| Thank you #partner @berkleypub & author @samanthadowning for the free e-access! |

The title of this book is my (current) life’s motto or theme, lol! 👵

📖 (𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥):
𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙧 𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙣𝙨 • 𝙢𝙪𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 • 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 • 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧 • 𝙘𝙖𝙩 & 𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚 • 𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞-𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙤 • 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙖 & 𝙨𝙪𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚 • 𝙖𝙣𝙭𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙮 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙫𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 • 𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙧-𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙠𝙞!!𝙚𝙧 • 𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙝 𝙢𝙚𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 • 𝙗𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 •

❤️:
Books like this one make my heart happy & go thump thump! I can’t stress enough how good this was.

You can’t help but feel some “adoration” for FMC Lottie Jones.
She’s a grandmother, a church goer, she minds her own business, and she’s a retired serial ki!!er.

🔨:
Is there something wrong with me because I wanted her to get away with her crimes? Not that I wanted her to hurt anyone, but Lottie’s cover-up game was strong, and I kept hoping she didn’t forget any details. 👀

If only people from her past could have left things alone, maybe she wouldn’t have had to come out of retirement, right?

I found Too Old for This engaging from the very beginning, and, at times, a propulsive read.

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮𝙚𝙙:
-𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴
-𝘋𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘵 & 𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦
-𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥
-𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦
-𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨
-𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦.

📝:
You will want to ✔️ add to TBR, trust me. 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬, 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘳𝘦-𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥.

I picked this one up and could not put it down!
Lottie Jones is not your average sweet old lady…unless your definition of sweet includes sharp wit, a dark past, and maybe a few bodies buried along the way. 🫣 Lottie’s quiet retirement of church bingo nights takes a deadly turn when Plum Dixon shows up on her doorstep. She’s filming a docuseries and wants her to tell her side of the story….Aaaand she’s doing it with or without her. Now, Lottie is forced out of retirement.
Samantha Downing delivers with this one…sharp, wickedly fun, and dripping with suspense. The mix of dark humor, tension, and twists made this a wild, unforgettable ride.

👵🏻𝗧𝗢𝗢 𝗢𝗟𝗗 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦👵🏻
𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔢𝔯
🗓️𝙿𝚞𝚋 𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎: 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝟷𝟸, 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟻
🤩𝕄𝕪 𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘: 𝟜.𝟝 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕤 ★★★★✮(ʳᵒᵘⁿᵈⁱⁿᵍ ᵘᵖ ᵗᵒ ⁵ ᶠᵒʳ ᴳᴿ)

🤏𝚃𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚢 𝚝𝚒𝚍𝚋𝚒𝚝...a retired serial killer quiet life is upended by an unexpected visitor…

🔨𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚊𝚢...Lottie may be my fav antihero character I have read in a while!! 🙌She attends bingo at church, potluck nights with her senior friends, but she had a bad habit of killing people too. Whoops. 😬 She wants to continue this quiet life she lives now, but something has interrupted that…also, killing people with all the technology 🎥& an aging body 🩼isn’t quite as simple anymore. 🫣🫤 You will {oddly} be rooting for this tea 🫖 & cookie 🍪 serving serial killer. The dark humor MAKES this book & I absolutely devoured it! 🤩

Is she really that smart?
This mystery author has a great idea, create a female age approximately 70 yrs old who has been a serial killer for the past 40 years. What has been her motivation, how has she evaded being arrested when some very capable people have investigated her, and what has she had to endure in her life that drives her. This is who Lorena Mae Lansdale, our main character, alias Lottie Jones, septuagenarian.is about. Although a quick read, I found the book somewhat lacking in energy and pace. As a recently minted 75-year-old. who is very active feeling in great shape this book (believe it or not) made me think about getting older in a negative way, possibly tainting how I feel about the book.

Thanks to the publisher, Berkley, and book browse for providing this ARC in return for an honest review..

A retired grandma serial killer? Sign me up! Grandma Lottie comes out of retirement, so to speak, when someone shows up on her doorstep trying to make a documentary about her. It’s crazy, yes, but it also hilights the aging process quite well. Lots of fun.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for allowing me to read this ARC. I found this read super enjoyable. What an interesting and funny concept for a story. I liked all the characters and the story moved along with such a pace that I didn't get bored, which is a problem for me recently. Highly recommend this book if you like psychological suspense type books. You're sure to laugh at points.

I really enjoyed this novel; the characters felt real, and the well-paced plot kept me engaged from start to finish.

Murder is Hard Work
I didn't expect to have so much in common with a serial killer. We both are mature women who like to problem solve. We both enjoy church activities. We both are experiencing the invisibility that comes with aging. We are both handy with tools. I found this novel to be delightfully original. I am not obsessed with true crime podcasts or books, but I do enjoy the occasional well written mystery and this fits the bill. Lottie is so matter of fact as she goes about her killings, always justified of course, that it does not become gruesome.
This novel held my interest from beginning to end. I will be recommending Too Old For This it to all my reading friends. I look forward to reading more novels by this author.

