'Women reach fifty and think they're on the verge of liberation and excitement, and their broken-down men just want to stay home and fart. Or in my case, go and live in a cabin in the Rockies and fart.' Sally Howe plans to spend her husband-free year trying her hand at becoming a wildly successful author. But she's beset by distractions - the first being a queue of local lotharios, led by young Billy Bathgate, village postmaster with a tartan trouser habit and an obsession with drain rods. Warm, wise and funny, Plotting for Beginners offers a wry evaluation of long-haul marriages, plus a lesson on how to hit the menopause running and seize your freedom when the family has gone.

Sue Hepworth had a blissfully happy childhood, and this rather hampered her writing career. But fate came up trumps later in life when she lost all her possessions in a fire and immediately afterwards was diagnosed with breast cancer. That's when she became a writer. Before that, she worked as a research psychologist, a social researcher, a full time mother and various combinations of these. Sue has been a frequent contributor to The Times. She lives in the Peak District with her husband in an empty nest and is addicted to sweet peas and romantic comedies. She dreams of living in Venice, but her husband is a keen cyclist and doesn't like to get his bike wet. Jane Linfoot was brought up in North Yorkshire and on Teesside and spent much of her youth trying to dodge the east winds blowing off the North Sea. She trained as an architect in Sheffield and afterwards worked with a self-build cooperative, constructing solar houses, and on the development of architectural computer systems. She then spent seven years in rural France, where she worked as an architect, had children, moved thousands of hay bales and pruned a lot of vines. Jane now lives in a sheltered spot up a mountain road in the Peak District with her children and assorted animals. She enjoys slide shows and VW beetle cabriolets. She also plays around with houses and writes. more