A collection of essays in which Nora Ephron shares her thoughts on middle-age and being a woman.

Susannah Nelson is returning to her hometown of Colville, Washington, to live with her mother, a recent widow who is having difficulties living alone. Returning to her parents' house, her childhood girlfriends, and the garden she always loved, Susannah begins to regret some decisions she made in the past.

Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the star of the popular food blog, Hungry with Hollis, and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, Matthew leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper. When Hollis hears...

After suffering personal calamities in New York, Mary Ann Singleton moves back to San Francisco after being gone for twenty years and begins to slowly rebuild her life, only to confront fresh terrors when her past comes back to haunt her.

Dorothea Benton Frank once again takes us deep into the heart of the magical Lowcountry where three amazing middle aged women are bonded by another amazing woman's death. Through their shared loss they forge a deep friendship, asking critical questions. Who was their friend and what did her life mean? Are they living the lives they imagined for themselves? Will they ever be able to afford to retire? How will they maximize their happiness? Security?...

"Gabby and Elliott have been happily married for eighteen years. They have two teenaged daughters; they have built a life together. So why does forty-three-year-old Gabby feel like she has only three more minutes left of youth? Why do her friends so desperately try to hang on to their attractiveness? And why does she ever even look at the handsome guy--ten years younger--at the other end of the bar one night? Gabby is the last person to have an affair--a...

Four women come together at a tumultuous time in their lives, forging an unbreakable bond that will leave them all forever changed. Celebrity cooking show host Marni McGuire has seen it all. She's been married--twice--and widowed and divorced. Now in her midfifties, she's single. Happily so. She just needs to convince her pregnant daughter, Bella, of this fact. And maybe convince herself, too. Especially after Marni's efforts to humor her determined...

"Thursday morning. One hundred pounds overweight, no man in sight, and rounding the bend to 57 years old—a full-blown catastrophe.” What happens when you realize you’ve had the career of your dreams, but you don’t have the life of your dreams? This was the stark reality facing Sheri Salata when she left her twenty-year stint at The Oprah Winfrey Show, Harpo Studios and the OWN network. She had dedicated decades to her dream job, and loved...