The writing in this is so chunky/clunky, and is extremely tell instead of show, like who is saying this out loud; "As an African American active in civil rights, Edith helped us engage with the world in a new way", ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU BOTH KNOW EDITH! like why say that or bring it up?! authors you can 100% show this and never ever just tell me something like this!

Lots of random characters to keep track of, kinda gave up on that. The actual mystery wasn't too hard to figure out itself.

If you cleaned up the writing and stop providing way too much information by having characters just spitting out random shit, this could be decent enough.

I really enjoyed this light mystery provided by Netgalley. #TheNursingHomeHoax was a fun read with good character development, especially with the 3 senior sleuths. I felt like the book was detailed enough to keep interesting, but light enough to be a quick read.

The Nursing Home Hoax is a cozy amateur sleuth series starter featuring a pair of octogenarian friends written by Dr. Shelley Thrasher & Ann Faulkner. Released 15th July 2025 by Bold Strokes Books, it's 176 pages (ebook format) and is available in paperback and ebook. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

Although the characters' ages are firmly in the senior range, they act and think (and speak) like much younger characters. There's a definite Scooby-Do meets Nancy Drew vibe, very light, campy, and whimsical.

The mystery itself is engagingly constructed and does eventually tie up most of the loose ends. It's told in third person, but the characters are so interchangeable that it's somewhat difficult to keep them straight. There aren't an overabundance of characters, but it's not always easy to remember which is which (especially given their similar dialogue patterns and behaviors).

Three and a half stars. The romantic subplot is sweet and it's fun to see older protagonists who aren't only included for comedic effect.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

They're old not dead and want to get up to something. Taylor and Marilee are longtime friends who have a college friend move back to their hometown. while visiting their friend they find someone has been scamming senior citizens and they decide to get up to some investigating. I loved the relationships that the women built with the young people that they brought in to help them with the more tech aspects of the investigation. Cute story.

DNF
The writing is not very good. The dialogue is very basic. It felt like a class assignment. 80 year old don't talk like that.
I was looking forward to a cozy mystery but it wasn't cozy, funny or sensitive.
I was given this ARC in exchange for an honest review

This mystery was a very hard read even though at times it was amusing. There was something about the dialogue and characters that threw me for a loop and didn't click. I'm hoping if this is the start of a series, the next book will flow easily.


Thanky you Bold Strokes Books and NetGalley.

DNF @ 33%

This was such a fun premise, especially with the promise of some queer romance, which would be refreshing for the retirees-solving-mysteries genre.

Unfortunately, that's the best thing I can say about this. The dialogue is so horrendous that the only reason I read past page 2 is that this is an ARC, and I wanted to give it a decent shot so I could be fair in my review. The dialogue is the clunkiest info-dumping, "as you know Bob" exposition I've read in a very long time. There's no difference between the characters' voices and they all sound utterly robotic.

I really wish this had been better written and edited, because it did have promise. I'm a huge fan of The Thursday Murder Club and A Man on the Inside, so I am very much the target audience for this, but it would need a lot more work to deliver on its potential.

DNFed, as I did not get on well with the writing. Both the prose and the dialogue were clogged with tell-don't-show info-dumping, and the character interactions were stiff and unnatural as a result. The characters as described should have charmed me, but they sound so wooden I can't think of them as real people. It's a shame, because the character types and the mystery itself are right up my alley, but I can't continue when the writing quality irks me so badly.

This cozy mystery centered around octogenarians trying to solve a scam in a local nursing home and featured a pair of teenagers who were helping to solve the case. While it wasn't a bad book, it simply wasn't for me. I found the writing style frustrating at times and struggled to connect with the characters; I didn't really like any of them, except for the two teenagers. The older women in the story seemed extremely stiff and overly formal, which I felt did not represent the elderly well. The character writing and dialogue felt unnatural to me. Having spent a lot of time with older individuals throughout my life, both growing up and currently, I found the portrayal lacking authenticity. It's unfortunate because I was looking forward to this book. I hope that if the author continues the series, she allows the characters to be more relaxed and less formal with one another.

This novel was a bite-sized cozy adventure with two endearing main characters and quite a lot to say about everything that older people have to offer - not despite, but rather thanks to, their age. Lifelong friends Marilee and Taylor have grown tired of the monotony that comes with retirement, and when they catch wind of a series of suspicious scams happening at a home for the elderly in their vicinity, the two women take it upon themselves to find out what's going on and, more importantly, who is behind it. In their quest to untangle the mystery, they recruit two teenage girls who turn out to, just like Marilee and Taylor, have many more resources and aces up their sleeves than one might think!