What an amazing book, I was hooked from the first page. A fascinating villain you just have to adore. Great writing, fun, exciting, can't wait for it to be published and available to all my reading friends. Thanks to netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. Definitely a highlight in 2025.

Lottie isn’t your typical 75yr old. Lottie used to be Lorena, a woman accused of multiple murders in the 80s, she got off, but was she actually innocent? People start showing up at Lottie’s doorstep wanting to talk about her past, and things start to get too messy for Lottie to keep track of. This book made me rethink my chamomile and earl grey teas.

What an entertaining serial killer thriller! I was hooked from the start and found myself rooting for Lottie, despite her obvious guilt. This novel was an engaging pageturner and even when you saw the twists coming, they were still thrilling. I enjoyed it right to its very satisfying end. This was a case of cheering for the one you shouldn’t and not for those you should. That’s not an easy task and Samantha Downing did it with ease. I look forward to reading more from this author.

HOOKED. From start to finish! I think I picked up about 6 books and could not get into any of them, but I read the first chapter of this one and had to KNOW what was going to happen. Also, why was I rooting for the serial killer? 😂

This was so good! I think there should be more books about 75 year old women serial killers, I would read every single one - especially if they were written by @smariedowning this book was addictive, shocking and will keep you on the edge of your seat!

Thank you to the publisher for the arc in exchange for my honest review. PUB DATE: 8/12

This story has such a unique premise and I was here for every absurd and relatable moment of it. Downing has crafted a cleverly killer thriller. (Say that 5 times fast.) Lottie is so excellently written, you'll almost forget what she has done. We love our morally grey characters and Lottie is no exception. Though this might be the first one who plays bingo and brings spinach dip to the potluck....

This story is a wild ride that is full of sass and dark humor. Is it a life altering book? No. But you will have one heck of a time reading about the escapades of a 75 year old serial killer. And who knows, maybe you'll find it as oddly delightful as I did.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley for the early copy!

This book is a phenomenally fun ride!

Lottie is an alluring, whip-smart, resourceful, and incredibly self-aware main character who just cannot help herself sometimes. The self-awareness keeps her human, it keeps her cogent, and it holds in check certain other traits that could be really frustrating for the reader. A lot of fiction written from the killer's POV falls into this trap of a character who's either outrageously and pointlessly sadistic (seemingly just for the thrill of it) or someone who's lost all of their human qualities to this cold, calculating, robotic demeanor. I understand both are derived from stereotypes that have roots in real true crime, but their use in fiction has gotten sort of exhausting. It's hard to nail that, and to make it realistic. Because these are still human killers of other humans, they are still *people*, and that is why they and their hard-to-pin-down strangeness make the average Joe so squirmy. If they're good at hiding, most people won't notice their depravity.

This book was an ultra-huge gust of fresh air, in that sense. Lottie was so well-written, I didn't realize how passionate I am about that until we get this thought from her later in the book: "How can I not smile at that." It made my toes curl a little, and it reminded me who's perspective I was reading. She'd lulled me into forgetting who she was even though I was there, with her, for everything, and even in this relatively non-violent moment, she's still... herself.

The plot wasn't as exemplar as the character writing, but I think that's just because it ultimately didn't matter as much. Lottie WAS the plot. The whole narrative is wrapped & twisted up around her. The other characters really sort of fade away. Which I do think may have been intentional, as I think she's supposed to possess a certain magnetism.

Read this if you like thrillers!

Meet Lottie Jones… or should I say Lorena Mae Lansdale? 😏 She may be a bingo-playing, potluck-attending, seemingly harmless septuagenarian now, but back in the day, she had a little habit of making people disappear—especially if they crossed her or her son. And she was very good at it.
Now, she’s retired in Baycliff, Oregon, living in a house funded by the city after her wrongful conviction years back (or was it?). But when an overly ambitious documentarian, Plum Dixon, knocks on her door wanting to feature her story in a new true-crime series, Lottie has to take care of this situation, the last thing she wants is to dredge up her past on TV. ☠️
What follows is a spectacular domino effect of chaos, dark humor, and, murder. And I say spectacular because this book is a mixture of Dexter and Deanna Raybourn’s “Killers of a Certain Age” series, making away with someone and chopping them up was executed so nonchalantly, as if it was just another day at the office. It was horrifying yet hilariously impressive.
You know what she’s doing is wrong, but Samantha Downing works her magic once again, making you root for this dangerously clever anti-heroine. (I mean, if we can cheer for Dexter, we can cheer for Lottie, right? 🤭)
Beyond the dark comedy and thrilling plot, Too Old For This also shines a light on the struggles of aging—the way society underestimates, isolates, and often ignores those getting older. Seeing Lottie navigate modern technology and societal shifts? Relatable. Seeing her wield a hammer when necessary? Even more relatable. 👀
If you love:
✨ Morally gray main characters
✨ Sharp, dark humor
✨ Unhinged, but oddly loveable serial killers
✨ Fast-paced, twisty storytelling
Then Too Old For This needs to be on your 2025 TBR! 📚🔥

