Elizabeth Buchan's book REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN is about
the destruction and ultimate resurrection of a single life. At the
start of the book, Rose Lloyd's life appears idyllic. Married to
Nathan for twenty-five years, she has concurrently raised a son and
a daughter, forged a career as a book critic and editor, and kept a
beautiful home. Life is comfortable, easy and lovingly predictable.
She feels blessed by the ease with which her days pass. Whether she
is tending her garden or dining out with colleagues, Rose is
grounded and at peace.

But then one day, forty-pushing-fifty Nathan comes home and
announces out of the blue that he wants out of their comfortable,
easy, predictable existence. He uses the oldest cliché in the
book: he has found love, or at least lust, with a younger woman.
And, ouch, the younger woman is a good friend of Rose's. As if this
devastation is not enough, a waterfall of catastrophic events
happens in quick succession, sending Rose over the edge. She loses
her job, a beloved pet dies, a child marries while in another
country and her mother becomes ill. Buchan hits every potential
nerve, leaving readers raw from the emotional barrage.

Rose sinks to the greatest depths of depression, drinking too much,
eating too little and sleeping too much. Buchan spends many pages
expertly plumbing the recesses of a devastated psyche and, for
anyone who has ever experienced such grand and vast loss, Rose's
self-questioning, self-hatred and self-abuse will be all too
familiar.

As low as Rose sinks, ultimately, REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN
is about resurrecting one's life from the unrecognizable heap of
self that is left after loss --- and resurrect she does. Buchan
never fails to write without great wit and Rose never loses sight
of the irony of life. She rises a newer, sleeker model, armed with
the knowledge that 1) she can carry on and 2) "it took so little to
destroy someone." Poised by book's end to rekindle an old passion,
Rose truly embodies the Spanish proverb "living well is the best
revenge."

Thoroughly British, smart and witty, REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED
WOMAN will have you crying and laughing as Rose roller-coasters
through the dissolution of her marriage and an inspirational
renewal.