Sue Hepworth Libri

'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.

Frances has been married to Sol since the beginning of time. He is eccentric and difficult to live with, but she finds him endearing and very funny, even while wanting to strangle him with his own jogging bottoms. Now, something threatens to split them apart. Frances wants one thing and Sol wants another, and there is no way to compromise. But I Told You Last Year That I Loved You is a portrait of a mature marriage at a crossroads ? intimate, funny, tender and honest. ?clever, funny, subtle, wry, sad and uplifting all at once?Sue Hepworth writes thoughtfully and insightfully, and with such tenderness and humour? Judith Murray, literary agent