The intrepid women of The Hot Flash Club are back for the holidays, soothing jingled nerves and stressed shoppers in their exclusive spa and celebrating the joys of the season. In her witty and delightfully wisecracking prose, Nancy Thayer tells a heartwarming tale packed with fun, secrets, romance–and an ample dose of good cheer.

When the Hot Flash friends gather at the spa to trim the Christmas tree, they share steaming mugs of hot chocolate, a few laughs, and a vow to make this holiday one to remember. And it is–but not in the cheerful, ho-ho-ho way they expected. Instead, Christmas brings family conflicts, household accidents, plane delays–and that’s just the beginning.

After a hazardous holiday season, the women make resolutions that they intend to keep . . . in a perfect world. But life–and their friends and relatives–cause complications. Shirley lends financial support to her boyfriend’s schemes, which infuriates Alice, whose own son commits an act she’s not sure she can accept. Marilyn travels to Scotland and falls in love, but her octogenarian mother needs her at home. And when Polly and Faye find themselves pitted against each other by a younger woman, an they overcome this clash to make a new, entrepreneurial dream come true? Then real disaster strikes, bringing new challenges and surprising revelations.

Just as every month of the year throws new problems at us all, so too does the end of the year give us the chance to reunite and put these problems into their proper perspective. And when the Hot Flash Five get together for the holidays, we should expect nothing less than the unexpected.