcoming writing retreats, go ahead and sign up for my newsletter. When you sign up you’ll also receive a free copy of my ebook, 10 Steps to a Successful PR Campaign – a Do-it-Yourself Guide for Authors.

Turning 50!

I just celebrated my 50th birthday! Hard to believe... but my mom (fondly referred to as Mother Theresa or M.T.) always says, "You're not too old for the years you've been born." Here's what I did on my special day. There's nothing like a paddle on the lake with cool breezes flowing to ward off any hot flashes and keep the mental attitude on an upswing!

What did you do?

Maxine Rocks!

My main main character in Mental Pause, Abbie's, power surges literally drove her to drink! Have you ever felt like just getting the hell out of dodge, grabbing a couple of gal pals and hitting the town? That is, if you haven't been laying in pools of sweat, staring at the ceiling night after night, fighting insomnia and wishing someone would just knock you out. Ok, say on a good week... wine, good music and good friends (of the female persuasion who understand without having to explain) is the best escape.

Here's an excerpt from Mental Pause where Abbie and her friends are heading out for a wild night on the town...

“It’s been so long since I’ve been to a dance bar I’m not sure I remember how to act,” said Abbie uncertainly, shifting on the seat and trying to stretch her skirt further down towards her knees. She didn’t remember it being so short when she bought it. If there was anything remotely resembling a hem she would have considered letting it down.

“Stop fidgeting! You look incredible.” Joan playfully slapped Abbie’s hand away from her skirt and clinked her plastic cup against the one she held tightly in her hand. “Don’t worry, you’ll love it!” Joan had insisted they take some ‘roadies’ and had made a pitcher of cosmopolitans just before they walked out the door. A little pre-lubrication to kick start the party, she said.

“I’m so psyched I can’t stand it,” Rachel slung her arm over Joan’s neck. “Take good care of us now. We’re a little out of practice.”

Abbie rested her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes. She would have to slow down a bit on the drinking or she might not make it to the first stop. Joan launched into a diatribe of advice. 

“Now, the first place we’ll hit is more like a lounge. The dance bars don’t get going until much later. I know the bartender and she makes a mean kamikaze.”

“I don’t even know what that is but it sounds dangerous,” Rachel took another swig of her cosmo.

Abbie opened her eyes and stole a glance at the tattoo on the back of Joan’s neck. She had only just noticed it when they were getting ready earlier. She wondered why Joan hadn’t ‘unveiled’ it when she talked Abbie into getting hers. Abbie thought the angel wings on Joan’s ankle was the only tattoo she had. Joan was now shifted a bit sideways facing slightly towards Rachel so Abbie was able to study it without being obvious. It was the first time she had seen it in full as Joan usually wore her hair down. Tonight it was in a flattering upsweep fastened with a multicolored, randomly geometric, tortoise shell clip. 

Even as a fairly new tattoo fan, Abbie could appreciate that this one was a beautiful piece of art. It was a depiction of an angel, with wispy wings and soft edges in hues of blues and pinks with her eyes raised to the sky (or towards the top of Joan’s head). As Abbie studied the intricacies of the tattoo she realized that the sweet, ethereal angel had two sharp horns poking out of her curly golden hair and on closer inspection, she was gripping a squirming serpent in her right hand, from which long, red nails sprung.

Abbie gasped. Rachel and Joan had been in a boisterous conversation, planning the evening’s escapades and stopped and looked at her.

“What’s wrong Abs?” Rachel asked.

 “Uh, nothing… just sneezed.” She figured Joan probably had a dark side but she really didn’t want to know about it so she tore her eyes away from the disturbing image and downed her cosmo. She tried to stroke down the hairs that were standing on end on the back of her neck and ignored the unreasonable feeling of doom that enveloped her. 'It’s just hormones'.

Abbie should have listened to her intuition... Maybe she wouldn't have wound up on trial for murder ;)