In Fortytude, therapist Sarah Brokaw reveals the surprisingly accessible principles that can help women sail through their midlife years—more happily, with more accomplishments, and with grace and satisfaction. Brokaw shares stories, experiences, and insights of women from all walks of life. We meet a forty-one-year-old nurse from Wisconsin who takes on her weight and esteem issues after her sister’s death; a businesswoman who embarks on a surprising career at the age of forty; and a forty-three-year-old public defender living in LA, whose life was altered in remarkable ways by one friendship. We hear the stories of women without children, stay-at-home moms, divorced moms, and stepmoms, as well as Brokaw’s personal fertility story.

From the varied lives of women who are embarking on or looking back on their forties, Brokaw distills the values and lessons that will make the decade and those that follow fulfilling for all women.