Maybe this time we could be intimate, as in secrets-not necessarily of the boudoir, but as in dreams and fantasies, fears and angsts, above all, passions. What are the passions-the forces, the causes, the 'special enthusiasms' (to borrow a phrase from life's passages guru Gail Sheehy)-that are driving women in their midlife? And if one of those passions happens to be sexual, how lucky can one get?

- From the Introduction