For our very first author interview, we chatted with bestselling author, Jane Costello, about her new book, Forty Love. She’s done a few of these rom-coms so far, and what makes them great for our audience is that she speaks to our audience. Authentically! What’s at the heart of her books, and this conversation, is Jane’s lived perspective on midlife motherhood: the empty-nesting anxiety, the possibility of reinvention and new love, and the closing encouragement for women to tell their own stories. Her warmth is a big part of why this works time and again.
I was lucky to have a few uninterrupted hours to read her book while on a train in Italy. Since I told the family it was for work, they let me read in peace (mostly). And luckily the book was a quick, easy read in all the good ways, since my 50+ brain often dismisses books early on if they don’t catch me from the start. Well this one did! It won’t be the only Jane Costello book I’ll be reading, whether while traveling or not. Add Forty Love to your shopping cart, as well as these other best-selling favorites.
5 Best books for Midlife Moms by Jane Costello:
Forty Love: Empty nesting while re-meeting your first love after becoming an early in life widow? Yes, it’s all in here and it’s pretty sexy (and fun).
It’s Getting Hot in Here: A Novel: A high-powered TV executive and twice-divorced mother of two is navigating life with an opinionated teenager and a pet-obsessed grade-schooler…wow.
Time of Our Lives: How much can go wrong..or right…for one woman in 8 days?
The Wish List: Yes, she’s turning 30. No, life isn’t what she had planned. Some good sh*t happens just in time.
All the Single Ladies: Lots of friend plotting to keep the guy..but maybe he’s not even the right guy?
Q&A with Best Selling Author Jane Costello:
Jenny Altman: I hear you’re just back from vacation. Where did you go?
Jane Costello: I went to Spain to La Manga, the place that’s in the book actually. Now I normally go once a year with my with my tennis club, but I didn’t go this year. So I took my 21-year-old son, who’s just started get getting into tennis, and my 13-year-old. So it was so much fun, but unbelievably hot. But it was great.
Jenny: This is my first book author interview!
Jane: Is it really? My goodness. Well I’m honored I hope it goes well.
Jenny: It’s going well. And the only reason I really wanted to do it is that I felt like there is not enough being spoken about in the midlife mom space. So when I heard about your book and read the book jacket, and then of course read the book, I was like, YOU GET US. I was folding back pages to talk about, and I was like, there are too many! So first of all, tell us, how do you speak such great midlife mom?
Jane: Because I am living it. I am completely living it myself! You know, I’ve got three sons- the eldest is 21, then I’ve got two teenagers and I am going through everything that well we all are really as Generation X. I’m wondering how how this has happened because in my head I’m still only- god 29 tops you know- I always thought people of this age would be different somehow but you’re not! You get to this age and just realize you are exactly the same person just with a you know few more responsibilities now and perimenopause and all that kind of fun stuff- so yeah. I’m living it!
Jenny: That is so true! One thing that really spoke to me in the book was how you spoke about empty nesting. Now it’s not you, at least not yet. How did you capture that so well in the book? Because so many moms we know are going through it or are just about to this year.
Jane: Well actually, it was slightly cathartic this book because my 17-year-old, who is about to turn eighteen finished his school and decided- or told me/has been telling me ever since he was a really little boy- I’m going traveling, that’s what I’m doing! And then of course this all approached and it turns out yes- he was going to do that. Obviously on the one hand, you’re kind of like I want this for you, you know, go have a wonderful time. But equally, I was slightly obsessive on the old find my iPhone! He actually was only going for six weeks, but it was his first big adventure. He went to Sri Lanka, he went to India, he went to Bali. Obviously, this sort of felt like a big thing at his age, but he made it home in one piece!
Jenny: And how much how much crying was there while he was away?
Jane: There was all this anxiety. It feels like five minutes since you were holding their hand and taking them to their first day at school- so yeah there was that. But in terms of the actual proper empty nesting, you know, when they go and the house is completely empty, I have yet to experience that, and it is okay. And it is it’s a double edged sword because obviously it is sort of time for yourself and a chance for rediscovery and that kind of thing, but of course it’s a huge change and you just sort of love having them around really. So yeah, it was something I enjoyed writing about and felt certainly that it was something I could easily tap into.
Jenny: It’s such a rite of passage that I think we need to do more of. You captured it perfectly. The nervousness, the excitedness, the how many tracking apps do we all need? It was perfect.
Another topic that you captured so perfectly for midlife moms everywhere is having sex again beyond your original partner. Now in the book, of course, I won’t give away what happened to her partner, but for so many women that are quietly quitting their marriages or moving on, the thought of having sex again with another partner is just mind blowing. How did you capture that moment?
Jane: In terms of this particular character, I will give it away because I had this from the beginning of the of the book, she’s actually quite a young widow, really. She’s in her late forties, but really the love of her life died several years earlier, and this is the father of her daughter. I think that she is so reluctant to ever sort of open herself up to the idea of another man because she remains very much in love with the man she can no longer have. She doesn’t want to move on. Why would she want to? It feels like a huge disloyalty. I think she says at one point she feels like it would be like having an affair!
