By Nancy Thayer

1. By Nancy Thayer

2. Alice Murray Alice is very vain and always worried about her looks, her clothes but Especially her figure. All her life she had been attractive until it became some amount of work. After fifty she got tired of exercising, dieting, coloring her grey hair, and taking 20 minutes each day to do her makeup. Now that she is sixty-two, she compared herself from going from a bright, powerful tiger, to a grey, wrinkly sheep. Alice had married Mack and together they had a son, Alan. All her life she worked in Boston at TransWorld which now merged with another company to become TransContinent. She was perfect at her job because she was intelligent, ambitious, and controlling in a good way. After the merge, Alice’s job position changed somewhat making her regular work extremely different. Alice did not adapt well to the change and was later given early retirement. For Alice to stay at her house everyday, not in her office where she Considered herself at home was almost impossible. She couldn’t accept the fact that someone else was in her office, in her chair and on her computer. She was depressed for quite some time, before getting involved with the HFC. Alice eventually got over her jealousy for the woman who took over job and moved on with her life. She is now dating Gideon Banks since her divorce with Mack.

3. Shirley Gold Shirley Gold is a 60 year masseuse who enjoys helping people heal and even though she is exhausted from her work, she can’t afford to quit. Shirley was married to her husband Jimmy, who recently died and she is now dating Justin Quale. Shirley has long vibrant red hair that curls past her shoulders, large blue eyes, and is always wearing a lot of jewellery. She is a vegetarian leaving her naturally slender, and she has stayed away from cigarettes and boozes for over 20 years, keeping herself healthy. Even though Shirley sounds like her life is perfectly under control, there are nights when she longs for her husband Jimmy, and wishes she could hit up the bars, to try to forget about her depressed feelings. Now that she has become part of “The Hot Flash Club” most of her days are spent with her friends Marilyn, Faye and Alice, since she has no children of her own. Her main goal throughout the novel is to get a retreat underway. She has fanaticised over having a “Golden Moments” retreat where her clients can come, relax and leave feeling refreshed. She is taking business classes in the evenings trying to up her knowledge about business and of course her friends are there supporting her and her dream to have her retreat.

4. Jennifer D’Annucio • Jennifer has long black silky locks that she pins back with barrettes. Her skin that was being massages was as smooth as cream with firm flesh beneath it. Jennifer is a client of Shirley, only because Shirley is wondering if Jennifer is dating Lars. Jennifer absolutely loves baking and enjoys making her home welcoming. She is very caring, honest, and grateful for everything in her life and gives off good energy. Once she realized she was becoming a home wrecker, she was upset, and decided to become responsible for her actions. She then became involved with Alan, Alice’s son and allowed Lars to be a good father and a perfect husband. Jennifer was always laid back until things between her and Lars had to end things. Then she became stresses, regretful and embarrassed. Once things smoothed over and she started seeing Alan, she returned to her normal loving self.

7. Fionnula Flanagan who stared in “Youngblood” is the perfect actress to act for “Alice” if there were to be a “Hot Flash Club” movie. Fionnula is an older lady, who is very flirty and interest in younger men. Alice is also an older lady who is currently dating a man 8 years younger than her. Fionnula Flanagan as Alice

8. Betty White as Shirley Betty White would be a good actress to play Shirley because she stared in a series where she lived her life with four widowed or divorced women in their "golden years”. White was also a man- hungry woman. That scenario is the same as Shirley's life although the four don’t live together, they are all experiencing their golden years together. Betty also won an emmy for outstanding comedy and Shirley is the most comical of all four women.

9. Beatrice Arthur as Faye Beatrice, who played Dorothy in “The Golden Girls” was a comforting, reliable figure, to her former husband who had died. Faye in The Hot Flash Club was also a reliable, and comforting figure for her daughter Laura during her times of need. Faye’s husband had also died so these two characters could easily be compared.

10. Estelle Getty as Marilyn Getty, who played in “The Golden Girls” was heavily made up in thick glasses and was known as a lovable, saucy actress who played the role of a feisty mother. Marilyn, from “The Hot Flash Club” is a paleontologist who also wore big glasses before her make over and was a lovable mother to her son.

