I never imagined my life could be so settled. I’ve spent decades moving from one down-on-its-luck city to another, living in rented rooms, taking public transportation and working under-the-table jobs. Turns out when you’re paid in cash and have minimal expenses, you can put aside quite a nest egg – enough, a few years ago, to put down money on a place in one of those new communities for so-called active adults. You know, the polite term for senior citizens who aren’t doddering. Yet.
Ours isn’t fancy. You won’t see a pool and tennis courts and billiard rooms and all the amenities found in the nicer retirement communities. But Timeless Pastures – go ahead. Call it Out to Pasture. Everyone else does – possesses the two things I value most: It’s affordable, even for me. And it’s private, tucked away in the middle of South Jersey, whose cornfields and orchards and blueberry farms are not what most people think of when they hear New Jersey. In fact, we’re on the very edge of the Pine Barrens, that vast uninhabited stretch of twisted trees and snaking rivers that has drawn ne’er-do-wells from the beginning of time. For most people, it’s drive-through territory on the way to Philadelphia or Atlantic City. I took one look and thought: location, location, location.
I’ve even made friends here, the first I’ve allowed myself to have in years. We met in our Timeless Reads book group and just clicked, despite our different tastes in books: Mia, all spy thrillers, all the time; George, who only wants to read true crime, and Sasha, who forces us to endure the occasional volume of poetry. I hadn’t realized I was lonely until they filled my life with companionship and laughter.
So, yes, for me Timeless Pastures is perfect. Almost.
Because there’s Babs. Every community like this has a Babs. She’s the head of the Standards and Appearances Committee, who enforces all the rules in what we like to call The Book. It lays out everything we can and cannot do with our homes, down to the color of the shutters and the outward-facing lining of our drapes. Babs likes nothing more than to march around snapping photos of possible violations, then writing up the offenders.
The Book is especially stringent on the subject of pets, which is why its single glaring oversight is so confounding. It limits bird feeders to two per household, but says nothing about someone who foregoes feeders.
Said someone being Babs. Who occupies the other side of my duplex. Who daily tosses handfuls of seeds to hundreds – hundreds! – of pigeons who flock to our shared patio. And do you think those disgusting birds confine their mess to her side of the patio? No, they do not. As I’ve often complained, my patio looks like a Jackson Pollack painting. How many times have I thought, “I could just kill her!”
Oh, how I wish I’d never spoken those words aloud …
A Senior Citizen’s Guide to Life on the Run
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: May 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
Senior citizen Alice Sanders can finally settle into her well-deserved retirement home in New Jersey . . . until her past catches up with her in this enthralling and quirky cozy mystery.
When retired septuagenarian Alice settles into her home within the planned community of Timeless Pastures in New Jersey, she expected a quiet life full of book clubs, mellow gatherings and affable friends. What she didn’t expect was her retirement paradise to be disturbed by pigeons!
Alice confronts her next-door neighbour, Babs, for feeding a flock of them each day, thus causing her backyard to look like a Jackson Pollock painting, but not knowing how devious Babs can be, and unconsciously unleashing events that could be dangerous or even worse – deadly!
When Babs is found dead days after their dispute, everyone is quick to believe it was Alice who killed her. Panicked, Alice decides to leave, but not without her loyal senior friends and neighbours – Mia, Sasha and George – who will not only be on the run and dodge the police with her, but also try to protect her from her mysterious past . . .
About the author
Gwen Florio “is one of those writers who regularly publish series and stand-alones that leave a lasting impression,” says the New York Times. Her debut crime novel, Montana, won a High Plains Book Award and the national Pinckley Prize for crime fiction by women. Her 13 novels include three mystery series and a standalone literary novel set in Afghanistan. She lives in South Jersey, which is not to be confused with the rest of New Jersey.