I loved this book! It's a fun read! It's like desperate housewives but more modern day. I wasn't expecting the ending but it was still a great book!

Pam, Nancy, Shalisa and Marlene have been friends for years, ever since their children were growing up. Their husbands are also similarly close to each other. When one of the the men does unexpectedly, his wife receives and unexpected monetary windfall and it isn’t long before the wives begin plotting to take their husbands down so they are similarly set for life. Will the women be crafty enough to get away with it or have the men been plotting their own plans the entire time?

To make matters more complicated for the wives, all of their retirement money had been squandered by bad investment advice from Pam’s husband Hank. Mix in the possibility of some casino goons willing to break necks and end lives and you have a compelling plot to drive the story.

This book has been posited as a light mystery with a madcap, zany turn of events and I think that’s a very apt description. Though it drags a little in the middle it is still good, clean fun. A cute thriller if a little slow in the middle. 3.5 stars.

I received this advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and feedback.

This was a delightful and refreshing read. It's funny, full of twists and turns and surprisingly full of heart.
The story has an interesting setting, great pacing, and the characters are interesting.
It was a real page turner for me!

As Tolstoy famously wrote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Retirement Plan delves into the lives of four such unhappy couples: Pam and Hank, Shalisa and Andre, Nancy and Larry, and Marlene and Dave. Longtime friends, these couples have weathered unique struggles over the years. But their most recent challenge—a disastrous investment scheme by the husbands—has left all of them financially ruined. When Dave unexpectedly dies and his widow inherits his million-dollar life insurance policy, the other wives start to wonder if their spouses are worth more dead than alive. Meanwhile, their husbands are worried that the consequences of their new get-rich scheme are starting to catch up with them..

The Retirement Plan is a darkly humorous and engaging debut novel from Sue Hincenbergs. Hincenbergs masterfully juxtaposes a familiar suburban settling with dodgy investments, international cartels, hired killers, and other wild escapades. Although the scheming of the spouses is completely unhinged, each of the marriages and interactions between husband and wife are relatable in many ways. Hincenbergs skillfully ties together the couples’ mundane misunderstandings and petty arguments, presenting the reader with both sides of the story. Once the characters are introduced and the plot gets going, the twists and turns make this a delight to read!

Thank you to William Morrow for providing an advance copy of this book for review through NetGalley. All opinions expressed here are my own.

I loved this. I loved the drama, the characters, the story line. I loved all of it. I wish there was second one as a follow up.

Cute fun murder mystery- four couples living life different than they should be thanka to the husbands- one husband dies and widow gets lots of money to move to Florida to live her best life the other women start to think that's what they should be doing- cue the mystery and the drama of what happens next a few twists and turns and the last chapter is a fun one - recommend if you like fun light mysteries!

Four best friends look upon their savings as a way to someday provide them with a luxurious retirement. Little did they know that their husbands' retirement funds hit the skids after a bad investment. Their dreams of a retirement in paradise were gone.
They soon discover their husbands have lucrative life insurance policies. They immediately make a deal with their local town barber, who is known for his ability to make people disappear.
When the husbands begin planning for their lucrative retirement, things go awry, and they find their lives in danger. The wives are on to them, and if they want to stay alive, they are going to have to move quickly.

This book was so much fun! While mourning the unexpected loss of a dear friend 3 couples find themselves in deep with the wrong people. The husbands, trying to recoup retirement funds lost to bad investments and their wives affection, see their buddy’s death as a warning from the folks they’re attempting to swindle. The wives, seeing the huge insurance payment the grieving widow received, start to formulate their own retirement plan which includes offing their husbands to collect their own checks. Hit men, slot machines, miscommunication, and hijinks take center stage but there’s a happy ending. The question is for who?

4.25/5
Pam, Nancy, Shalisa and Marlene were on track for a great retirement until their husbands lost their savings in a dodgy investment deal. Now they are putting retirement into their own hands.
This was an entertaining book & I enjoyed it. There were lots of miscommunication & oops moments ( consequences) but the ending was cute!
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
#TheRetirementPlan

Such a fun read! I was drawn into the story and it really kept me guessing. There are a lot of really clever plot twists, and the characters are hilarious. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants a good vacation read.