11. Writing Style-Adjectives/ Description • (1) “Saturday morning Shirley drove to Jennifer D’Annucio’s home on a tree-lined street in an idyllic neighbourhood of Stoneham, all single-family homes, with picket fences and birdhouses and tree houses and trikes and bikes in the driveway.” (p.200) • (2) “Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Marilyn was startled into speechlessness. Her new glossy, coppery hair fell about her face in a shaggy jumble ending below her ears. Bangs covered up the wrinkles on her forehead. Her eyes looked bigger, her cheekbones more pronounced.” (p.114) • (3) “The window was draped with curtains in rich floral pinks and greens; Shirley could imagine Jennifer closing them against the bitter winter darks, blushing the room with summer. A drop leaf walnut table, much polished, stood in front of the window, a vase of spring flowers on it, and just a few steps away was the kitchen, old-fashioned, the appliances nearly antediluvian , but everything shinning clean. And on the counter sat the pies with their beautiful golden crust.” (p.202)

12. (4) “At the curb, Marilyn waited for the light to change. Next to her stood a young woman with her skin rare like silk, a lacy top ending just below her breasts, her trousers hanging from her hipbones, her sleek belly with its navel ring exposed.” (p.319) • (5) “He’s smart, clever, industrious, but I’m not sure how ambitious he is.” (p.119) http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1530217/Kelsie_TV

13. Plot: • When Faye was working at the Eastbrook's house, she was there only working on her HFC assignment. Little did she know that finding out about Dora, their daughter they kept secret could change her life and also accomplish her HFC task. • If Faye had not worked extra hours late at night waiting for the perfect time to enter into Dora’s room, she would never have found out if Lila was truly in love with Teddy. Therefore, Teddy and Lila’s wedding would have been the big, fancy, important day, without Dora as they had planned. Instead, Lila wanted her sister at the wedding because she loved her sister, and thought she was beautiful. Since Dora never left her room, for sake of being seen, they had the wedding in Dora’s room, with only the people Teddy and Lila loved and respected the most. • Also, Faye became great friends with Dora as they shared a passion for art. Faye’s life had been a mess ever since her husbands death and she had stopped painting because she only did it for Jack. She felt that she had lost her touch and she became depressed. When she began secretly painting again with Dora her life completely turned around for the better. She then had other important tasks on her mind that she needed to accomplish now that she was back to her normal self. She needed to help her daughter Laura with her new daughter and also with her marriage issues. • If Faye hadn’t returned to her normal self, Laura’s relationship with Lars could have been over for good. Faye guided her daughter through her issues and took care of baby Megan when Laura needed a break. Faye also sent Laura and Lars on a romantic 3 day get away, which saved their marriage.

14. Theme: • Nancy Thayer published her book “The Hot Flash Club” in 2003. Her title choice is perfect for the story line because all four women involved are going through a time in their lives when they’re experiencing hot flashes. None of the women knew each other until they met at a party where they became close friends. They each have their own life problems dealing with their husbands, children, grand children and jobs. The women are assigned a task in which they try to help out another member of their “Hot Flash Club” with their life issue. Shirley, Alice, Marilyn and Faye meet every so often to discuss their progress within their club. During their meetings they also talk about their sagging body parts, their weight that just wont go away, and the aches and pains they encountering each day as they grow older. Meanwhile, all four ladies are enjoying huge pieces of chocolate cake and giggling about how they’re going to need to go shopping for control-top pantyhose while they sit by the wide open windows in the middle of the winter.

15. Conflict: Is Lars really cheating on Laura? Laura who is Faye’s daughter recently got married to Lars who is a business man trying to climb the corporal ladder. Lars and Laura just had a baby girl named Megan, but they are finding out she is more work than they expected. Megan cries from the time she wakes up in the morning until the time she goes to bed and for many hours during the night. Lars and Laura are not enjoying their marriage like they envisioned and it’s causing issues in their relationship. Laura is also experiencing post partum depression adding more stress to the situation. Lars began spending late hours at the “office” when really he was visiting a woman named Jennifer D’Annucio. Jennifer is the ideal wife, with perfect food, a perfectly clean house and an awesome personality. To try to figure out if Lars is having an affair, the HFC sends Shirley, the masseuse to Jennifer’s house saying she won free massages, because someone entered her name at the mall. Automatically Jennifer assumes that her new friends ‘Lars’ entered her name. It’s Shirley’s HFC assignment to find out if Lars is really cheating on Laura.

16. At the very first free session for Jennifer, Shirley see’s roses on her kitchen table. While Jennifer goes to the bathroom to change, Shirley looks for a card in the flowers. The card is only initialled with a ‘L’. Not completely convinced, Shirley asks who the flowers are from. Jennifer simply replied, “from a friend.” The second session is where Shirley hits the jack pot. Jennifer actually says Lars’s name when talking about her ‘friend’. She also mentions that Lars is married, has a baby girl and works at the building where her supposedly spends his late hours. It’s set in stone, Lars is seeing Jennifer. When the HFC meets the following Monday after Shirley’s discovery, Faye is not at all shocked but has not idea how to tell her daughter Laura. • To resolve the issue, Faye decides to bring Megan along to a HFC meeting knowing that Jennifer will also be in attendance. Once Jennifer see’s baby Megan and realizes that it’s Lars’s daughters she calls herself a home wrecker and decides to cut it off with Lars. Faye then chose to send Laura and Lars on a 3 day romantic get away to reconcile their marriage, while she looks after baby Megan.