About the Book

Book: Hot Mess Express: A Humorous and Practical Survival Guide for Menopause

Author: Sally Friscea

Genre: Health & Wellness / Aging

Release Date: April 22, 2025

Discover Your Menopause Survival Kit: Laugh, Learn, and Thrive!

You may have involuntarily found yourself on the Hot Mess Express, but you can take control of your journey and enjoy the ride. Or at least, survive the roller-coaster known as menopause with laughter. Unlike our grandmothers and moms, who never talked about this natural process, Sally takes us on a dive into the humorous yet practical journey of menopause.

Learn about symptoms, treatments, and self-care strategies—from diet and exercise to beauty tips—all enriched with real-life stories that inform and entertain. Empower yourself to discuss health concerns confidently—Is hormone replacement therapy right for me? Would it tame these mood swings? And, why is it so hot in here? Whether you’re in your forties or approaching sixty or beyond, this comprehensive guide offers relief and clarity in navigating the ups and downs of menopause. Embrace The Change with a smile and practical solutions that make a difference—from head to toe.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Sally Friscea writes with humor to give hope to the longing heart. As a former member of the US Army, she found herself on an ISIS kill list but is now trying to live a quieter life after marrying for the first time at the age of fifty.

She weaves hope and humor into nearly every story. She is a multi-genre and award-winning writer. She has completed two children’s picture books and an adult murder-suspense novel based around the Kennedy Space Center awaiting publication. She also enjoys shorter works of fiction and articles.

Currently, Sally is working on subsequent novels for the murder-suspense series, a speculative dystopian novel about the aftermath of a second civil war, and other projects that reflect her diverse background.

She’s the Social Director of the Florida Christian Writers Conference and the president of Word Weavers International’s Brevard Chapter. When she’s not bookkeeping, budget counseling, or writing, Sally enjoys spending time with family and friends, scrapbooking, and doing crafts, some of which she sells on Etsy.

More from Sally

I didn’t know it was hot flashes for the first five years. I thought the air-conditioning was broken everywhere I went, because it was. At my house in Florida, my bedroom at the end of the line sizzled. At the office, the unit that fed my room was down; I relied on the trickle of AC from the main room. And my car fritzed often enough, so I didn’t notice it was hot flashes until a friend’s husband mentioned her “crazy pills” at their house one night. She explained they were for hormones and how awful she’d been before taking them.

When she mentioned hot flashes, the light bulb went off. My mother never said anything about suffering from menopause, and the only person I’d ever known to talk about any of it used to break out an oriental fan when the flashes happened, but she was in her fifties, therefore, I didn’t connect the dots in my early forties. All the older ladies at scrapbooking said my sleep issues were menopause, but again, I was too young for that. Then I learned it’s happening about a decade earlier than in previous generations.

When I complained to a friend at the Florida Christian Writers Conference about my perimenopausal symptoms and my great ignorance, she told me I should write a book and put all my humor into it. I spent the next few months taking notes and decided that I indeed had enough material for a book. My dystopian book in progress got pushed aside, and I started down the rabbit hole of finding answers for myself and compiling a useful tool for others walking blindly on the path of menopause.

I found some existing books using humorous personal stories and others addressing symptoms by using medical speak, but nothing with both, so I married the two and tried to dumb it down in a way that even I would understand. I threw in the humor to make the reader know they are not alone. I addressed those pesky symptoms using pharmaceutical, holistic, and over-the-counter treatments where available to appease all the ladies.

As I wrote the book, I kept finding that how we live our forties determines our fifties, our fifties determine our sixties, and so on, subsequently addressing food and other obstacles to longevity. I wrote this book because most women don’t want to talk about this topic, and most doctors aren’t trained in the field of aging women.

I found that even women who don’t suffer greatly will still submit to the effects down the road with osteoporosis and heart disease, because of the diminishing hormones. I attempted to cast as wide a net as possible by writing it in a way to entertain as well as inform so the reader can advocate for herself with her doctors and learn how to avoid spiraling out of physical independence in the latter years. This book is the sugar coating on a hard topic not being talked about enough. I wrote it so you won’t have to talk about it outside your physician’s office.

