How to Age Disgracefully

An adventurous, madcap novel about a group of rebellious British pensioners who must fight to keep their community center ‘hangout’ open.

 

In How to Age Disgracefully, Clare Pooley delivers another off-beat comedy--with a hopeful message--that brings together a cast of quirky, raucous British pensioners whose lively antics will charm readers.

 

The story is set amidst a London-Metro community center in need of revitalization—literally and figuratively. A roof collapse kills the headmistress. Lydia, a 53-year-old wife and mother--and a once in-demand food stylist who is suffering a mid-life crisis--has been hired as the facility’s new Senior Citizens’ Social Club. However, a ceiling collapse kills one of their members during the first meeting. In addition to stepping up to establish the club, Lydia and the group also take on “Maggie Thatcher,” the “ugly-looking,” now orphaned dog of the deceased woman.

 

The small club is comprised of septuagenarians who are vastly different in backgrounds and temperaments who are in search of adventure. The group includes a former businesswoman-turned-loner with secrets; an aging actor with kleptomaniac tendencies, who’s tired of playing grumpy old men and dead bodies; a retired paparazzo; a hardcore knitting addict; and woman who is ‘pushy,’ in every sense of the word, including how she navigates her walker. Lydia learns that managing the health and safety of this less-than-sedate group--on a cash-strapped budget--is no easy task. And when the town threatens to bulldoze their hangout, the group rebels in hilarious ways—complete with help from kids at the nursery school, housed in the same facility.

 

Readers are in for great fun, traveling along with Pooley’s (The Authenticity Project, Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting) assembly of madcap characters who refuse to succumb to age—or play by the rules

 

How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley

Pamela Dorman Books/Penguin, $29.00 hardcover, 352 pages, 9780593831496

Publishing Date: June 11, 2024 

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (July 5, 2024), link HERE 

Mother-Daughter Murder Night

Multi-generational family dynamics imbue this exciting well-drawn and well-plotted supersleuth whodunnit about murders in a coastal California town.

In Mother-Daughter Murder Night, first time novelist Nina Simon appealingly integrates spirited family dynamics with the intricacies of a complex whodunnit.

 

Three generations of women shack up together in a little house in Elkhorn Slough, a coastal town in Monterey Bay, Calif. This all comes about when family matriarch, Lana Rubicon--a 57-year-old, take-charge real estate mogul--faces an advanced cancer diagnosis. While undergoing treatment, her daughter, Beth, a geriatric nurse, insists that Lana, from Santa Monica, come and live with her and her daughter, Lana’s granddaughter, 15-year-old “Jack.” Lana and Beth’s contentious relationship had been riddled with angst ever since Lana became a single mother when Beth was just a rebellious teenager. Navigating the emotional minefield of Lana’s present illness and trigger points from the past, the strong, fiercely independent, mother and daughter are forced to bury the hatchet when a young man who works for a local land trust is found murdered. When the police investigation draws Jack, a kayak tour guide, into the list of suspects, Beth and Lana, who long-ago shared a passion for watching Columbo TV crime stories, put their amateur detective skills to work. They become determined to exonerate Jack and root out the real killer—but not before another murder takes place that ups the ante.

 

Simon has skillfully crafted a multi-generational study of disparate characters where surprising, immensely well-plotted crimes and clues will keep mystery readers guessing.

 

 

Mother-Daughter Murder Night: A Novel by Nina Simon

William Morrow, $30.00 hardcover, 9780063315044, 368 pages  

Publishing Date: September 5, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (September 8, 2023), link HERE

 

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp

A clever, crowd-pleasing cozy mystery about a lovable band of geriatrics swept up into a dark, at times madcap, murder investigation.

A band of lovable geriatrics who share a house in the quiet English countryside find themselves swept up in a murder investigation that escalates in The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp, a smart, clever cozy mystery by Leonie Swann (translated from the German by Amy Bojang).

 

The story is set at Sunset Hall, a dilapidated house in Duck End that belongs to Agnes Sharp, retired from the police force. Agnes now shares her domicile with five other, eccentric pensioners—three women and two men. The housemates long to stay independent and live on their own while battling memory lapses, hearing and vision loss, bad backs, hips, and more. However, when the body of a resident turns up dead in their garden shed, and a gun goes missing, their world is turned upside-down. Before the seniors can retrieve what they believe is the murder weapon, another aged woman is slain nearby. Can the two deaths be connected? This launches the housemates--and their pet tortoise--on a conniving, often madcap quest to find the killer while pitted against a host of obstacles, including their own limitations.

