Books With Characters in Their 40s

Book Summary

Lila’s family is complicated, her house is falling apart, and her career as a self-help writer is at a standstill because she’s developed writer’s block. She’s 42, divorced, has two willful daughters, and her elderly stepfather seems to have quietly moved in with her. Then her real father, a man she hasn’t seen since he left for Hollywood more than three decades ago, suddenly shows up on her doorstep.

His reappearance in her life after 35 years feels like the final straw. But she’ll learn that even when you think you can’t forgive someone, they might still have something to teach you about love and what it means to be family.

Book Summary

If 43-year-old Ted were to describe himself as an ice cream flavor, he’d be vanilla — sweet, inoffensive, and pleasantly predictable. As far as he’s concerned, the only thing remarkable about him is his luck in landing such a handsome and charismatic husband as Giles.

When Giles suddenly leaves Ted for another man, Ted is forced to reimagine the happy future he assumed was a given. While Giles is filling his social media with #newlove and adventure, Ted discovers that outside of Giles’s shadow, there might just be more to himself than he realized. He begins exploring his funnier, sassier, and less inhibited side and begins to feel ready for new friendships, and maybe even new romance. He may even have the courage to revisit a long-ago secret dream…

Book Summary

Although she’s only 26, Lucy is tired. Her job, roommates, and terrible dates are all exhausting. After yet another bad date ends in a big storm and she doesn’t have bus fare, Lucy takes shelter in a small shop. Inside the shop, she finds a wishing machine, which she uses on a request to skip to the “good part” of her life.

The next morning, Lucy wakes up next to a husband she’s never met, with a storybook perfect little boy and baby girl, and her dream job. When she looks in the mirror, she sees her now 40-something face. Has she really skipped ahead, or just forgotten a big chunk of her life?

Book Summary

Cricket’s life takes a huge turn at 42 when she confirms her husband has been having an affair. She’s not going to walk away from her marriage without making him pay. Soon, she has a lawyer, an investigator, and a plan!

Her new shop assistant, Ruby, has had a troubled past, but is also ready for a fresh start. In addition to pursuing her dreams in fashion, she becomes fast friends with Cricket and is ready to go all-in on helping her get a bit of revenge. 

Together, the unlikely duo gets themselves into some hilarious situations as amateur sleuths.

Book Summary

Sisters Eva (45) and Bitsy (48) grew up in Oxford, Mississippi surrounded by literary history and their mother’s stunning perennial gardens. Bitsy was the cheerleader and the homecoming queen who went on to marry a wealthy investment banker. Eva was the one always blamed when things went wrong – like the garden shed fire when she was eleven that changed everything!

As soon as she was old enough, Eva ran far away from Oxford – subverting expectations that she’d attend Ole Miss and instead moving to Arizona. She becomes a successful advertising executive and a yoga instructor, but at 45, she’s still alone.

When she receives a phone call from her father insisting that she return to Mississippi for her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, she really can’t afford the time away from work, but she also can’t say no to her dad.

Will reuniting with her sister after all these years finally give them a chance to make amends? She’s surprised to find that seeing Oxford through the eyes of an adult really does feel like going “home”.

Book Summary

Like us, the main character in The Love List,  Beatrice, loves a checklist and the satisfaction of marking items complete. When a new phase of her life begins after a divorce, she decides that a list is the best way forward. But it’s not a list of chores and tasks; it’s a love it…a list of things she wants to do based on the things she loves.

Visiting 10 national parks, getting a puppy, and taking a dream vacation all make the list. Since she needs time to relax and reset, renting a Hilton Head home for a beach vacation is the perfect place to start. When she arrives, Bea meets the home’s owner, Grant. Soon, he becomes her tour guide, friend, and then more than a friend. Can she fall in love again at 45?

Book Summary

Ruth Jefferson is a 44-year-old labor and delivery nurse with twenty years of experience at a Connecticut hospital. After being reassigned away from a patient, she learns that the parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child.

The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey the orders of her superiors based on the parent’s mandate, or does she intervene?

