50 of Our Favorite Novels Featuring Fantastic Older Characters

9. Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn (2022)

Four women in their 60s — Billie, Helen, Mary Alice and Natalie — work as elite assassins for an organization known as the Museum. As a new generation takes the reins from this butt-kicking crew, now viewed as obsolete, their employers send them on a cruise to celebrate their retirement. They soon realize it’s a trap and have to fight for their lives. What saves them is precisely what made their bosses underestimate them: At their age, they are invisible. And invisible, it turns out, is the most dangerous thing you can be. Raybourn also wrote a witty 2025 follow-up featuring the foursome, Kills Well With Others. 

10. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto (2023)

Lovable but exasperating tea shop owner Vera Wong, 60, discovers a dead body in the middle of her store and takes it upon herself to find the killer. (She already has an investigative — OK, nosy — streak, taking to the internet to spy on her son’s life.) Sutanto told the website CrimeReads that she loves seasoned characters like Wong: “They’re freaking fantastic! No one has less f---s to give than an older woman who’s seen it all.” This fun cozy mystery is followed by 2025’s Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man). 

11. The Old Man by Thomas Perry (2017)

Perry’s stand-alone thriller moves fast. A former CIA operative, Dan Chase, living quietly under a false identity after an operation went off the rails more than three decades ago, suddenly gets found — and then has to go on the run because someone wants him very much dead. The story, tightly plotted and relentless, includes mercenaries, banged-up cars, an uncertain love interest and a chase through the snow that is hard to shake. Jeff Bridges plays Chase in the FX adaptation, which premiered in 2022.

12. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten, translated by Marlaine Delargy (2018)

Tursten trained as a nurse and then a dentist before she became one of Sweden’s best-known crime writers and creator of the long-running Irene Huss detective series. Here she flips the script and hands the story to the criminal. Maud, 88, lives alone in a rent-controlled apartment in Gothenburg and has absolutely zero tolerance for people who inconvenience her. In this slim collection of darkly funny stories, she dispatches various nuisances with cheerful ruthlessness. She has no particular objection to murder when the situation calls for it — all while a detective inspector circles closer.

Literary fiction with serious themes

13. The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten, translated by Alison McCullough (2025)

The Norwegian author’s profound, short (176-page) novel was awarded his country’s prestigious Brage Prize for good reason: It’s a beautiful, life-affirming story, even as death looms throughout. We follow Nils Vik, a ferry captain who knows it’s his last day alive, as he takes a final journey in his boat along a fjord. Along the way, he encounters the ghosts of people he once ferried and others from his past, eliciting memories of small moments that are more revealing and profound in retrospect.

14. Still Alice by Lisa Genova (2007)

Before neuroscientist Lisa Genova became a novelist, she earned a Ph.D. from Harvard. She puts it to use here: Still Alice follows Alice Howland, a 50-year-old linguistics professor at Harvard whose early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis quietly and devastatingly dismantles her sense of self. Genova’s clinical precision makes her descriptions of Alice’s descent into dementia all the more brutal and honest. Julianne Moore won a best-actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Alice in the 2014 film adaptation.

15. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2004)

Robinson is a prolific writer, but she published Gilead, her second novel, more than 20 years after her first (Housekeeping, a modern classic). The Pulitzer-winning Gilead is written as a long letter from a 76-year-old Iowa preacher, John Ames, to his young son, who will read it only after his father is gone. It’s a quiet, luminous book about mortality, faith and what we leave behind. Not a page-turner. Something better.

16. Baumgartner by Paul Auster (2023)

The late Paul Auster spent decades writing novels that blur the line between autobiography and invention. His final novel is no different. In Baumgartner, an aging philosophy professor sifts through grief after the death of his wife. The book circles memory and loss with the clarity that defined Auster’s career. As novelist Sarah Manguso wrote in The New York Times, “On the basis of his five memoirs alone, Auster should be recognized as one of the great American prose stylists of our time.” This book is a fitting farewell.

17. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2020)

This winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction is rooted in the extraordinary life of Erdrich’s own grandfather. In 1953, Thomas Wazhashk, a middle-aged Chippewa Council member, works the night shift at a jewel bearing plant near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota while watching a new federal bill work its way toward Congress. The proposed legislation is dressed up in the language of liberation but is designed to strip Native Americans of their land and legal identity. Erdrich transforms the fight to stop the bill into something deeply human through the eyes of Thomas, a man carrying the weight of his people with quiet determination.

18. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (2019)

This is a wonderful entry point into the work of Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in literature for, the committee noted, “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.” Drive Your Plow follows an eccentric older woman, Janina Duszejko, who lives alone in a remote Polish village, favors the company of animals over people and becomes entangled in a series of mysterious deaths. It’s part ecological fable, part philosophical detective story and part whodunit, centered around a unique woman at the margins of society struggling to be heard.

19. The Good House by Ann Leary (2013)

Hildy Good is an alcoholic, a divorced grandmother, the descendant of a 17th-century witch and a flailing real estate agent living in a seaside town north of Boston. The Yankee grande dame brags about her own witchy intuition when viewing people’s homes: “Alcoholics, hoarders, binge eaters, addicts, sexual deviants, philanderers, depressives — you name it. I can see it all in the worn edges of their nests.” While Hildy’s biting roasts might make her a hoot to kill a bottle of chardonnay with, she is blind to her own worn edges, including her destructive relationship with alcohol. Fans also give high praise to the audio version, narrated by actor Mary Beth Hurt. A 2021 movie adaptation stars Sigourney Weaver as Hildy and Kevin Kline as her old boyfriend, Frank, who reenters her life.

20. An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine (2014)

Can literature sustain a person? Scrappy loner Aaliya, 72, describes herself as having “a blind lust for the written word.” Every year she translates a classic novel into Arabic, then puts it away in a box. To her traditional Lebanese family, the divorced, childless former bookseller is an “unnecessary woman,” taking up space in the rambling Beirut apartment they covet. But she’s also a fierce survivor of a patriarchal society and civil war in her beloved city — she brings an AK-47 to bed — and a hero for bibliophiles who share her deep communion with legendary writers like Jorge Louis Borges and Stendhal.  

21. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (2023)

It is 1789, and 54-year-old midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, is asked by authorities to determine the cause of death for a prominent man found floating in the icy Kennebec River. (Eighteenth-century midwives served as all-around medics, nurses and coroners, and the character of Martha is based on the real-life midwife of the same name.) Trouble starts when Martha disagrees with a male doctor’s account of the death and uncovers a larger scandal that implicates some powerful people. Martha isn’t old compared to many characters on our list, but she’s certainly “a woman who has seen a lot of life,” Lawhon said in an interview with NPR. “We should see mature women get to be the heroes.”

Transformations through intergenerational connection

22. Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy (2024)

We received multiple reader recommendations for this novel about a reclusive, grief-stricken English widow, Ellen Cartwright, who forms an emotional bond with a mouse (yes, a mouse!). She names the little creature Sipsworth, and his “eyes are like two currants, but bright with something she has seen before, in the faces of those who now haunt her.” The story gets a big thumbs-up from novelist and bookstore owner Ann Patchett, who wrote on her Parnassus Books website, “[Its] characters are loaded with charm, resilience, and the deep desire for connection that all mammals share. I loved it.”

23. The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg (2017)

Arthur Moses, 85, has lived a quiet, ordered life in the six months since his wife’s burial. On one of his daily visits to the cemetery, he encounters a lonely young woman, Maddy Harris, 18, and they form a friendship that transforms both of their lives. It’s a sweet, feel-good story — as is Berg’s new novel, Life: A Love Story, which would also fit beautifully on our list. It’s about an older woman, Flo, who decides to write down the story of her life for a younger friend, stirring up memories and inspiring her to make new connections.  

24. The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley (2023)

Tanner is a rootless 21-year-old hired as a live-in caregiver to the reluctant Louise, 84, whose daughter insisted on full-time care after her mom slipped on a rug. Louise wants nothing to do with Tanner at first, but their relationship evolves when Tanner realizes that Louise may be an audacious thief the police are seeking, and the pair go on the run. Yes, it’s like Thelma & Louise, but this story is loads funnier — and they don’t drive off a cliff at the end.

25. Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love by Marianne Cronin (2024)

Ninety-year-old Eddie is a kindhearted romantic who volunteers at a charity shop, where he befriends a young woman. Bella is grieving her boyfriend’s death, but when she finds out that Eddie has never been kissed, she becomes determined to help him find true love. Eddie, meanwhile, helps ease Bella’s grief. Poignant, joyful and written by the British author of the equally uplifting 2021 gem The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, it’s like a warm hug in book form.    