 

Swann’s perceptive storytelling resides amidst the offbeat—as evidenced in her other cozy, Three Bags Full, where a flock of ingenious sheep solves the murder of their shepherd. Via The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp, Swann once again perfectly balances playfulness and poignancy. She exposes and celebrates the elderly and infirm--their predicaments and secrets--delivering a refreshingly fun crowd-pleaser sure to charm mystery readers of all ages.

 

 

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann (translated from the German by Amy Bojang)  

Soho Crime, $27.95 hardcover, 9780778387121, 360 pages

Publishing Date: August 29, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (September 1, 2023), link HERE

Mrs. Plansky's Revenge

A fresh, dynamic cozy mystery where a strong, likable 71-year-old Florida widow is scammed of her life savings and sets off on a quest for justice.

Spencer Quinn is the author of the fun and wildly successful Chet and Bernie mysteries, a long-running series that features a talking dog and his human, crime-solving, private-eye partner. In Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, Quinn launches a fresh, new dynamic series featuring an aging heroine who becomes embroiled in an exciting, adventurous mystery.  

Recent widow, Mrs. Loretta Plansky, is discerning and spry; a 71-year-old tennis-player. She and her husband, Norm, were a sophisticated couple who made millions with their unlikely invention of a “toaster knife,” a knife that actually toasts bread while you slice it. In order to retire, Loretta and Norm, parents of two adult children, sold the business with high hopes of living a leisurely Florida lifestyle of ease and comfort. However, things didn’t quite go according to plan. Norm died, and then Mrs. Plansky, hip replaced, decided to downsize. She moved from their large home into a new residence, an “itty-bitty” condo on Little Pine Lake—situated only a few miles from keeping tabs on her pesky, temperamental, 98-year-old father, who resides in an upscale assisted living community. Mrs. Plansky’s children and grandchildren don’t live nearby, but they climb out of the woodwork, gracious and attentive as can be when they need something—mainly money. 

When tired and spent Mrs. Plansky receives a frantic, distressing phone call from someone whom she believes is her grandson--he needs $10,000 to post bail for a DUI arrest--she gives him what he asks for without question. Mrs. Plansky later learns, however, the call was a fraud perpetrated by overseas criminals who proceeded to wipe out her entire nest egg. When the police and FBI conclude they don’t have enough evidence to solve the whodunnit, Mrs. Plansky becomes intent on taking charge and seeking justice. 

Quinn’s (Bark to the Future, Of Mutts and Men) briskly plotted nail-biter takes unexpected twists and turns nicely balanced by Mrs. Plansky turning to the ghost of her husband. He serves as a silent, tender touchstone empowering her amidst a courageous, complicated quest for retribution. Fearless Mrs.Plansky barrels past her comfort zone and the limitations of her years, setting off to Romania where she plunges head-long into danger. Her age never becomes a detriment. Rather, she works it to her advantage, employing great ingenuity to solve a crime that elevates her into an immensely likeable, wholly appealing heroine.

 

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by Spencer Quinn

Forge Books, $26.99 hardcover, 304 pages, 9781250843333

Publishing Date: July 25, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different from) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (June 5, 2023), link HERE

A shortened version of this review was published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (July 28, 2023). Link HERE to read that review.

 

You Should Have Known

A deeply thought-provoking, intimately drawn psychological thriller about an elderly woman who sets out to avenge her granddaughter’s death.

A sharp, sensitive, self-aware 72-year-old intimately narrates You Should Have Known, a beautifully drawn psychological literary thriller--and an accomplished first novel--by Rebecca A. Keller.

 

Francine “Frannie” Greene is a widowed wife and grandmother. This retired nurse still grieves for her husband and a teenaged granddaughter who was killed by a drunk driver years before. The girl’s shattering death deeply affected--and reshaped the lives of--everyone in the family.

 

After sustaining a few falls, Frannie’s adult children convince her to move into a high-end assisted living facility. Frannie is pleasantly surprised by her new living arrangement—she sparks an instant friendship with a woman in the library, Katherine, discovering they share affinities for books, pie and soap operas. Frannie, however, later learns that Katherine’s husband, Nathaniel, is the “reprehensible” judge who accepted a bribe and let off her granddaughter’s killer from serving prison time. Angered Frannie secretly plots revenge on the judge, but her actions go awry. When another resident dies suddenly and an investigation plays out--implicating others in the sudden death--Frannie is forced to face her own evils. Can she stand by and watch another injustice play out?  