This story is told from three alternating points of view: Ruth, the nurse; Kennedy, her middle-aged attorney; and Turk, the newborn’s white supremacist father.

Book Summary

Toni is an almost-divorced 40-year-old mom of twins who hasn’t given up on her future.

She’s a promising inventor and budding entrepreneur. To make ends meet, she works in airport transportation services since her husband left the family to “find himself.”

One of Toni’s frequent passengers is elderly traveler Sylvia Eisenberg, who provides Toni with encouragement and sage advice each time they meet. When Toni meets Sylvia’s grandson, Ash, a striking venture capitalist, luck just might bend her way.

Toni gets the chance to pitch her game-changing idea on the TV show Innovation Nation, but she has an unexpected challenger. Her self-aggrandizing, not-quite-ex-husband has resurfaced. Will the past collapse her chance for a promising future?

Book Summary

The Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard are only 2.5 hours apart on the ferry, but they have different vibes and provide for very different lives for identical 40-year-old twin sisters who have been estranged for years. 

However, when a family crisis strikes, the women start to remember the importance of banding together and that their bond is stronger than the rivalry that separated them for too many years.

Book Summary

Three years ago, Amy’s husband left on a business trip and just decided not to come back. Forced into single parenthood and with no child support, she did what she had to do – cutting back expenses and taking a job as a school librarian. Now, her husband has shown back up out of the blue, wanting to reconnect with his teenagers. Amy is reluctant to let him have them over the summer, but she finally gives in.

With her newfound freedom, Amy decides to escape rural Pennsylvania to attend a librarian conference in NYC. Overworked and underappreciated, Amy describes herself simply as “a 40-year-old mom-shaped-librarian.” But her old friend Talia, a fashion magazine editor in the city, wants to help her see herself in a new light. A makeover, a few blind dates, and a trending hashtag later, Amy gets a glimpse of what her life could have been if she had chosen different priorities.

Just as Amy is struggling with whether to stay in this exciting new chapter of her life or return to the life she left behind, a crisis brings her two worlds crashing together.

Book Summary

At the age of 48, Anna is an empty nester who finds herself wondering who she really is. She separated from her husband, her daughter is grown, and her mother, the only parent she’s ever known, has passed away.

While sifting through her mother’s belongings, Anna finds a clue about the father she never knew. In a diary he kept as a student, she learns of his involvement in the radical politics of 1970s London, and she discovers that he eventually became the leader (some would say dictator) of a small (fictional) nation in West Africa of Bamana.

Eager to discover more about her family roots, Anna decides to track down her father. Having spent her life being viewed as Black back home in England, she is surprised to be viewed as white by the Bamanians. This is just the first of many surprises for Anna as she embarks on her moving journey of self-discovery.

Book Summary

Popular podcaster Alix Summers and an unassuming woman called Josie Fair don’t know each other, but discover that they are both celebrating their 45th birthdays at a local pub. When they bump into each other again outside Alix’s children’s school, Josie pitches an idea for the podcast.

While Alix finds something about Josie unsettling, her complicated life is ideal for the podcast and Alix doesn’t want to miss out on the story. But, before she knows it, Josie is fully entangled in her life. But then, Josie disappears as quickly as she arrived on Alix’s birthday. Unfortunately, she left a terrible legacy behind and Alix is now the subject of her own true crime podcast.

Book Summary

This book starts in 2005 on Jolene’s 41st birthday. She’s been married for 12 years and a member of the National Guard for even longer as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. When she’s sent to Iraq, her husband, who doesn’t understand her dedication to her career and country, tells her he no longer loves her.

She’s heartbroken when she arrives in Iraq but thankfully has her best friend Tami by her side. The two encounter situations just as heartbreaking during their deployment. After reading about Jolene and Tami’s time deployed, some readers say they have a greater appreciation for our modern-day troops.

Book Summary

At 47 years old, Lisa is a high-flying TV exec, twice-divorced, and a mother of two. Her days are filled with navigating life with teenagers, organizing PTA events, and supporting her best friend through breast cancer treatments.

