More people are living longer and staying active and engaged so one would think that the ‘grey market’ would be targeted by publishers.

However, there are so few novels about older people - unless they are represented as a bed blocking statistic, or a nuisance having to be looked after at home or in a home.

Why can’t we read about retirees looking for new romances, careers and lives?

Love, lust, sex, new experiences and challenges are not just the dreams of the youthful.

Boomers and older are probably the richest demographic and many have more time to read - but there are so few books addressing issues pertinent to their lives and interests….

Traditional publishers rarely look at authors who write about people over 30, perhaps because the gatekeepers are usually interns in their 20s. And agents want authors with long careers ahead of them.

Similarly, the market for films with older characters is largely untapped, though improving, after the success of Hope Springs, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Quartet, and more recently - Girlfriends on TV.

So, frustrated at finding so few novels where the characters have retired and are transitioning into their new lives, still with aspirations and hopes, while often coping with partner death or divorce, empty nesting, caring for parents and grandchildren - Jennifer Thomas has written The Silver Swimmers (ISBN 978-1-9999435-0-9), available to order from bookshops, or on Amazon £7.50. ebook is £2.88.

Laura and Terry have retired, Annie and Frances are made redundant, Beth’s children have left home, Marie’s partner has died, Jo’s husband is divorcing her. Helen can’t trust hers and Lynne’s mother is descending into dementia. These women - brought up with feminism, pop music, drugs, the pill, university grants, free health care and no wars - had ambition, careers and independence. Now over 60, they’re invisible and learning to cope with what is left and who they are.

Their friendship and going to the swimming pool together help to support and sustain them as they work out how to live the rest of their lives.

An eventful and unpredictable year changes all their circumstances.