‘Once upon a time’ begins the book and thereby sets the scene for a book of stories. Ann Burack-Weiss began writing this book in 2006 when she was in her seventies and starts with descriptions of interactions with clients during her career as a young social worker. When visiting ageing clients in Manhattan, struggling to live in poor conditions and with various physical vulnerabilities, she found that most had been defeated by their present circumstances and their dependency. Almost all seemed to have lost connection with themselves and other people and their sense of identity had disappeared. However, there were exceptions, those who had made a story linking their past with recent events, and even the future, seemed able to nurture the self they had always been. Years later, reflecting on these exceptions, the author realised that for many people, stories act as a thread to link and understand their lives.

Throughout Ann Burack-Weiss's career as a gerontologist and academic, she based her learning and teaching on the writings of women authors. From the 1960s she read feminist writers and has continued to read their more recent writing and memoirs; thus she has many heroines. In 2008, she completed a textbook The Caregiver's Tale: Loss and Renewal in Memoirs of Family Life, analysing and interpreting stories from the memoirs of 100 carers. In the same way, she planned to extend the idea in her next book focusing on the writings of the famous authors who had been her heroines. She believed that she would find inspiration from their stories, particularly how they retained their identity as they aged. Joan Didion was her first author. In Didion's memoirs written in 2005 and 2011 after the deaths of her husband and only daughter, she describes how these losses had annihilated all her courage and her ability to think positively about the future. The bleakness of these writings dismayed Ann Burack-Weiss and she became critical of this catalogue of regrets. About this time, her own husband died suddenly and she too was plunged into a grief which was completely absorbing. However, later when attending a lecture by Didion, she was dismayed that Didion's performance was clearly limited by the disabilities of ageing and that she did not respond to the audience or use any of the adaptive aids for vision or mobility that might have helped her. In the opinion of Ann Burack-Weiss, which some might consider harsh, Didion had demonstrated an inability to accept her ageing self. This led Ann Burack-Weiss to the view, espoused in this book, that whilst losses could not be changed in reality, she could change them in her mind. Help to do this would come from the authors who she named her lionesses. She found that the stories they told and the meaning they gave to their continuing physical ailments urged her to respond, using her feeling self rather than herself as critical author. She shared so many of their experiences and stories that her book stands for herself as leader of the pride and gave her the title. All the 185 pages in this book are packed with the words of writers as they age. It is not until the end that we learn which of the 41 quoted are selected as her 13 ‘Cherished Authors’, of these six are well known in the United Kingdom.

This book will meet the different purposes of a range of readers. The structure and content provide an inspiring reference base for care-practitioners and ‘give permission’ to listen to stories as a way of learning. For researchers there is a wealth of information with many ideas to stimulate further study. However, the main appeal of this book is that its convenient size, attractive cover and tantalising title will provide comfort and stimulation to older readers facing events within their own lives. Opportunities to ‘bite into’ and digest the ways a ‘lioness’ attacked or defended herself when facing the same dilemma make it a handy resource to dip into when needed.

The book is different from a textbook in its appearance and format. A potential reader may believe it to be a novel and think of reading it as such. But be warned! The content is dense, the style metaphorical, the voices introduced are many and can be overwhelming. The author wants to lead us and for us to follow the path she has found yet also rest along the way. Therefore, it is to be a guide, a ‘companion’ or ‘Sherpa’ for dark moments.