Author: Judy Leigh
In Golden Girls on the Run, a brand new book by Judey Leigh, the author once again turns her attention to women who exist outside the narrow scripts offered to them by society, through the lens of later life. Much like in her earlier novels, which I have written about (The Vintage Village Bake Off, The Silver Ladies Do Lunch, The Silver Ladies Seize the Day), the story centres on female agency, relationality, and the refusal to accept socially imposed limits. Age, in this book, is not a background detail but a central organising force that shapes how freedom, risk, and solidarity are negotiated.
The premise is deceptively light: a pair of older women (two sisters-in-law) on the move, propelled by circumstance and choice, i.e., falling out in a pub in Ireland, then picking up the Ferrari of one of the protagonist’s grandsons and taking off to England to visit in-laws, in this case Robert from The Vintage Village Bake Off. So, the book is about Robert’s Irish in-laws, whom he has through his sister, Bounty, whom we knew from the first book. Yet beneath the humour and warmth lies a sharp cultural critique. Ageing women are routinely rendered invisible, desexualised, and politically neutralised. Golden Girls on the Run resists this narrative. The act of “running” becomes a rejection of the expectation that later life should be quiet, contained, and compliant.
What is particularly striking is how the novel treats friendship as a form of infrastructure. These women survive, improvise, and imagine alternatives together, echoing themes Leigh has developed before in her portrayals of women who build meaning outside institutional or familial norms, most notably through women’s friendships. The narrative suggests that ageing does not erode agency; rather, it exposes the absurdity of rules that were never designed with women’s longevity in mind, even though women tend to live longer, but their lives (particularly careers) tend to end, in the mind of prejudicial societies, around 50 (or 45 in journalism).
In this respect, Golden Girls on the Run fits neatly within Leigh’s broader writing. Like other books, Golden Girls on the Run is concerned with how women navigate constraints imposed by age, and how they create pockets of autonomy within it. The novel speaks not only to readers interested in stories about ageing, but to anyone attentive to how social power operates through norms of respectability and visibility. Ultimately, Golden Girls on the Run is less about escape than about refusal: refusal to disappear, to behave appropriately, or to accept that adventure belongs only to the young. It is a reminder that ageing can be disruptive, political, and joyful—and that solidarity remains one of the most powerful tools women have at any stage of life.
I was surprised by the ending, though. In Leigh’s novels, often golden girls find love or start new lives; this was the case in the first part of this book, with Robert’s sister Hattie divorcing her abusive husband and starting anew, whilst Robert himself found love in the golden age. But, in this book, the golden girls find meaning in the adventure without necessarily starting something new, which was novel in Leigh’s writing.
Thank you for reading!