The Retirement Plan is an interesting, entertaining read. The characters are flawed, interesting, and relatable. It's also mad caper-ish like early Janet Evanovich. I loved that the main characters are in their 60s. The end drags a bit but stick with it - it's worth it.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing this book, with my honest review below.

I very much enjoyed The Retirement Plan which so perfectly blended humor and some lighter mystery with a ton of action.

A tight friend group of couples runs into some hard times with the wives in the group struggling with the fact that their husbands blew their retirement and savings on a bad investment. The husbands here can do nothing right in the wives eyes, even as they secretly have a con going to recoup their lost funds. When one of the husbands dies suddenly, and it appears he may have been part of a hit (relating to the husbands’ con), the men are terrified they’re next. Little do they know the ladies have gotten the brilliant idea to hire hits on their husbands after learning the wife of the dead man is sitting pretty thanks to his generous insurance payouts - which the husbands had also taken out.

What follows is the most hilarious cat and mouse tale with some side characters who are just the best to read about. I was giggling throughout even as this book added in some great tension. This was so much fun, and while I’m happy with how it ended, I wish it could be part of a series to continue my time with the characters and their adventures!

The Retirement Plan is a funny, take the money and run Florida novel, that many retired women will enjoy reading after spending long day, after long day, with their retired husbands. Readers are given many characters to sort out in the first few chapters to understand who are the good people and who are the bad people. Also, the writing does not flow. The sentences are stilted. Patience is required through the first several chapters to follow the author's writing style, multiple characters, and face-paced plot--but in the end readers are rewarded with an entertaining amateur sleuth novel.

Kudos to the William Morrow social media team because The Retirement Plan was not on my radar (and likely wouldn't have been) until I saw a fun post about the book advertising that it was available as "Read Now" on NetGalley a couple weeks ago. Sometimes you find yourself in the mood to read a silly book that transports you but also doesn't make you think too hard, and this was the right one for the job. In fact, the less you think about this one the better (major suspension of disbelief and about 3/4 of the book was spent rooting for absolutely none of the characters who were too self-absorbed).

This one was a quick, light (well, as light as a book can be where the major plot point is to kill your spouse for retirement money) read where most of the plot is cat and mouse but you aren't sure who is the cat and who is the mouse.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the advance read! The Retirement Plan is expected in May 2025

This was such a fantastic concept and worked well with the dark theme and had that humor that I was looking for. The characters worked well and was funny that they each wanted to kill each other’s spouse. Sue Hincenbergs has a strong writing style and was glad I got to read this.

The characters in this book were hilarious and I loved how much fun I had reading this entire book! The murder mystery and juicy secrets were great elements for these chaotic seniors! LOVE LOVE LOVE!

I love books that center senior citizens, a lot of the time their stories are overlooked. So I was so happy to pick this gem up. This book was so funny and a breeze to get through. Basically, after a bad investment a friend group of married couples will no longer get the retirement they planned for. Until one husband dies and his wife receives a large insurance check. This gets the other wives to thinking. As you can guess chaos soon ensures as they make plans to secure their futures and their husband also makes plans as well.

As they say, the best laid plans ... a funny take on marriage, grudges, mistrust, miscommunication, and hired assassin's? Bored and neglected housewives make a plan, their hubbies make a plan or two, and the mob makes a plan, and the confusion and fun begins. Quite the romp, and there are dogs!

This book was fun and cute but I didn’t like the ending. It was boring and flat ,but other than that it was full of great twists and turns .

Thank you NetGalley and Willam Marrow publishing for this e-book arc in exchange for my honest review

Madcap!
I loved this premise and the constantly evolving and twisty plot! In The Retirement Plan, we meet 4 great friends who are a bit sick of their husbands and the lives they are living. When Marlene's husband is killed in an unnatural event, resulting in a large insurance payout, the other 3 begin to think about the posabilities....

Pam, Nancy and Shalisa realize that they may not be stuck in a rut after all and seek out the help of a contract killer. The contract killer is a villian with a heart. There are mob bosses, casino employees and doublecross upon doublecross - something for everyone, with hilarious events and chatter moving the plot along.
#williammorrow #theretirementplan #suehincenbergs