Thanks to the pressure of her family, who were all sort of saying, come on, it’s you know, it’s time, she sort of reconciles herself with the idea of having a man friend, which is somebody who she has almost this platonic relationship with. And then she ends up bumping into this old flame of hers.
The story is ultimately about a woman who joins a tennis club (she’s lived next to a tennis club for much of her life but has not wanted to play for the simple reason that she’d had a sort of terrible experience as a teenager) and she’s sort of dragged into playing for a women’s tennis team. As part of this she sort of bumps into an old flame and it unquestionably rekindles all kinds of feelings that she really thought she’d seen the back of.
Jenny: So how did you get it to be so sexy while still feeling very authentic?
Jane: Yeah, I mean it’s not explicit explicit. I wouldn’t say it’s romantic, but I wanted to capture the fun of falling in love, actually, which is describing all the the physical feelings as well as, you know, the emotional attraction that you you feel. The sexiness comes down to capturing every detail of what that feels like and the small details.
Jenny: Is this based on your real life?
Jane: It was inspired by the fact that I discovered tennis in midlife, but I should say that for the for the very raunchy scene that takes place in a tennis equipment shed, that is not based on real life at all. It’s all fiction.
Jenny: It was still a great scene. And what was great is that I didn’t feel like I had to cover the book! But it was so enjoyable at the same time.
Jane: Good. That’s exactly the exactly the response I wanted!
Jenny: I have one more question that I think a lot of Midlife Moms would want to know. If a mom our age felt like she had a story to tell-
as an author- would you encourage somebody to write it down? And to do what with the that story? Cause a lot of midlife moms have these great stories.
Jane: Well this is it, you know, we we get to this age and most of us have done a lot of living, really. We’ve experienced things, we know things. There’s a line in the book that says, you know, my teenage daughter thinks she knows everything, but you reach my age and realize you know nothing. But we have been through things, we know people who’ve been through things, we’ve dealt with crises, and we’ve moved on and all that kind of stuff! And I really do feel that in life experience is- you know- at the heart of good writing. It’s being able to put your spin and your take on on events!
I would absolutely encourage anybody who is interested in starting to write at this age to absolutely give it a go. The great thing about being an author (I mean, obviously, it’s a very competitive environment if you want to get published and all that kind of stuff) is that there is no age limit. There is no ageism that exists in publishing. There are several best-selling authors I can think of in the last few years who’ve been in their 70’s+ when they had their debut novel published!
Jenny: So Midlife Moms- write it down.
Jane: Yeah, write it down! And I know it’s hard because life gets in the way. I mean, believe me, I know that we’re at that age where we’re juggling everything, but it is important to carve out some time for yourself. That’s the message of all of my books, to be honest, is that we have these enormous to do lists and we are always at the bottom of it. Put yourself on it!
Jenny: So we’re not the only one with the to do list?
Jane: God no. No. My to-do list- I never reach the bottom of my to-do list. If I ever do, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.
Jenny: Never. It’s the infinite to-do list that I think every mom has.
I just want to say that I have worked on many websites- like you I’m a writer- and I launched this site because so many women DM me or privately text me with stories that they want to share. Sometimes they want to attach their names and sometimes they want it to be anonymous, but they have this desperate urge to tell something- whether it’s a big overarching story or just one moment in motherhood. I always say just send it in! I think it’s really helpful for moms and very cathartic to share their stories. And whether it’s to get it off their chest or to teach other moms who haven’t been there yet how it was for them. So that’s one of my favorite things about having a site and a platform. Share it if you want to share it.
Jane: That’s brilliant because the thing is- our stories, I think, by the time you reach midlife- it’s no secret that Hollywood is obsessed with youth in a way that is not reflective of of real life. You know, there’s a hell of a lot going on in our lives if they’d actually delve into it. That’s why I wanted to write stories in this realm. It’s so important that you are doing what you’re doing and reflecting women (truthfully).
At this age of what it is such an age of transition, you know, there there’s so much going on- I do, I think that’s really, really great.
Jenny: So I need to move on to my next book of yours. Do you think that it should be a Jane Costello book (favorites above)? Or should my next book be by your your other author name, Catherine Isaac?
Jane: Well it depends. If you want another midlife comedy, something to laugh, something that you are going to recognize yourself in specifically in midlife, then I would recommend It’s Getting Hot in Here: A Novel, which is my my other midlife mom book.
I’ve got several Catherine Isaac novels that you might like, they’re more emotional love stories, you will laugh but you will also cry. It depends what you’re in the mood for. Start with You Me Everything: A Novel. That was my first one.
If you have a story to share with Midlife Mom, please do it via the Google Form here. We would love to read your story and share it with other moms who can learn, live and lust through your words.