 

The suspense of this complex thriller is heightened by Frannie’s wise, introspective narrative voice. Her anger and resentments contrasted against flaring bouts of conscience and self-questioning, make for an immensely thought-provoking psychological portrait that explores themes of what it is right and what is just.

 

You Should Have Known by Rebecca A. Keller

Crooked Lane Books, $29.99 hardcover, 9781639102600, 320 pages

Publishing Date: April 4, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (April 7, 2023), link HERE

The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

A wildly fun road trip adventure about an unpredictable octogenarian, with a secret past, who goes on the lam with her 20something caretaker.

Colleen Oakley takes readers on an off-beat, whirlwind road trip adventure--with an underlying serious message--in The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise.

 

Louise Constance Wilt is an unpredictable, whip-smart, Atlanta, Georgia native. With the 84-year-old widow hobbling around on a bum hip, her children, who live hours away, decide it’s time for their mother to have some live-in help. Enter floundering, 21-year-old, Tanner Quimby, whose promising college sports scholarship--and dreams of playing soccer professionally--are sidelined by a very badly broken leg. The arrangement would appear a win-win for the two injured women. However, after some initial, mutual resistance--and Tanner attuned to some dubious red flags in Louise’s behavior--the duo set off on an impulsive road trip. When Louise’s daughter files a missing persons’ report, the family discovers that Louise has actually been living under an alias for years—on an FBI watchlist involving a notorious jewel heist from Boston in the 1970s. Could this be true? And does this have anything to do with Louise and Tanner suddenly going on the lam?

 

Well-structured elements of mystery and suspense infuse this enjoyable friendship story about lives well-lived—however burdened by challenges and questionable choices. A lively plot, off-beat characters and surprising twists bring levity to darker themes that probe issues of feminism and aging. Oakley’s storytelling (The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, You Were There Too) is first rate. Readers will eagerly hop aboard this wildly fun, greatly entertaining ride.

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley

Berkley (Penguin), $27.00 hardcover, 9780593200803, 352 pages

Publishing Date: March 28, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (March 24, 2023), link HERE

Cat Brushing

Deeply resonant, eloquently rendered short stories about women who change and grow with enlightenment amidst the twilight of their lives.

Octogenarian Jane Campbell may be “new” to the publishing industry, but her first book, Cat Brushing, is refreshingly accomplished. The thirteen exquisitely drawn short stories in the collection are woven with wit and bold enlightenment. Each meticulously crafted gem focuses on the lives of aging women who grapple with their shrinking places in the world while coming to terms with feelings and failings, choices and losses.

 

Longing, need and sensuality surprise: A woman who “never put a foot over the line,” lives out her days in a care facility. Having grown distant from her self-interested adult children, the woman experiences an unexpected awakening amidst the gentle touch of her attentive manicurist. A similar theme infuses the tender story of one writerly woman’s life and a sense of loneliness that persists throughout marriages, affairs and motherhood. When she settles alone in a small village later ravaged by a violent storm, she takes in a displaced neighbor whose house is destroyed. The two disparate souls form a bond deeper than either could have imagined.

 

Reflective pleasures abound in the title story, where a woman “judged too old to live alone,” moves in with her son and his younger wife. Feeling “dispossessed… of control and elegance,” the woman and her Siamese cat become fellow inmates. The cat arouses charms and wiles the woman once had in abundance—maybe all is not lost?

 

Many stories deal with women forced to give up rights, respect and desires: An older woman takes a fall that sets in motion a series of events that drag her back to the past and a questionable issue of adoption. A simple lunch resurrects a memory of parental love that suddenly transforms, through the prism of retrospect, into control. A chance meeting on a train depicts the effect of consequential choices. Revenge tastes sweet when an unassuming neighbor privy to a long-suffering, powerless wife and her ogre husband cleverly settles a score.

Aspects of regret, mourning, fantasies, and lost love infuse these eloquently rendered, skillfully plotted stories that pack a wallop. “Ageing is often represented as an accumulation, of disease, of discomforts, of wrinkles,” says the narrator of the title story. However, in these wholly original, late-in-life stories crafted by Jane Campbell, the limitations incurred by aging ultimately become surprising sources of wisdom and empowered liberation.

 

Cat Brushing by Jane Campbell

Grove Press/Grove Atlantic, $26.00 hardcover, 256 pages, 9780802160027

Publication Date: August 9, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND link HERE

 

NOTE: To read this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (June 20, 2022 ), link HERE

 

NOTE: To read a condensed version of this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 12, 2022), link HERE