WHENEVER YOU'RE READY

An emotionally resonant novel that weaves together the stories of a group of women to create a complex yet accessible portrait of grief, changing relationships, and reckoning with the past in order to move into the future.

Whenever You're Ready is about the bonds of friendship that weather the tests of time and mortality. Claire, Lizzie, and Alice have been friends since their school days, their camaraderie standing unyielding even into their 70s. However, as life takes its inevitable turns, Claire's terminal cancer diagnosis leads her to a heart-wrenching decision - a decision that not only ends her own life, but also that of her Alzheimer's-stricken husband. In her final moments, a cryptic note to her dearest friend reveals a lifetime's worth of secrets. This compelling narrative unfurls as a love letter to the resilience and wisdom of older women and the challenges they face at this final stage of their lives. Whenever You're Ready is told from the perspectives of four women aged between forty and eighty - Lizzie and Alice, Claire's daughter Jane, and Lizzie's daughter Margot - who are dealing with the sudden death of their beloved friend Claire. A Bohemian at heart, Alice grapples with her own truth, living in the shadows of eviction and finding an unlikely refuge in a caravan park. Lizzie's world is upended by a revelation stemming from Claire's passing - a revelation that shatters the foundation of her beliefs about her friends, family, and marriage. Jane mourns the loss of both parents, unaware that the man she knew as her father wasn't her biological parent. And Margot is realising that despite having built herself a faultlessly curated social media facade, she hasn't put her troubled past behind her as neatly as she thought she had. Whenever You're Ready unveils the power of friendship, the weight of unspoken truths, and the resilience that comes with embracing one's past while looking toward an uncertain future. TRISH BOLTON is a Melbourne writer whose words have appeared in Overland, New Matilda, The Big Issue, The Age, Sunday Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times. She has been a media adviser to the federal leader of a political party, worked in policy and research in women's health, and lectured and tutored in media and communications at a number of Melbourne universities.