All the cool menopausal women read Hot Flash Club novels

Call Nancy Thayer "the hot flash queen." She doesn't mind a bit. As far as the 62-year-old Nantucket writer is concerned, menopause isn't the "silent passage" anymore — and she has written a series of books to prove it. Her "Hot Flash Club" novels, which pull no punches on the good, the bad and the ugly of middle age — spreading hips, widening waistlines, cellulite, killer personal heat waves and all — were inspired by her own experiences and those of her closest confidants.

"I was having hot flashes, as were my friends," says Thayer. "We'd go for long walks and talk about the physical changes we were seeing in our bodies. Most of our support for each other came through our ability to laugh together."

Gradually, she developed the idea of a series called "The Hot Flash Club," with a story line that followed four women of a certain age, who help each other cope with divorce, adult children, aging parents and other challenges of growing older. Thayer, a best-selling author with 13 previous novels, went to her editor and proposed the concept.

"To say they weren't interested is an understatement," says Thayer. "My editor told me the only books that would sell were about women in their 30s having lots of sex."

Make that "former" editor.

Thayer then took her idea to Ballantine Books, where she got a more enthusiastic response. The first book in the series, "The Hot Flash Club," hit bookstore shelves in 2003. Publisher's Weekly called the book "chick lit for the AARP crowd," but readers loved the story of Faye, Shirley, Marilyn and Alice, four mature women with different lives and problems, who meet at a retirement party for a mutual acquaintance and establish an instant rapport.

The two widows and two divorcées, all between the ages of 50 and 60, bond over night sweats, hormones, ex-husbands and new boyfriends and make their way through a series of adventures helped by copious amounts of chocolate and an occasional glass of wine. The first book was followed by "The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again," in 2004.

The most recent addition, "Hot Flash Holidays," was published in December. A new book, "The Hot Flash Club Chills Out," will be released this summer.

"Friends tell friends about the books," says Thayer. "Middle-aged women love that someone is writing about what they're really experiencing."

What they're experiencing — the end of menstruation and childbearing years — generally occurs between the ages of 40 and 55, when estrogen production slows. For many women, the process can be difficult. The North American Menopause Society, for example, estimates that 75 percent of menopausal women experience hot flashes or night sweats and lack of sleep.

In the past, says Thayer, women were reluctant to seek help for such symptoms. But women currently experiencing menopause, who came of age in the 1960s with books such as "Our Bodies, Ourselves," have a more open attitude and are less willing to suffer in silence.

These days, menopause has entered the public consciousness. Manufacturers and designers, including pajama maven Karen Neuberger, are marketing new lines of sleepwear, leisurewear and underwear made of high-tech fibers designed to help minimize the effects of hot flashes. "Menopause the Musical" by playwright Jeannie Linders started in a 76-seat perfume-shop-turned-theater in Orlando, Fla., in 2001. Nearly 35,000 women each week attend the show in New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities across the country and abroad. And dedicated fans continue to flood Thayer's Web site (www.nancythayer.com) with appreciative e-mails.

The site includes tips on setting up your own Hot Flash Club. It also features a quiz, with questions including: "Have you ever stood with your head in the freezer?" and "Do your jeans shrink two sizes while you're wearing them?" as well as poems and poetry.

"As recently as 10 years ago, no one talked about menopause," says Thayer. "Things have finally changed. It's not a topic women have to whisper about anymore."