Sharing Lottie's invisibility cloak of a certain age but fortunately, not sharing her history, I am mercifully not haunted by the possibility of someone waiting to document a life-history best forgotten.

My junk drawer, filled with tools, has never looked so sinister...and the walk-in shower, so treacherous. And the murders...increasingly outrageous, somehow give rise to an inappropriate smile...but surely not laughter!

Initially a seemingly innocuous tale, the tension quickly rises as the bodies pile up and Lottie is forced into more devious methods to avoid detection.

How could a book about murders be so entertaining...and how could I be nodding in appreciation of this clever septuagenarian? I’m not sure, but I am heading to my library to find more by this clever author.

It’s all in the words….

Too Old For This

I’ve never been interested in the geriatric genre of thrillers but there’s a first time for everything .

I like things that go bump in the night and scare the bajesus out of me but let me tell you, Lottie, she gave me a run for my money .

Lottie, is a total vibe

I aspire to be Lottie in my elder years, store bought spinach dip and all .

What I loved so much was Downings words. I never thought you could really get that true “fusion” between thrillers and humor.

Downing sets my soul on fire and I am totally here for it

Each page fluid, entertaining and exciting… I couldn’t wait to see what this crazy old bird was up to next .

Downing has never failed us and she sure hasn’t now. Grab your own copy August 12, 2025 or better yet, preorder so you don’t forget!

Big thank you to Samantha Downing, Berkley and NetGalley for allowing me the honor to read a sure to be bestseller (early!) in exchange for an honest review! Y’all are the bees knees!

Check out this teaser :

A retired serial killer’s quiet life is upended by an unexpected visitor. To protect her secret, there’s only one option left—what’s another murder? From bestselling author Samantha Downing.

Lottie Jones thought her crimes were behind her.

Decades earlier, she changed her identity and tucked herself away in a small town. Her most exciting nights are the weekly bingo games at the local church and gossiping with her friends.

When investigative journalist Plum Dixon shows up on her doorstep asking questions about Lottie’s past and specifically her involvement with numerous unsolved cases, well, Lottie just can’t have that.

But getting away with murder is hard enough when you’re young. And when Lottie receives another annoying knock on the door, she realizes this crime might just be the death of her…

A unique premise about a 75-year-old named Lottie Jones who is a grandmother and a church-going bingo player. And also a serial killer.
I had high hopes for this as I LOVED Downing's My Lovely Wife. This story was a fun escape with dark humor and a wild ride, but don't expect any big twists. It was entertaining, though.

5 thriller killer stars

Samantha Downing has crafted another winner here with this tale of a retired serial killer. Lottie Jones is a character seared into my memory! My jaw dropped several times throughout this book as we get a glimpse into her mind and activities. My advice--be very careful what you say around Lottie, as you might be her next victim and she leaves no clues behind.

Lottie, now 75, is living under a new identity, with new friends at church, bingo, potlucks, and a lovely house. Why does a pesky podcaster, Plum, turn up wanting to dive into the past? How did Plum even find her and why is she so persistent? That will just never do and Lottie needs to take care of her.

Lottie thought she had put all the suspicions from her past and the dogged detective behind her, but Plum showed up and threw her life into a tailspin. Now Lottie knows that she has to be so much more careful than in the past, with cameras everywhere and electronic footprints, it’s so tiring to keep track of the lies and murders.

This one kept me on the edge of my seat as I waited to see if Lottie had finally met her match several times in the book. Is it bad to root for a serial killer? That’s some skillful writing there that I was considering doing just that!

My thanks to Berkley for the opportunity to read and honestly review this one. Scheduled to publish 8.12.2025. Mark your calendars now!

4.5 stars - I have enjoyed author Samantha Downing's past books, so I had to request her latest, "Too Old for This". And I LOVED it! What a great premise - a sweet little old lady (Lottie) who just also happens to be a retired serial killer!! And what's going to happen when an investigative journalist knocks on her door to upset her quiet life, hmmm?? What fun, and full of snark & dark humor - I couldn't put it down! Really enjoyed & highly recommend! Many, many thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for my advance readers copy - greatly appreciate the opportunity to review it!!