A story for every woman who's ever started over.

Dirt Before Dessert

Elle Mayer just sold her tech startup, finalized a divorce, and turned fifty. At a time when she expected to relish everything life was supposed to offer, she suddenly lacks the clarity, meaning, and momentum to move forward.

From my shelf

Discover my books.

Fiction about women figuring out their next chapter, and nonfiction about good food, long runs, and living with intention.

Dirt Before Dessert by Melinda Hinson, book cover

Dirt Before Dessert

Book One of the Fifty Yard Line of Life Trilogy · coming 2027

Heart and Sole 26.2 by Melinda Hinson, book cover

Heart & Sole

How 26 people ran a marathon · 2018

Eat In, Not Out by Melinda Hinson, book cover

Eat In Not Out

Health & wellness · 2018

Finding Life's Secret Sauce by Melinda Hinson, book cover

Finding Life's Secret Sauce

Good food, fitness & fun · 2010

Melinda Hinson, book coach and bestselling author, smiling in a garden of orange flowers
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About the author

Meet Melinda Hinson

I'm a bestselling author, book coach, brand strategist, and former VP of Strategy at Forbes Books. I've spent 25 years helping others tell their stories, from Starbucks and Polaroid to Forbes Books, and I've written my way through every chapter of my own: three nonfiction books on health and living on purpose (Finding Life's Secret Sauce, Eat In Not Out, and Heart & Sole), and now fiction. Reinvention isn't just what I write about. It's how I've lived.

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