“Burgeoning with dark humour, violence and mystery, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is a blood-soaked slasher sure to keep readers flinching, laughing, and guessing until the very last page.

Rose DuBois is not your average final girl.

Rose is in her late 70s, living out her golden years at the Autumn Springs Retirement Home.

When one of her friends dies alone in her apartment, Rose isn’t too concerned. Accidents happen, especially at this age!

Then another resident drops dead. And another. With bodies stacking up, Rose can’t help but wonder: are these accidents? Old age? Or something far more sinister?

Together with her best friend Miller, Rose begins to investigate. The further she digs, the more convinced she becomes: there’s a killer on the loose at Autumn Springs, and if she isn’t careful, Rose may be their next victim.

Hello and welcome to damppebbles. Today I am delighted to share my review of The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi. The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre was published by Run For It on 30th September 2025 and is available in paperback, audio and digital formats. I chose to read a free eARC of The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre but that has in no way influenced my review.

How could I possibly resist this book? Fiction featuring more senior protagonists has become a fairly common thing over the last few years. Personally, I blame Richard Osman. Others may have created an older cast of characters to solve murders and fight crime before him, but Osman holds the crown. I’m a fan of his work. If you’re a regular visitor to the blog this won’t be news to you. What we haven’t seen, however, is a horror-esque tale featuring a septuagenarian final girl. Cosy horror, perhaps? No, it’s not that. Definitely not that. Horror cannot be cosy. You may be able to ‘cosy’ most other genres (I’m thinking of cosy fantasy in particular here) but horror….not a chance! I loved the concept of this book and found it impossible to resist. It wasn’t only the plot that drew me in; it was the author too. I’ve wanted to read a book by Philip Fracassi for a while now, so this was a perfect opportunity.

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is a highly readable and engaging horror-styled mystery where the characters are beautifully written. Gosh, Rose DuBois is such a charming and likeable lead, which puts the reader immediately on her side. Rose may not be what you immediately picture when the words ‘final girl’ come to mind, but maybe it’s time to expand our horizons a little; let’s rewrite things a touch. Rose lives at the Autumn Springs Retirement Home. She has a small group of close friends, including Beauregard Mason Miller, or just Miller, who clearly has the hots for our leading lady. Rose, however, is having none of that! One of my favourite things about this book was the relationship and the chemistry between these two characters. It’s fun and playful. Although you can never be 100% that it isn’t Miller behind the murders at the home. Everyone is a suspect at one point or another.

When the residents of the home start dying at an alarming rate, it’s Rose and her little gang that start to put the pieces together. The deaths are all staged to look like accidents, and accidents happen, particularly to older folk. A slip, a trip, a fall. All very sad, but nothing out of the ordinary. Rose has a feeling something much more sinister is going on at Autumn Springs. Now all she has to do is convince Detective Hastings to take her seriously. There are large doses of peril throughout the book, a number of grisly deaths and a lot of heartache.

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is an engaging, emotional and enjoyable horror mystery. There were many things about this book that I really liked. The characters are wonderful and very believable. I very much enjoyed their relationships: Rose and Miller, Rose and Tatum Bird, to name a couple. I really liked the heart and the emotion the author poured into the novel. It’s a GREAT concept and I loved how well-written the story is overall. But there were also things I struggled with. This is by the bye, really but I find the cover confusing. It implies ‘cosy’ fiction but it’s not cosy. It says ‘slasher’ to me but it’s not. The book’s synopsis mentions it’s a slasher too, but it’s unlike any slasher I’ve ever read. Up until a point, the murders are staged as accidents. There’s no intent; the frenzy of a slasher is missing. I guess when your intended kills are all in their seventies and eighties, frenzy isn’t always necessary. It all just felt a little flat and not quite what it was dressed up to be. I could also tell who the killer was from the moment they were introduced. The author did a cracking job of making me doubt myself, but when they were revealed, I just felt a little disappointed. However, I went in with expectations. Pre-conceived, ‘read a hundred slashers in the past’ expectations. Fracassi has done something different and that is a wonderful thing. I’m a grump. All you have to do is look at the other reviews of this book to see how well it has been received and how loved it is. I’m a tiny minority. I would absolutely read more by this author in the future. A great concept, delivered by a writer who is clearly very talented. Recommended.

I chose to read and review a free eARC of The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi was published in the UK by Run For It on 30th September 2025 and is available in paperback, audio and digital formats (please note, the following links are affiliate links which means I receive a small percentage of the purchase price at no extra cost to you): | amazon.co.uk | Waterstones | bookshop.org | Goodreads | damppebbles bookshop.org shop | damppebbles amazon.co.uk shop | damppebbles amazon.com shop |

PHILIP FRACASSI is the Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Award-nominated author of the novels A Child Alone with Strangers, Gothic, Boys in the Valley, The Third Rule of Time Travel, and The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre. He is also the author of the story collections Behold the Void, Beneath a Pale Sky, and No One is Safe!

His stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Black Static, Best Horror of the Year, Nightmare Magazine, Interzone, and Southwest Review.

Philip lives in Los Angeles and is represented by Copps Literary Services, Circle M + P, and WME.