‘Menopause thriller’ to start a new chapter in publishing

‘All editors and publishers should be looking for novels that embrace and celebrate this stage of women’s lives’

ONE of Britain’s biggest publishers is to release a “menopause thriller”, as it says the genre is needed to reflect women’s experiences.

Harpercollins said it is “actively looking for fiction that will change the conversation surrounding menopause” and will publish The Change by Kirsten Miller in two months’ time.

It comes after a number of female writers complained that it was harder to get stories about the lives of middleaged and post-menopausal characters into print than those featuring “edgy”, bright young women – despite older women making up a significant proportion of the readership.

Davina Mccall tackled the subject in her recent Channel 4 show Sex, Mind and the Menopause, while Borgen, the Netflix drama set in the Danish parliament, will feature its protagonist Birgitte Nyborg battling with menopausal symptoms in the new series.

Publishers say they are trying to widen their range of stories featuring older women to cater to a growing number of middle-aged female readers.

A Yougov survey found that 27 per cent of UK women read every day, compared with 13 per cent of men. While research by The Bookseller showed women aged 45 and over are the dominant consumer group for e-books, reading 37 per cent of e-books overall and 43 per cent of fiction.

Manpreet Grewal, publishing director at Harpercollins, said: “All editors and publishers should be looking for novels that … embrace and celebrate this stage of women’s lives, and portray peri-menopausal and menopausal women as smart, funny, powerful characters who are liberated, walk tall and fight back. That’s certainly what we’re searching for.”

Clare Hey, publishing director, fiction, at Simon and Schuster UK, said: “We’re proud to publish older female authors writing for and about women of their own age in a positive way, including Fanny Blake, Milly Johnson and Santa Montefiore.”

Harriet Evans, whose latest novel The Beloved Girls was picked by Richard and Judy’s Book Club, said: “Women aged 45 and over are propping up the book industry, buying all sorts of books on all sorts of subjects and publishers should stop taking them for granted.”