Welcome to Litsy!

Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series has humor and lively, wonderfully singular characters. Killers of a Certain Age has very bland characters. Female assassins who have aged-out of their jobs at the "museum" fighting against an unknown enemy with an elite force at its disposal. What a great plot. Alas, it was boring. The time skips could have been used in such a way as to make the story more complex; however, mostly they were just tedious.

#Bookspin #Doublespin @TheAromaofBooks

Here are all my faves for this month! All of them were 5⭐️reads, but there was just something special about Killers of a Certain Age. It was Golden Girls-meets-James Bond and I LOVED IT.❤️📚❤️

@Read4life

If you want a fun, fast read and are over a “certain age”, read this one! I‘m determined to keep with these ladies….

I‘m late to the party, but HOLY HELL this was a fun ride! And not just because I‘m a reader of a certain age.

Finished this and immediately put my name on the library waitlist for book 2, which comes out in March.

So, I was a little insulted when handed this with the words, “Mom, this book is so you! It‘s about old lady assassins. You‘ll love it.” I don‘t feel a certain age. But it is really good, and I did love it. “Because she doesn't apologize for anything. She had a rotten start in life, but she's made the best of it. She lives on her own terms. She knows who she is and what she wants, and she does what she is good at. And she has a good time doing it."

This was lots of fun! #wintergames24 #holidaybookdragons #tbr #wintercleardown #tbrlastyear #winterpokemon #friendship #bingoboards #murder #BINGO #cat BINGO #coverugh #wgwordsearch

Starting this one today

"We all have our turn in the end," I said....

She took a deep breath. "Well, I suppose if we die tonight, I'm okay with it. I've had a good life, you know. I was married to Kenneth for over thirty years. Eighteen of them were really happy. That's not so bad."

"What happened to the other twelve?"

"Erectile dysfunction and his abortive attempt to breed Weimaraners."

Well, this is news to me...

Audiobook for my road trip. Loving it so far!
November 24, 2024

I enjoyed this one a lot! The first half started a little slow for me, but once I got to the second half, I finished it in a day! It‘s about four retired women who had a long career as assassins — and now someone is trying to assassinate them. Very entertaining!

This isn't my genre of choice, but I thought it would be more character driven than plot driven given the unusual age of the woman. Definitely a case of it's the reader, not the book.

76/62

#BookSpin
#MountTBR #ReadAway2024

Post morning workout activity 😊

#Bookspin

‘The Museum‘ recruited 4 girls in the ‘70s as Project Sphinx assassins; now they‘re meeting on a cruise to celebrate their retirement. Switches (currently; ch 5) between now (in past tense in the 1st person from Billie‘s POV) and the ‘70s (in - confusingly 🙃 - present tense, 3rd person) when they were recruited & sent on their first mission.
Picked this up because I read & enjoyed Richard Osborne‘s Thursday Club & sequel

July #wrapup

Had a decent reading month. Some surprises. I liked Poor Deer and The Little Liar more than expected and Killers of a Certain Age was fun.

I‘ve been on a real mystery kick lately as I‘ve been having trouble concentrating on other types of stories. I really enjoyed this book of a group of women who have worked as paid assassins (killing bad guys only) who suddenly find their employers attempting to take them out. I did enjoy that even though the women were all seniors their interior monologues really showed that we don‘t really age that much in our heads. Fun book!

I loved this book! What fun! A team of four retired female assassins in their early 60s suddenly have a hit taken out on them, and now they‘re on the job again to eliminate the threat. They kick all kinds of ass, they are smart, fearless, and still in pretty good shape, they can still kill with the best of them, and they can MacGyver themselves out of any situation. And they‘re snarky and funny. Jason Bourne, eat your heart out.

Just started. This is the best first chapter I‘ve read in a long time!

I did not have any 5-star fiction reads this month, but Killers of a Certain Age was exciting, action-packed, and funny.

I liked Big Swiss a lot and I was hoping it would win, but it faltered a bit and at times I was not really sure what it was going for.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold and The Raging Storm were both just fine, nothing remarkable.

#readingbracket2024

February #wrapup

True Diary - in person book club - 4⭐️
The Burden - #MaryWestmacottBookClub - 3.5⭐️
The Postcard - #EuropaCollective - 4.5⭐️
Housekeepers - 3.5⭐️
Killers - #AuldLangSpine - 4⭐️

3.5/5⭐ It feels weird to say this about a book whose main characters are assassins and kill people throughout, but it is fun. It is refreshing to read about older kickass women. The writing is a little weak and repetitive, reminding the reader of events/details that are explained just the chapter before. #bookspin

#52bookclub24 - picked without reading the blurb

#12Booksof2023 This was my favorite book of August, as well as my favorite book for the year!
Four female assassins in their sixties, who've been working as a team for forty years, finally decide it's time to retire. What starts as a retirement celebration cruise ends much differently than they'd planned. @Andrew65

I read a lot of books that I really liked this year! But I think Killers of A Certain Age just really stuck with me because the premise of the story was one I hadn't read before. The Last Devil to Die was a very, very close second- I absolutely loved that entire series!

