'The average woman will live 30 years after menopause. You can have lots of fun in that time. This is our third act, the time that many women learn to ROAR! I'm now marinating in all the things I love most and writing about them.' After retiring from a distinguished career in education and health, Jay Courtney found life rather beige. 'I realised that I didn't know how to do this part of my life' she says. 'There was no route map to follow, only a looming 'Exit' sign, so I went on a quest to find a colour that suited me.' Courtney's métier transpired to blend travel and inspirational writing, combined with a talent for finding others whose experiences resonate. In Juicy Crones she fêtes the lives of women embracing their 'third act' with gusto. Written by a Telegraph travel-writing competition winner and former Women's Hour guest, Juicy Crones is a joyous celebration of post-menopausal women life travellers. 'Crones were revered as wise women, warriors, speakers of uncomfortable truths, carrying with them the wisdom of life' says Courtney. 'As for the 'juicy' part, this is me thumbing my nose at language often used of older women as 'dried-up', wrinkled, barren. Many older women I have met have been the very opposite: beautiful, vibrant, outrageously funny, full of self-knowledge, free-spirited. There is no better group to be part of. What we lack in collagen we make up for in wisdom!' Courtney's debut is a unique title with an infectious enthusiasm for living life to the full, that blends adventure with feminism, women's health with well-being, and autobiography with self-help. This is a book for the UK's 12 million 'crones' and anyone who shares their life, for women adventurers and for fans of Raynor Winn's The Salt Path, Caitlin Moran's More than a Woman and Helen Lewis' Difficult Women. And the first subtitle? 'Free for the Strangest Adventure' is a quotation from Virginia Woolf in To the Lighthouse. 'For me it represents the state of mind that enables a Crone to be juicy!' says Courtney. 'This is when the magic happens.' AUTHOR: Jay Courtney (www.juicycrones.org.uk) retired from a distinguished career in education and health to enter an unfamiliar world ? even the word 'retire' sounded deflating. She set out on a quest to find women having adventures: inspiring older women coming home to self; post-menopausal women evolving and emerging into their wisdom years; women who have found perspective and hope in their second spring; 'juicy crones' living with energy, excitement and a renewed sense of self. Courtney has interviewed many such women, hearing their stories, listening to their struggles and triumphs ? sharing together uncomfortable truths, often with riotous good humour. She has journeyed into becoming a juicy crone too ? writing this, her first book, joining her voice with twelve women, all adding to the growing canon of inspiring, wise women. Women who have, in the words of Virginia Woolf in To the Lighthouse, given themselves permission to be 'Free for the Strangest Adventures'.
