A truly delightful read that showcases aging and what it can do to your body and mind, but also about a group of eccentric elderly people who want to live on their own terms. Plus, of course… murder…

This is a cozy mystery of sorts, I think. I’m not completely familiar with the genre. But what starts as one murder turns quickly into two among this group of people living their sunset years in (and among) a vast house. Agnes Sharp and her housemates are determined to find out what happened while trying to avoid suspicion from the police who are now constantly sniffing around.

I adored Agnes. She was a fierce woman. I felt so strongly for her in this book as she maneuvers through her jumbled memories. The fear of your mind being active but your body not working so well, and reversed, where your body works but your kind cannot keep up is a terrible thing. It is in fact a major fear of mine. So, seeing this play out for her was heartbreaking but also uplifting.

I also really loved that we get to see this group of wild old folks now as they are, but we get little glimpses into the lives they led and the careers they had.

My interest in the plot did begin to wane a little here and there, but the scatterbrained-ness of the story telling matched the ambience.

I loved this book. We have a houseful of independent older people who have committed to living together and taking care of each other until the end. How is that end defined? Well, that’s part of the exploration in this book.

We also have two dead bodies, one from Sunset Hall and one from the manor across the way. Are the two deaths connected? That’s the mystery to be solved.

This book is a cozy mystery, involving plenty of quirky shenanigans. But there’s also an exploration of some deeper issues - how to deal with aging bodies and unreliable minds, when to let go of life and when to embrace it, and what friendship and kinship really mean.

The author hints at backstory for multiple Sunset Hall residents that we don’t get in this book. I do hope there are more books to come.

Thank you to Soho Press and NetGalley for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this book was very quirky and funny. However, I found this book to be a little bit slow at times!

Thank you to NetGallet for the advanced readers copy of this book!

The premise of this book--seniors with backgrounds in police work sharing a home while each deals with their own infirmities--is a novelty that works. Add to this the humor of elderly folks who realize their time on earth is limited--and a main character who is a tortoise--and you have a quirky but entirely satisfying murder mystery. This should be popular with fans of Caroline Cooney's The Grandmother Plot and Before She Was Helen.

All the stars! Senior citizens solving mysteries is a niche I cannot stop reading. The first chapter with the turtle was quirky and drew me into the story very quickly.

This is the latest book in the new trend of elderly people getting together to solve crimes. In this outing, Agnes Sharp is living in the small English village of Duck End. She owns a large house so she and her friend Lillith decided to move in together and offer lodging to other seniors. In this way, they can avoid moving into a nursing home and can monitor one another for general declines in mental and physical health. Since part of the agreement to this living arrangement is that they will ensure no one will be taken into a nursing home or hospital for end-of-life care, there is an unspoken arrangement about what might happen if this should occur. The novel begins when the body of Lillith is discovered in a garden area behind the house. She has been shot, but there is no sign of a gun. Soon, the police discover that another woman, elderly bed-bound Mildred Puck, who lives nearby, has also been found shot dead. While the strange collection of residents at Agnes's house confound the police, they begin to suspect that perhaps one of them knows more about the deaths than they are saying. Add into this the tortoise Hettie, the big dog Brexit (who arrives with a new resident), and the temporary visit of grandson Nathan, and Agnes will be kept busier than ever trying to get to the bottom of the mystery as well as navigate all the chaos in the house.

I'm sure if this were made into a film, all of the interesting personalities and strange situations would be quite funny. I found the book a bit hard going because the author focused on the various infirmities of the elderly residents. While I'm sure all of that information was meant to help accurately portray the day to day lives of elderly people (who are quite engaged and fun, despite their issues), it made for sometimes tedious reading. Nearly everyone seemed to forget where they were and what was going on quite often. Agnes had periods of deafness and every time she appeared on the page her hip was acting up. The character of Edwina apparently had been some sort of secret agent in her working years, but now seems childlike and silly. It was a struggle for me to finish this one.

I have such mixed feelings about this book. I nearly put it down early on - the twee treatment of a tortoise as part of an eccentric chosen family as well as the sheer implausibility of much of the action put me off, but I was intrigued by the challenge of crime solving when old and infirm, and the idea of co-living among elderly folks who don't want to life past their ability to see themselves as fully themselves was rather nicely complicated by characters realizing they weren't sure when that moment might come. In the end, I found myself enjoying it, for the most part, but it was something of an uneven ride.

