Kirsten Miller’s debut combines magical realism with thriller as three women team up to challenge the privilege and injustice wreaking havoc in their town. When young missing girls appear to be forgotten by the justice system, Nessa, Harriett and Jo are determined to discover the truth. I loved Miller’s protagonists: fierce, headstrong and literally powerful. Emotionally complex, it was refreshing to read a book centred around middle aged women without the usual archetypes you’d expect. The multiple POV of the narrative also worked well in this regard. This is an exciting debut novel that will appeal to a wide audience, from crime/thriller enthusiasts to magical realism fans. If you’re looking for a suspenseful read with strong willed female protagonists, look no further.

Yes girls. YES. This book will make you RAGE. It will make you laugh. It will make you want to kick off your high heels, slip into your Converse and get your hair cut into that glorious choppy bob that all your friends love but your husband moans about.
I’ll be honest, I’ve been trying to channel my hot flushes like Jo, but I’ve not quite got the hang of it. Yet. This is an absolute must-read for any woman who’s reached menopause. It’s so empowering.
At the start, I did wonder whether all the men in this book were going to be worthless imbeciles, but as the story progressed I was relieved to find this was not the case (hello Franklin, you lovely human).
We all need a Nessa, a Jo, and especially a Harriett in our lives.
How would I describe this book? It’s a thriller, a whodunnit, an urban fantasy, it’s contemporary women’s fiction, but most of all?
It’s a battle cry.

“Our lives are designed to have three parts. The first is education. The second, creation. And in part three, we put out experience to use to protect those who are weaker. This third stage, which you have entered, can be one of incredible power.”

Big thank you to @NetGalley and Team HQ @HQStories for the ARC.

The Change is an enjoyable and very different novel. Combining.elements of crime, mysticism and feminism it was good to have strong female protagonists. A clever and unusual read. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

This was an amazing story.

It had me gripped right from the start and just kept getting better.

The women were shown to be weak at the start with the men appearing to run rough shod over them.

By the end on the story though there was no doubt where the power was with the women in charge.

A wonderfully written story that left me wanting more.

As damn near perfection as a book can get! The tone felt quite 'Desperate Housewives on the rampage'. The plot is a bit supernatural/witchy, a bit crimey and a whole lot girl power/feministy. Rage pulsates from every page.

I loved the idea that there are three phases in a woman's life and that once the childbearing years are over, it's our time to protect the voiceless. Themes include taking up space, who makes a 'good' victim and who can be ignored, power and corruption and, of course, the menopause. I don't wish to provide any spoilers but if a women-only gym isn't a thing, it needs to be!

Aside from the sizzling plot, dialogue, characterisation, setting and everything else I loved about this book, it has made me feel so much better about approaching the next stage of my life. I feel empowered and alive. I know I'll read/listen to this book many more times and I simply cannot wait to experience it all over again. I'll be recommending it to everyone I know! Allow me to leave you with an example of the great humour in the book…

'"Impressive. What was the secret to your success?" Harriett asked.
"A penis," Leonard deadpanned,'

I enjoyed this book although the story was well telegraphed from the beginning. A story of three women who come together and not only discover a pedophile ring but deal out retribution for the murdered women in their own way.
Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for the advance copy of this book.

Where do I start? Three incredibly strong female characters with a strong woman in waiting in the form of Lucy, the daughter of Jo, one of our loudest voices.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to get when I started reading this book, but being a woman of a certain age I was so happy to read about women my age and older who had found strength and purpose AFTER they were considered over the hill when on the path they had taken.

We have Harriett, wow, I loved her. She was considered over the hill, overlooked in her workplace and treated as though she was a piece of trash to throw away by a husband who wanted to start a family now his wife was too old. He soon discovered that he needed her far more than she needed him.

Then we have Nessa, a nurse who was gifted with the sight, and after the death of her husband and her twin daughters left for college, she finds her second wind. With the start of ‘The Change’, she rediscovers the gift that her grandmother had, the ability to right the wrongs done to murdered women.

