Julia Foster has reached the pleasant stage of life where nobody gets to tell her what she's supposed to do with it. She's retired, her time belongs to her, and she's determined not to spend it waiting around to become old. These days that might mean travelling somewhere warm with a suitcase full of books, meeting friends for an afternoon that somehow becomes an evening, or putting on a pair of boxing gloves and discovering exactly how much punishment a heavy bag can take.

She didn't become an athlete at nineteen and spend fifty years preserving herself in amber. Julia came to fitness later, after already living most of the complicated, ordinary life that leaves marks on a person. She likes being strong, enjoys being challenged, and has no particular interest in disguising the wrinkles, silver hair, or other evidence that she was fortunate enough to accumulate some years.

Julia isn't trying to prove that sixty-nine is the new forty. She already did forty. She's interested in finding out what's past 70.