Her plate was already full enough without the new handsome man at work. So why does she feel overheated every time she sees him? Surely it’s just another annoying perimenopause symptom. They seem to clash every time they encounter each other, that is until they end up in one seriously ill-advised sexy situation after another.

Book Summary

Edie and Mac Swan lead a picture-perfect life. The high school sweethearts have two great kids, good careers (she’s an interior designer and he’s a pediatrician), and a historic home on a tree-lined street in Mobile, Alabama.

They are living the good life, until Mac’s 40th birthday, when a young woman walks into his office and changes everything. 

Nineteen years ago, while they were in college, Mac and Edie spent a summer apart. Now, because of that summer, everything is being called into question – their roles as parents, their reputations in the community, and the foundation of their marriage. In order to chart a new course for the future, they’ll be forced to face the choices they made long ago.

Book Summary

Just before her 40th birthday, successful attorney Amelia Montgomery has quite a bad day at work. First, she’s fired for refusing to compromise her morals in a prominent legal case. Then, upon hearing the news, one of the partners makes yet another misogynistic comment. Instead of letting it go, she very uncharacteristically punches him right in the nose. 

Soon after, at her birthday party, she discovers how many people she’s alienated over the years on the way to the top of her career. It’s so bad that only ONE person shows up, John, a new associate from her ex-firm. After much champagne and a chat with John, Amelia decides it’s time to make amends. She makes a list of those she’s wronged and sets out to apologize to them one at a time, which doesn’t always go so well.

Book Summary

Even a therapist needs someone to talk to! Lori Gottlieb is a forty-something Los Angeles therapist who helps patients through a myriad of life’s challenges, but when a crisis causes her world to come crashing down, she seeks the help of a therapist of her own.

In this very candid and personal memoir, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both a clinician and a patient. She breaks down many of the stigmas about mental health, sheds light on the benefits of therapy, and paints a vivid and funny portrait of what it means to be human.

Book Summary

When family tragedy strikes, Uncle Patrick needs to take custody of his niece and nephew for the summer. Forty-three-year-old GUP (Gay Uncle Patrick) loves the kids, but he’s used to them going home after a weekend.

Once a famous sitcom star, Patrick’s career is stalled. His Palm Springs lifestyle of cocktails at brunch isn’t exactly ideal for a 6 and 9-year-old. He quickly realizes that having the kids longer than a few days means he needs to be more of a parent figure. But in order to help the kids, Patrick will also have to figure out how to help himself. This means facing some difficult memories from his past and deciding what he wants for his future.

Book Summary

This novel tells the intertwined tale of three moms whose children attend the same primary school in suburban Sydney.

Forty-year-old Madeline is funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is beautiful, but the illusion of perfection comes at a price. Single mom Jane is new to town and has a mysterious past. She’s so young that other moms mistake her for a nanny.

The three women at the heart of this story are very different, but a schoolyard scandal threatens to expose each of their lies.

Book Summary

Paige was widowed two years ago and still isn’t quite back to “normal.” Now, her trusted boss of 22 years is also gone, and his son has taken over. And he’s radically changing everything at the advertising firm, including an announcement that he’s getting rid of 2 employees at the end of the summer.

Paige is trying to hold on to her job and sanity for her teenage son’s sake, but her formerly perfect house and yard are both a mess. 

As she tries to escape her new work problems on her back porch over a glass of wine, her nosy neighbor lectures her about the dandelions in her yard. In frustration, she pours another glass of wine and begins yanking out the dandelions one by one…and it feels GOOD. Before long, she was looking for a shovel for more yard therapy. 

Paige creates a bigger and bigger hole in her yard, much to the chagrin of her fancy suburban neighbors. But it’s helping her cope with the ongoing craziness at work and her lingering grief. Despite her inexperience in gardening and pushy neighbors, she finally begins to feel fully alive again.

Book Summary

As a botanist, forty-year-old May prefers spending time with plants over people. She’s a gardener for a local university and likes to observe the lives of others while minimizing her interactions with them. However, in her younger years, she had a group of four close friends.