And finally, there is Jo. She has found her strength, the breadwinner in the family she is turned away by a bank manager who appears to live in the dark ages. Her daughter has inherited the strength that her mother has and is a well-balanced child growing up without fear.

There were moments in the book where I could feel my jaw tightening, such as when Jo was turned away at the bank and I remembered my own experience of being 25 and being told by a bank manager that I wasn’t a good risk for a mortgage because women of my age have lower earning potential as we all will leave our jobs to have babies (yes, this was the early 90s). And then again when Harriett was passed over for a promotion and her bosses treated her with such disdain despite all the clients she had won them.
This is a book that many women will identify with. If not the situations or the circumstances, there will be that moment when they say ‘yes, this is how I feel…’

I want there to be a time when growing old is the same for both genders, but because women experience ‘The Change’ that is not currently the case.

This book gave women strength, power and purpose and I sat up almost the whole of Monday night because I just couldn’t stop reading it.

There's a lot more focus on strong female characters in recent years but of all the novels I've read none nail it as perfectly as Miller does with The Change.
The premise of menopausal women tapping into a dormant power turns the tide of a historically taboo subject, giving a sense of achievement to an event our culture deems negative.

Jo, Nessa and Harriet forge an immediate bond, their friendship is undoubtedly the best part of this story. The unwavering trust and support shared between these three in a sisterhood that stands against the wrongs of men endeared me to each character in equal measure.

Miller writes The Change from the perspectives of women only. Whilst Jo, Nessa and Harriet take the lead for the majority there are additional snippets of other female characters with insights to the personal events that shaped them. Miller explores the reality of womanhood, menstruation and sexuality with a refreshing honesty, including LGBTQ and POC characters.

Whilst The Change focuses strongly on the wrongdoings of men, there are some good ones in the story! This isn't an 'all men are evil' push and I'd encourage male readers to pick this up for insight into many daily challenges faced by women professionally and personally, I felt they were perfectly represented.

The mystery of the serial killer in Mattauk was believable, with all we've seen and heard of the wealthy in recent years and the restrictions on law enforcement I found this fictional story (magical power aside!) was plausible.

I highly recommend The Change to all readers and look forward to my next Miller read.

Thank you to NetGalley an the publishers HQ for this ARC in exchange for honest feedback.

I loved this book and loved the way Kirsten Miller writes. The three heroines are Nessa, Jo and Harriet and they were all a force to be reckoned with. Harriet was my favourite and I wish I was her!

The story is paced beautifully and there was never a dull moment. Although a thriller, it was also a mystical celebration of women. I loved it and will now look out for other works by Kirsten Miller.

3.5⭐️

Three women Nessa,Jo and Harriett are are drawn together, all in the menopause. They discover new found powers and with the guidance of voices that only Nessa can hear they are guided to the body of 17 yr old girl.
They find more bodies, with their investigations they are focused on avenging the innocent and punishing the guilty as they can not get the police to take action.

I really liked the easy writing style it had me chuckling. The pace is slow as it’s very character driven, but it’s engaging. We not only get to see their adventures but their lives.
Be warned it’s a long book. We have a book of many parts, it’s covers menopause, murder mystery, morale crusade, magical realism, so you have to go with the flow.

I found the 3 main characters likeable in different ways. Harriet is the strongest, and the leader of the group. My favourite I think is Nessa.

The premise of the book is absolutely brilliant, and really could have been a 5⭐️ but for me it needs a big prune, so that’s really affected my rating.

As a middle-aged menopausal woman I found this one of the most pleasing books I’ve read in years. If you’ve ever felt patronised, dismissed, overlooked, cheated, harmed or generally dismayed/frustrated/angered by the way society treats women – young and old-, sit down and escape with this absolute knock-out of a story, which celebrates women’s intuition, talents and innate powers. It’s a hymn to sisterhood too as we follow Nessa, Jo and Harriet as they discover and nurture their natural gifts to uncover the reason girls are going missing and turning up dead in Mattauk, New York and to mete out punishment. I was rivetted.