Blog Stops

1.Which chapter was the most difficult to write?

In Hot Mess Express, the chapter on Diet was the hardest to write because we’ve been taught that a diet is a punishment we inflict upon ourselves, such as extreme calorie reduction or exclusion of all things tasty, rather than eating for maintenance and to prevent breakdowns. It’s hard to find people promoting truly healthy foods, and harder to find the whole foods suggested.

A recent trip to Italy for a writer’s conference prompted questions about the American diet. There were more than twenty of us sitting around the dinner table at the end of the week, wondering how we could eat five-course meals with pastas in two of them and not feel like we were pushing away from the table as if it were a Thanksgiving meal—stuffed! Instead, eating slowly was part of it, but when I got home, I looked into it. It was the pasta. The Europeans grow their wheat differently, and it has one-fifth the gluten!

What would you like your readers to get out of this book?

How you live this decade determines how you’ll live the next decade. Get to the gym and build back the muscle you’ve been losing since your thirties. Lift heavy weights or use resistance bands; you won’t look like a bodybuilder in 30 minutes, three times a week. Stretch. Eat the outer sections of the grocery store (whole foods). Most women are eligible for hormone replacement (HRT/BHRT), so get tested and find a trained provider willing to get you back to being you. You are not alone. You are not going crazy. You are hormone-deficient. Replace those hormones to live your best life independent of hospitals and nursing homes. Laugh and get hugs from friends and family. Community is bigger than we think. Go early to church and linger afterward, making Christian friends and building your community. Yes, that means you, too, introverts.

What is your vacation spot?

My perfect vacay spot is anywhere. I’m not picky, just as long as I don’t have to get groceries, cook, clean, commute to a job, do laundry, or open a door for a pet a hundred times a day just because I’m the one closest to the slider. I particularly like cruises for those reasons. But I also really like the cold, just not for too long! My sister lives in London, and on a previous visit, the temperature only got up to 32 degrees once. I thrived in the cold, but I do enjoy all four seasons. Yet, I live on the Space Coast of Florida, where we have two seasons, hot and not hot.

What are you reading right now?

Right now, I’m reading two books by author friends of mine. I read Jennifer Uhlarik’s Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery at bedtime to help me come down from the day. My dad always had Louis L’Amour books lying around. I few years ago, I read a true crime Western Jennifer Uhlarik wrote, The Scarlet Pen, and loved it, so I took a chance on this one too. I’m not quite ready to commit all my reading time to Westerns like my dad did, but I am enjoying Jennifer’s books. She does the murder mysteries well.

I’m also reading Donna Mumma’s First Comes Marriage…Then Comes Murder: A Women of Wynton’s Mystery during the day, between tasks. This is her second book in the series. I’m on Donna’s launch team, like she was on mine. We read the book, share memes on social media, and then leave an honest review on launch day. I think I’m the world’s slowest reader, so the pressure’s on to finish in a month. Her books never fail to draw me in.

For my morning devotional, I’m reading The Sound of Your Blood by Bill Vanderbush.

What is your most well-loved and well-used house appliance?

That’s a toss-up between the stick vac and the convection toaster oven. The stick vac gets a nod thanks to the cat and all the Sally hair due to menopausal hair loss. My husband said he was going to knit a sweater for me. Thankfully, he did not. I’m sure the color would be good on me, but … ew gross. I suppose since the hubs usually runs the stick vac, I should go with the toaster oven. It’s good for keeping the number of cookies baked at once to a manageable number, and we use it to heat up leftovers and other small items constantly. We probably use it ten times more often than the oven. That may be because we live in Florida, where it’s hot enough most of the year without heating up the house with a full-sized oven.

Though I’m a big fan of the refrigerator, too! Ah, the way it cools me off when the hot flashes come, and I take a little too long with the door open to remember what I even went to the fridge to get.