Fran Littlewood covers menopause and motherhood in 'raw' debut novel 

Fran Littlewood’s debut novel tackles midlife and menopause. It’s fierce, funny and unapologetic. No wonder then it’s been snapped up by the team behind ‘Mare of Easttown’, writes Suzanne Harrington

With her novel, Fran Littlewood has joined the menopause fight-back generation.

On the hottest day of the year, Grace Adams finally boils over. Abandoning her car in gridlocked traffic — not unlike Michael Douglas in the 1993 film Falling Down, except it’s North London instead of Los Angeles, and there are golf clubs rather than guns — Grace sets off on foot on a Leopold Bloom-like odyssey across the north of the city. Her mission is to deliver a melting birthday cake to her sixteen-year-old daughter Lotte, who has moved in with her dad and is no longer speaking to her.

This is the premise for Amazing Grace Adams, a novel about a perimenopausal polyglot propelled by anguish, rage, determination, and love. It’s funny and relatable, written by former financial journalist Fran Littlewood, who recently turned 50, and who also lives in North London with not one but three teenage daughters, and her partner. TV rights for the book have already been optioned by the Mare of Easttown producer.