26. The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride by Joe Siple (2018)

Fans of a good, cathartic cry will want to ride this emotional roller coaster. Murray McBride, a 100-year-old former pro baseball player, and 10-year-old Jason Cashman meet in the hospital. Murray decides his last acts will be helping Jason, who needs a new heart, achieve five bucket-list wishes, including kissing a girl (like Eddie, above! But different…). Readers gush over the novel on Goodreads; one wrote, “I had a feeling about what would happen at the end, but it wasn’t any less heartbreaking.” This is the first book in Siple’s popular series with Murray, followed by The Final Wish of Mr. Murray McBride (2021) and The First Wish of Mr. Murray McBride (a prequel published in 2025).

27. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder (2009) 

This Japanese bestseller asks, beautifully: How much does one person need to give to be loved by another? It features a 64-year-old math professor who lost his short-term memory in an accident 17 years earlier. Now he can remember new information for only about 80 minutes, but he retains a core of kindness and an endless curiosity about people, numbers and their connections. This is enough to endear him to his young housekeeper and her 10-year-old, baseball-obsessed son, who must reintroduce themselves to the professor every day (and then some). Ogawa never reveals the housekeeper’s or professor’s names, lending a dreamy, fable-like quality to the story.

28. How to Read a Book by Monica Wood (2024)

A natural choice for book clubs, this charming novel details the intermingled struggles of a young woman named Violet, who’s adjusting to life after doing time for a drunk-driving manslaughter charge; Harriet, 64, a retired English teacher and bookseller who leads a book group at Violet’s prison; and Frank, 68, the retired machinist and bookstore handyman, whose wife Violet killed. There’s a lot about books, too, with some hilariously unvarnished opinions from the prison group. 

29. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley (2010)

The prolific Mosley (more than 40 books and counting) poses an intriguing question: If you had mild dementia, would you take an experimental drug that would shorten your life but give you a tiny window of mental clarity? Ptolemy Grey, 91 — isolated, befuddled and living in squalor — says, “Bring it on.” With the help of his steadfast and sexy caregiver, he gets busy — avenging the death of his grandnephew and recovering a fortune from a friend’s “righteous crime” years ago. The novel was adapted into a 2022 Apple TV series starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Quirky British stories with quirky British protagonists

30. The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons (2020)

British writers really know how to pull off these heart-toasting tales featuring lonely (but not for long!) older characters. (They also like wordy, whimsical titles.) Take 85-year-old Eudora Honeysett, who lives alone — besides her grumpy cat — and, fed up with everything and everyone, is ready to end it all with a trip to a Swiss clinic. Then, 10-year-old Rose Trewidney intrudes. A little ball of energy, she manages to show Eudora that life is worth living, with help from Stanley, a newly widowed neighbor. It’s a charming tearjerker (sold in Britain with a different title: Eudora Honeysett is Quite Well, Thank You).

31. The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston (2024)

When author Anna Johnston left a career in medicine to work as a social coordinator in her grandfather’s nursing home, she fell in love with older people and their stories. When injury forced her to step away from that work, she started writing about it instead. The result is this novel. Frederick Fife, 82, is a kind man who’s lonely, broke and about to lose his home when a case of mistaken identity lands him in a nursing home under someone else’s name (a grumpy guy named Bernard Greer). Fred finds himself enjoying warm meals, a nice place to sleep and a second chance at happiness — as long as the real Bernard never shows up. The book has been optioned for adaptation by Netflix. 

32. How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley (2024)

In this lighthearted novel, members of a senior citizens’ social club in London join forces with a neighborhood day care to keep their community center running. Among the large cast of wonderfully flawed older characters, Daphne stands out: She’s secretive and edgy because of her shady past but, at 70, is determined to broaden her world. There’s a touch of romance in there, too. (Check out The Girlfriend editor Shelley Emling’s interview with Pooley about the book, a Girlfriend Book Club pick.)

33. All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle (2020)

From his apartment in England, retired widower Hubert Bird, 84, blabs over the phone to his daughter in Australia about his (totally fictional) social life. After she plans a visit, Bird, who emigrated to Britain from Jamaica in the ’50s, rushes to make his tall tales true. Carolyn Hutton, of the bookstore Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley, California, recommended it for this list, noting that Hubert’s journey “unfolds in beautifully written layers that illustrate the power of connection, healing from grief and getting a second chance at love.”

