A Midlife Holiday: Narrated by Neighbours star, Lisa Armytage

Written by Cary J Hansson

Narrated by Lisa Armytage

A wonderfully witty and brutally honest story about female friendship.

'Heart-warming, heart-breaking and hilarious.'

'Shirley Valentine meets Bridget Jones.'

Meet Helen. She worries that the walls are closing in. With her children grown and her selfish husband away again, she's full of regrets at not taking the exciting paths she dreamed about in her youth. So when the chance of a last-minute holiday to Cyprus with her two best friends is offered, she grabs it.

Meet Caro. A successful business woman. Single and childless, she's not in Cyprus for the glorious sunshine and crystal-blue waters. But the secret she yearns for, feels so shameful she can't bring herself to share it.

Meet Kay. Sandwiched between the needs of her autistic son and her elderly parents, all she wants to do is sleep in the sun, preferably all week.

As Caro's secret emerges, tensions between the women explode.

Friendship was easy when they were young, how can it be so hard now?

A Midlife Holiday is the life-affirming first tale in The Midlife Trilogy women's fiction series. Funny, emotional, compassionate and wise, Cary J Hansson shows us why middle-aged women are only just getting started!
Prepare to meet three new friends you'll feel you've known all your life!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hansson Publishing
• Release date: Jul 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669647584

Reviews for A Midlife Holiday

[Becky Purser · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thoroughly enjoyed this audibook; the narrator is very good. The characters were well written and engaging.

Each of the three women friends is having a midlife crisis, but their lives and their choices are unique to them which strains their friendship. As they work through their individual issues, they learn to support each other even when they don't agree with the other's choices. I would not have made the choices the characters made but through the book, I understood why they made those decisions and could accept them.

Although the characters are dealing with serious, life changing issues, the book still feels like a "light read." Although it could stand alone, I look forward to the sequels to see how the character's stories progress.

[Charlotte French · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Helen, Caro, and Kay have been friends for over three decades. At middle-age they've all found that life didn't exactly turn out how they'd envisioned it. Helen who was the fun loving risk taker, lives her life on the sidelines, forever buying milk, while her husband climbs mountains. Caro who was the quiet achiever, has a stressful if lucrative career but is childless and without the man she wanted. Kay is divorced, and run off her feet looking after her elderly parents, and her 22-year old son.

Then Caro persuades the others to come with her to Cyprus. And their holiday changes everything. Kay finds herself mediating between Helen and Caro, and in between she sleeps. Helen finds a passion for sailing with the help of a Greek, middle-aged hunk. And Caro? Caro is on a mission. She has a very specific reason for the visit to Cyprus. Both Caro's and Helen's decisions will test the friendship between these three.

This is a great debut novel, a good women's fiction beach read. There is lighthearted humor, but also questions of a deeper kind. If you are in your midlife, old enough to know that life doesn't turn out how we plan and imagine it in our youth. If you'd like to take a believable journey with three believable women for emotional connection, a sunny escape, and an entertaining holiday that slowly builds to a satisfying collision, I think you'll enjoy this novel.

All three women get to have their POV's but this was not so much Kay's story as Caro's and Helen's. And at least for me, Helen took center stage. It will be interesting to see what happens next in their lives. I look forward to Cary's upcoming novel, A Midlife Baby.

I listened to the audio. And Lisa Armytage did a brilliant job narrating. Thanks to Cary J Hansson publishing for a free copy. My review is honest and completely my own.

[Star Gater · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Thank you NetGalley and Hansson Publishing for accepting my request to read and review A Midlife Holiday.

Author: Cary J. Hansson
Published: 05/17/22
Genre: General Fiction (Adult) -- Humor -- Women's Fiction

Oh how I wanted to love this the moment I saw the cover. I waited to read this until I could devote 100% of myself to the story. This was just okay for me, and at times I saw blah blah blah as opposed to words on my screen.

The characters are 50ish, middle-aged and in different phases of their lives. The story centers around a group of friends who take a vacation without their kids and/or husbands. Each woman is in a different head space and the book chronicles their journeys.

I didn't relate to any of the women, and consequently didn't like any of them. This was another Charlie Brown teacher blah blah blah read for me.

None of the stories rang true and examples would spoil the book.

There is an audience for this story. I would gift this to someone turning 50 with an invite for a Women's Weekend, and a reminder the characters don't have to be emulated, the travel concept is the treat.

[RositaArmytage · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A Midlife Holiday is a delightful treat of a book about the friendship of three women from their late teens to their early fifties, in large part taking place on a holiday together in Cypress. The complicated friendship between the three women is the driving theme of the book, but it also deals with the joys and burdens of motherhood, the disappointments of marriage, and the ongoing search for joy and fun that can be harder and harder to find as we all get older.

Though the characters were ten years older than me (I’m on the eve of turning 40) so much of what they go through felt familiar – the intensity of long lasting friendships between women, the hurt close friends can and do inflict on one another, and the desire to escape it all on holiday. They three women reminded me of myself and my own two best friends, a friendship that also started in our teens. The romance was also a little bit spicy and very refreshingly, not at all cliched!

The audio narration also transported me into these women’s lives, families, relationships and heads (!), conveying all the laughter and joy, pain, disappointments, and anxieties, and bringing the characters to life. I listened to the book on holiday and it was the perfect holiday read – all the joy and indulgence of a holiday in cypress but plenty of emotional depth to keep me interested. So glad it is part of a trilogy!