(NB I listened to this book on audio. The narrator was great)

The Change
By Kirsten Miller

A NY coastal community setting, three midlife women with unusual powers and the ghosts of young girls who can't move on yet. Harriett is through with convention and has turned her attention to her garden and the power of plants. Jo is through with men and male privilege and the war she has waged with her body for her entire life and needs to find a way to channel her rage. Nessa has inherited the gift of seeing dead people, but it is only now that she has retired from nursing that her ability has emerged. These three women become unlikely friends and find themselves in a battle to seize back their power from the entitled men that inhabit Culling Point during the summer season. Murder/ mystery, magic realism, female empowerment, midlife warriors, revenge and betrayal, it's all there. This story is like a mash up of Desperate Housewives & The Witches of Eastwick and I've also heard it compared to Big Little Lies. It would make an excellent TV drama series.
Thank you to #NetGalley and #HQ for the ARC in exchange for an honest review...I loved it.

Three women in a Long Island seaside community realise that they have powers. Nessa, who sees the dead; Harriet who is the punishment that fits the crime and Jo who will destroy it all at the end.
Nessa sees dead girls (not women, teenaged girls) who have been murdered by men. She knows there's a serial killer on the loose, but it's hard to prove it when the bodies haven't actually been found. As the three women seek to get justice for these dead girls, they uncover a web of corruption that is terrifying.
With heart and anger but also with humour, the book captures the everyday sexism that women face and the double standards the world imposes on people based on their sex and social class.
It's a fast paced read that sits where thriller meets women's fiction. I raced through it in a day.

This book is so good!!! A witch, a superhero and a woman who sees dead girls. A whodunnit story jam packed with feminism and tales of women suffering discrimination, abuse and degradation. When you try describe it to people it sounds like it shouldn’t work….but it so does! The perfect ‘girl-power’ novel that left me cheering for all the strong women who win their battles!

Thank you Net galley and publishers for offering me a prepublication copy of this book. I loved it. This book is a coming of age novel with a difference. Jo, Nessa and Harriet are struggling, society is virtually ignoring them- just when they need others to support them the most. As they all hit ‘the change’, the hot flushes and hormone changes actually awaken powers, powers they never knew they’d have.. Nessa is called to by murdered girls. Jo is learning to channel her rage into super-strength. And Harriet has ways of punishing those who need to be punished. Together, the women need to stop a murderer.
This book really have a feminist theme running through it - sisters are doing it for themselves!
I loved every page.

Three woman of a certain age, going through a certain change unlike any women before them. This tale takes the menopause and turns it on his head giving the three woman particular super human gifts. Throw in murder, cover ups and a hot summer and you've got yourself one hell of a.page turner.

An entertaining and interesting read. I love the idea of powerful, middle-aged women harnessing the power of menopause. (Not that I can relate to this, I feel like it’s kicking my arse!) And I love the element of mystery running through, not to mention the vengeance.

This reminded me of Naomi Alderman’s The Power. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Exploration of gendered power structures is fine with me - there isn’t one way to do this. Miller approaches the issue from a different standpoint with her older women and it was a refreshing and escapist read.

A little long (hence the four stars), but enjoyable book.

This is the debut novel from a YA author and it does her justice. Three women who are going through the menopause (ie the 'change') find out they have supernatural powers. It's an American book about misogyny and the women go on to avenge the murders of three teenage girls at New York beach. Full of suspense, hard to say more about the plot without giving the game away!

A coming of age novel with a difference. Jo, Nessa and Harriet find themselves at the age where society all but ignores them. Along with the hot flushes comes an awakening of power. Nessa is called to by murdered girls. Jo is learning to channel her rage into super-strength. And Harriet has ways of punishing those who need to be punished. Together, the women need to stop a murderer. For good. A brilliant, character-driven novel. I loved every page.

I was sent an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I’ve really enjoyed reading this book. Loved the interesting storyline and the strength of the ladies in the story. Just loved the style of writing. I couldn’t wait to get back to the book. Definitely recommended if you like an interesting thriller.