Also - a very minor irritant! The constant uses of exclamation points! It was too much!!

charming but slow. had to put this one down wasn’t my cup of tea! know it will be someone else’s though

Pretty good. Quirky seems to be the word for this one. It's not high art, but good for a light read. If you don't like a book that jumps around this is not for you.

Thanks very much for the free copy for review!!

I liked the cover design, and thought this book looked like something I might enjoy.

This was quite a fun, quirky book to read. I was expecting a humorous cosy mystery and that was what it felt like. The characters were fun, and there were a lot of humorous moments, but there were also a few more serious moments that I enjoyed as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.

I love books that have stories involving senior citizens! I love how the book starts out and I found the characters throughout the story to be pretty charming. The ending was a little lacking but overall great book. Thank you Netgalley

This book was a slow start. There is a lot going on and the plot seems to jump around a bit but once you realize that it’s being told by various individuals of a certain age, it makes a lot more sense and it gets a lot more exciting. As a huge fan of Miss Marple and the Golden girls, it was wonderful to read a book where the mystery is being solved by a group of hilarious Older individuals. If this continues as a series, I would love more backstory on our characters, and perhaps more exploration of their younger years. Cold case?

Rently there have been numerous mystery novels written involving senior citizen sleuths. Therefore, I was very curious to read The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp. The beginning was quite unique involving a slow moving tortoise named Hettie. She slowly travels through the garden of Sunset Hall, enters the garden shed then continues her crawl over the dead body lying there. Who and why the body is lying there eventually comes to light after we meet the residents of Sunset Hall.

Agnes Sharp owns the house but shares it with several senior citizens. Their backgrounds are murky as is the reason they are house-sharing. When several more bodies are found in the neighborhood, the residents decide to solve the crime. The story meanders as do the residents with their various infirmities which periodically makes the reader wonder if the residents will be able to solve the mystery.

The resolution felt a bit contrived in my opinion. I would have liked more backstory for the characters also all of whom I found interesting. However, I found the story entertaining enough to finish.

Thanks to NetGalley and Soho Press.

Fans of the Thursday Murder Club will love this book! I admit, I was a little thrown off at first when I realized the first chapter was from a turtles POV! This book is so fun and comforting, I loved it and have adopted the residents of Sunset Hall as my honorary grandparents.

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

A bit TOO quirky for me. Found it too slow to keep my interest and did not finish. I wondered if there was something 'lost in translation' as I note it was translated from german to english

Quirky characters and a bit slow at times, but I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

3.5 Stars This is a charming book I found slow in places (to be expected in a story about elderly quirky people and a tortoise) but hilarious throughout. Six eccentric senior citizens live in a dilapidated house, Sunset Hall. They have an assortment of infirmities common to growing old, a broken hip, deafness, blindness, wheelchair bound, mental confusion, and problems with long-term and short-term memory. Still, they are resolved to keep their independence. The house is owned by Agnes, a retired ex-cop. The residents are Agnes, three other women, two men, Brexit, their dog, Hettie, a tortoise and a demanding grandson visiting. Not to mention a former resident, Lillith, who has been murdered and her body hidden in the shed.

When a gun, the murder weapon, mysteriously appears in the centre of the dining room table, they feel someone is taunting them, and suspicion enters the household. Could the killer be one of them? The gun is soon safely hidden away. They are nervous when the police arrive, but it is not about Lillith. Police are inquiring about an elderly next-door neighbour who has been murdered. Could the murders be connected? It is decided that if they discover who killed the neighbour, they could also blame them for Lillith's death. Now a third woman is dead. Is there a serial killer targeting elderly women, and are they in danger?

Despite her broken hip and back pain, Agnes decides to gather the rest of the household to venture into the run-down town of Duck End to investigate and look for answers. Not all the villagers welcome the intrusion. They gossip that the group from Sunset Hall is a bunch of old hippies, and the killer is probably one of the woman's many gentleman callers. While questioning the villagers and looking for clues, much embarrassment occurs on both sides, and hilarity ensues. Later, the residents of Sunset Hall find themselves in danger from an unknown person. Agnes is trapped, the grandson is missing and may be kidnapped, and there is a destructive fire.

The solution to the crimes is complex, with tangled motives and identities.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this mystery/ comedy. t is due to be published on August 29th.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟FIVE STARS
LOVED this cosy mystery filled with quirky, eclectic character that don't let age stop them from living life on their own terms. A plot, with twists and turns, will keep you guessing until the end.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Really fun read great characters a group of senior citizens trying to solve a murder.So much fun so well written looking forward to more #netgalley#soho