Something that I rarely (if ever) see addressed in books, but sadly witness every single day, is ageism. How often do we assume that children are ignorant, that teenagers can't be trusted since they are lazy and volatile, or that elderly people are forgetful, slow and childish? Age-based prejudices harm most, if not all, age groups, but for some reason isn't discussed nearly as often as it should. In that sense, I appreciated that "The Nursing Home Hoax" was unapologetically critical of ageist attitudes and called them out. Neither our main characters nor the residents at the Silverado home for the elderly are, at any point, depicted in a negative light; nor are they relegated to passive roles while middle-aged adults take care of everything. This was really refreshing, and sets the novel apart for me. Not only does the book confront and debunk myths and negative stereotypes about elderly people, though. It also highlights how resourceful and experienced they happen to be in many ways, despite our tendency as a society to patronize them for struggling at times with technology or the digital world they did not get to grow up or work with, oftentimes.

In this sense, the book also addresses a very real issue that elderly people face nowadays, which are digital scams. AI phishing in particular plays a huge role in this novel, as it's used to deceive elderly people into giving up their life savings to supposedly help a family members. But there are also discussions of text scams; think your average SMS claiming that you've got a parcel at the post office, or claiming that you were given a speeding ticket that you must pay within 24h using the link they provide at the bottom. Both scams, but particularly the latter, target people across all age groups but often pose a greater risk for older people who might have trouble with understanding smartphones and computers - let alone detecting the subtleties that authorities recommend looking at to determine whether the e-mail or the SMS you received is legit. There is still too little discussion of these hoaxes and the impact they've got on elderly people, who are often patronised by their environment rather than taught adequate cybersecurity skills.

Regarding the younger characters, Zooey and Gloria, it was quite refreshing to have teenagers who were realistically mature. This might sound odd, but oftentimes teens written by adults outside of the YA genre don't feel authentic because they are either too childish, or too adult-like. In this novel, Zooey and Gloria felt like actual teens who had a good heart but were still a little impulsive and cheerful in that sweet sixteen kind of way. It felt really great to see an intergenerational team at work, and I loved that both the elderly and these teens were really respectful of each other.

I do think that the novel felt a little flat in terms of character depth, since they all had extremely similar narrative voices and weren't really fleshed out in terms of mannerisms, dreams and goals, vulnerabilities and backstories. There were a few instances in which showing was neglected in favour of telling, which might have worked better if they'd been written in a more dynamic and less expositive way, and I did also miss a little more work on developing the bond between Marilee and Taylor. Other than a quick dialogue they shared, there isn't much in the way of showing us how they feel about each other, and I wish there had been more emphasis on the characters' emotions and feelings because, at least in regards to Marilee and Taylor, it would've been a wonderful opportunity to explore how the different interpersonal relationships humans have look like for elderly people who might not have the same schedules, priorities, or opportunities that younger age groups do. In fact, I don't think I've seen more than a handful of books that featured older people falling in love or out of it, since oftentimes they are either widowed or already married and in a stable relationship that doesn't change much throughout the book. This was why it felt like a missed oportunity to have Marilee and Taylor remain quite ambiguous and static in the ways they behaved around each other.

While the plot had low stakes, and the whoddunit wasn't hard to figure out, I still appreciated that the characters had to put in the effort to crack the case. Not just that, though. Another thing that was amazing was that there was room for joy and celebration, rather than getting the book over with as soon as the case was solved.

Overall this was a nice read, and I hope that the authors will remain on this track.

This could be quite amusing - but you have to be prepared to put the work in to read it. And I found it a hard read.
The concept of having a group of 80 somethings team up with a couple of teenagers (who can do the running around and get jobs in the nursing home as undercover sleuths) is interesting.
The actual crime that they investigate is ok - although the perpetrators are obvious from their first mention.
They all suck as far as tailing someone - they are advised at the end of the book that they need to take a module in how to do it!

I found it overly wordy - chunky and clunky.

I liked the fact that the main characters were all in their 80s - and there were plenty of them.
I'm going to assume that there will be more of the Senior Sleuth Mysteries in the future. Hopefully without having to do lots of introductions they will be easier reading.

*3.5

This book is good enough. The mystery is a little off for my but I appreciate the characters and the queer platonic relationship. Love the reps, really. I love the characters. However the mystery was to easy to solve for my. I found the culprit like in the first 20s pages.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Thanks to Bold Strokes Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This light-hearted, cozy mystery set in East Texas centers around three college friends who have recently reconnected as they enter their eighties. Slightly bored and looking for new adventures, they turn to sleuthing. I'm afraid I don't remember enough about Nancy Drew to appreciate the explicitly stated homage, but I liked the relationships, particularly the QPR (queer-platonic relationship) between two of the main characters. I found the opening jarringly abrupt and am somewhat sceptical as to whether well-to-do lawyers actually continue practicing into their eighties, but perhaps my youth is against me there.