While it’s not feasible to get the group back together in one place, May sets out to reconnect with them one by one during an unexpected hiatus from work. Part tale of self-discovery and part story of female friendship, this book also explores themes of life’s offline simplicities vs. images of perfection online. 

Book Summary

Lady Augusta (Gus) is bored by society life and tired of being dismissed as an “old maid” at 42. Her twin sister Julia is mourning her recently deceased fiancé and needs a distraction.

When they hear that a friend’s goddaughter needs to be rescued from her violent husband, they jump into action and head to the countryside. On the way to the estate, their carriage is attacked and Gus accidentally shoots the ruffian in the scuffle. The twins are surprised to realize that the troublemaker is a man from their past, Lord Evan Belford, who was exiled to Australia twenty years earlier.

The sisters soon find themselves on a dangerous adventure that requires clever improvisation and a little help from the rather charming Lord Evan.

Book Summary

When Olga, 40, and her 43-year-old older brother, Prieto, were just teenagers, their mother abandoned them to fight for a political cause. Twenty-seven years later, the siblings have both made names for themselves in their hometown of Brooklyn. Olga is a wedding planner for Manhattan’s chic 1%-ers, and Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood.

Despite the prestige of their public personas, things are far less perfect behind closed doors. Olga spends her days orchestrating the love stories of the elite, but she’s still looking for love of her own, Prieto has secrets that could impact his political career, and both are still grappling with their troubled childhoods.

Set in New York City in 2017 – the year that Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico – this story examines political corruption and complex family relationships. It paints a vivid history of Puerto Rico set against the notion of the American dream, and it asks what it really means to weather a storm.

Book Summary

When Annie’s 20+ year marriage ends suddenly, leaving her single for the first time in her adult life at age 44, she’s not sure how to start over. Her kids are grown, and there’s nothing keeping her in the city where she and her ex-husband were successful restaurateurs. So, she answers an ad for a temporary position as a winter caretaker of a historic home in the small English seaside community of Willow Bay. This decision turns out to be even more impactful than she expected.

Annie is immediately charmed by the house, and the quirky but friendly villagers welcome her with open arms. All except the grumpy nephew of the home’s owner, who sees her as a roadblock to his plans. But as fall turns to winter, Annie begins to formulate her own plan for the next season of her life. 

Book Summary

Best friends Ash and Edi became close in childhood, and forty years later they are facing an impossible season of life. Ash is getting divorced at 45 and she is falling apart. This makes it even harder to handle the reality that Edi is facing her final days. She is dying of ovarian cancer and moving into a nearby hospice facility.

Ash is doing everything she can to take care of Edi and her young children, and does her best to bring them joy and humor however she can. But her brave face hasn’t stopped the rest of her problems.

Book Summary

Forty-something midwestern housewife Gina has two children and a happy marriage. Everything changes when her husband is in a car accident that reveals his horrific secret – he’s a serial killer.

Gina is forced to reinvent herself as Gwen, and with her ex in prison, she’s starting over in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. While internet stalkers still think Gina had something to do with her husband’s crimes, she hopes the rural lake town will bring them peace.

Then, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. But now she knows how to fight evil, and she won’t stop until her kids are safe.

Book Summary

Class Mom is a light and entertaining novel about the life of a 40-something mom in a large suburb southwest of Kansas City. She also has two daughters in college, as well as a son in kindergarten.

If you’ve ever done a little eye-rolling when dealing with other parents at your child’s school, this is the book for you. Former rockstar groupie Jen is bamboozled into being the class mom for her daughter’s kindergarten class. Her emails recruiting other parent volunteers are full of the things you wish you could say, but hopefully wouldn’t.

Book Summary

Susan Green thrives on order, routine, and predictability. Even her romance is scheduled with a regimented weekly relationship that fulfills her physical and cultural needs without emotions or strings.

Her ability to control every aspect of her life is lost when she finds out she is pregnant in her mid-40s. Through this big moment, combined with her mother’s passing, Susan has to learn how to live and love, even in circumstances she can’t direct.