#Rushathon

I really had fun with this one—it reminded me of The Thursday Murder Club combined with the movie Red with Bruce Willis. The assassin & agency stuff was interesting & the characters entertaining & I enjoyed the mature woman-power vibe. I‘d love another book with these women & it made me want to move the author‘s other books higher on my TBR.

(Just one more book in the #BOTM challenge that I should finish sometime this week! 📚🎉📚)

Finished my first book for #CloakandDaggerChristmas ! Prompt: Last Christmas- read a book published last year.

A soft pick. I enjoyed the plotting/spy craft (this is more James Bond than Jane Marple), but the characters were a little blank. 4 female agents retire from an secret agency at 60 only to find themselves unfairly targeted for a crime. They band together to clear their names and get back at the men who have always underestimated them.

I can relate to that.

This was my first Deanna Raybourn book, and it was a fun read. It's like the Thursday Murder Club mixed with James Bond, but they're all women. I would recommend this to my mom, but it's a little too crass in places.

Old ladies can be surprising. Especially when they are assassins. Lots of fun.

This looks like a fun one to usher October out with.

I really enjoyed this story. Heard about it on a podcast & loved the premise of older women assassins. Has a lot of killing, as you would expect from a book about assassins, but it was fun to see how they planned. Liked the characters as well. 4⭐️

There were things about this book that irked me (not just the high body count), but in the end I enjoyed the Deanna Raybourn of it. Humor, insight, and little bit of raunchiness. It also gets at least half a star for one character‘s monologue on women‘s guilt, which reminded me a little of America Ferrara‘s speech from the Barbie movie.

Another book completed for #summersendreadathon and extended #rushathon

Great beginning. Unique concept. It was funny and different, but fell flat for me the further in I got. I just thought the story drug on a bit and I got bored toward the middle of the book. I never really connected with the characters fully and I felt like the story was missing something. It wasn‘t terrible, but it wasn‘t as good as I expected it to be.

Bit of a shout FOR feminism and AGAINST ageism, but mostly just well-paced, well-plotted violent fun.
More action adventure than spy mystery, with a 'gang's all here' feel. Sort of like an assassin's travelogue/memoir. 1/?

What are the odds Raybourn saw the same Mythbusters episode I did...😏

Head cannon: The old house these to-be-assassins are gathering at in the flashback is the same estate that Speedwell and Stoker live on in Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series. 😊

Four retiring female assassins for a secret organization set off on a retirement cruise as a gift from their organization. Only to find out that they are being targeted themselves. It was a good listen over audio. The very end of the book was a little cryptic. I might need to find a physical copy to reread the end. Otherwise an enjoyable read. #bookspin book

Evidently off white, red and black (plus blade!) are a winning combination for murder books, whether American or translated Japanese. Here's hoping it's a colour scheme that works out better for me than the violet/magenta one did!

Another book full of coincidences. These 4 women retired from a secret organization called The Museum. Their mission-at the beginning was to hunting down the neo by nazis and later this vision expanded. Now, they are in danger and they want to know why, they will investigate this why and who is behind that mission.
The ending was so abrupt. 3⭐️
#TheForgottenBookClub
#ISpyBingo July bold fount @Clwojick
#BookSpinBingo (#2) @TheAromaOfBooks

Good idea. But boring

Four women, instead of the retirement package they expected, find themselves on the wrong end of a kill order from the very organization of assassins they worked for. Good thing these ladies know what they‘re doing.

An absolutely delightful romp, with four charming assassins & their entourage. Fast paced, & intense action. I would have liked a little more character depth & the flashbacks felt unnecessary, but I had a lot of fun! 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Well this book was fun! I adored the four main women in this book. They were some funny badasses. The plot moved quickly and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. It was different to see Deanna Raybourn writing a contemporary book, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

"My mother always says it's common as pig tracks to go around with a run in your stocking," Helen says, eyeing Billie's ripped hosiery critically.

Deanna Raybourn always has fantastic opening lines.

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have spent their lives as deadly assassins for the Museum. When they set out on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own and realize they're marked for death. To get out alive, they have to turn against their own organization and teach them what it means to be a woman - and a killer - of a certain age.

Four female assassins in their sixties, who've been working as a team for forty years, finally decide it's time to retire. What starts as a retirement celebration cruise ends much differently than they'd planned.

This is a very fast-paced book. It is your typical assassin type plot where their organization turns on them, except the ladies are in their sixties.
It was very entertaining the whole way through, it's definitely worth a read.

#killersofacertainage #standalone

This was a lot of fun! Four retired female assassins have become targets by the very secretive organization they used to work for. They must band together to figure out why they were targeted and who in the organization is responsible for the order, so they can then turn the tables!

#bookspinbingo
#JoysofJune

Female assassins from a mysterious organization have become the target after their retirement. This group of ladies must band together to kill before they are killed themselves. Interesting to read this alongside The Bandit Queens. So many lady killers! It was hard not to compare this to the former which I enjoyed more. Still making my way through #auldlangspine 😊