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