Taking a pause - NICKY'S CHANGE OF SCENE

Used to raising heartbeats in her romantic novels, the author is hoping her new project will help calm readers

- Wendyl Nissen

Much-loved fiction writer Nicky Pellegrino, 57, has written 13 novels so far in her 30-year career as a journalist and they have all been bestsellers. Her new book Don’t Sweat It takes a look at menopause through her own insights and interviews with experts. Her next novel will be out in 2023.

Your new book Don’t Sweat It is required reading for any woman going through menopause. Why did you decide to write it?

I had been going through hot flushes, palpitations, rages, sleeplessness, anxiety, random itchiness, lost libido, terrible “build an ark” monthly flooding – all typical peri-menopause symptoms. Generally I have a policy of soldiering on through things, but just as I got to grips with one symptom, something else would startup. I was weighing up the pros and cons of hormone therapy, and generally thinking about being in midlife and undeniably old now, and then the publishers Allen & Unwin approached me and asked if I’d like to write a book about it all. I said yes.

You’re a very popular fiction writer, often sitting at the top of the best-selling charts for weeks on end. Was writing a non-fiction book harder, easier or much the same?