34. Old Filth by Jane Gardam (2006)

Sir Edward Feathers, 80, is Old Filth, a widowed, retired judge born in Malaysia and now ensconced in the English countryside, ruminating over a 20th-century life molded by colonialism, World War II, a British boarding school, abuse, secrets and infidelity. Linda Seamonson, co-owner of Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says, “It’s sad, it’s funny, it’s profoundly insightful.” She adds that she also “devoured” the two subsequent books in the trilogy, The Man in the Wooden Hat and Last Friends. The New Yorker dubbed Old Filth “mordantly funny.”

Older characters reflecting on/reckoning with their pasts

35. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2017)

This dishy tale of a midcentury Hollywood star (think Elizabeth Taylor or Ava Gardner) spilling her long-held secrets to a struggling journalist, to whom she is mysteriously connected, was the breakout book for best-selling author Reid (Daisy Jones and the Six). TikTokers gave the book a serious boost as they swooned over the tumultuous relationship between ruthless Evelyn and her secret lover and onetime costar, Celia St. James. It comes highly recommended by, among others, author Jill Santopolo (The Love We Found), who calls it an “emotional thrill-ride of a novel … full of twists and turns, scandal and intrigue.”

36. Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo (2014)

This hilarious, bawdy and touching coming-out-late-in-life story is from the Booker Prize-winning British author of Girl, Woman, Other. Barrington Jedidiah Walker, 74, has a very full life. A Londoner by way of Antigua, he loves clothes, fine jewelry, Shakespeare, his daughters, his grandson and the bright side. “I am the human Valium,” he says. He also has a horrible marriage to the Bible-thumping Carmel and a true love, Morris, his lifelong bestie with benefits. Nearing 75, Barry finally wants to live his truth. Can he? 

37. Augustown by Kei Miller (2016)

The Jamaica-born Miller, who’s also an award-winning poet, spins a complex, lyrical story touched with magical realism. It’s set in 1982 in Augustown, a facsimile of the real August Town neighborhood in Kingston, Jamaica. Our favorite character, Ma Taffy, is an older, blind Rastafarian who’s angry after a teacher chops off her great-nephew Kaia’s dreadlocks. To soothe Kaia, she tells him stories from the past, including tales of trauma — among them the real-life tragedy in which, in 1920, a messianic preacher named Alexander Bedward convinced his followers to assemble in August Town, climb trees and jump so that they would fly to heaven. (Needless to say, gravity had other plans.) Meanwhile, Ma Taffy is attuned to more trouble on the horizon.  

38. The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel (2025)

A diamond bracelet, the French Resistance and a cunning, Paris-born jewel thief (Colette) combine to give this dual-timeline historical novel by the best-selling Harmel (The Book of Lost Names, among many others) a wonderful je ne sais quoi. At 89, Colette lives in Boston, carrying on her family’s tradition of swiping jewelry from the bad to fund causes for the good. The haunting mystery from Colette’s past — how her 4-year-old sister, Liliane, died in 1942 Paris — may be solved when the bracelet sewn into Liliane’s nightgown that awful night surfaces in a local museum. 

39. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (2006)

In this modern Gothic story, mega-best-selling author and recluse Vida Winter decides to unload the long-shrouded secrets of her personal story on Margaret Lea, an unsuspecting young bookseller. Old and ailing, Ms. Winter — an homage to Mrs. de Winter, the villainess in Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel Rebecca — invites Margaret to her Yorkshire (Brontë territory!) manse so she can unburden “something growing inside me, dividing and multiplying.” Twins, fires and ghosts all figure. Olivia Colman and Vanessa Redgrave starred in a 2013 BBC adaptation.

40. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney (2017)

It’s a cold New Year’s Eve in 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish decides to take a 10-mile walk through her beloved island of Manhattan while reflecting on her past. We follow her outer and inner journeys as she considers her personal history, which is “told in dazzling prose,” author Renée Rosen (Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl) tells AARP. “Lillian is fearless, witty and will capture your heart with her very first step.”

41. Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark (2022)

This story revolves around two octogenarian stakeholders as they negotiate their wildly different plans for the future of their huge shared property: 35 acres of gloriously pristine waterfront in Maine. At the end of their lives, Polly Wister, a self-sacrificing mother and wife, and Agnes Lee, a single writer with secrets, wrestle with what they owe themselves, their friendship and the future. Novelist Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (The Nest) recommends it for this list, calling it a “beautiful novel about family, love, loss and legacy.” 

Second-chance love stories

42. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson (2020)

Major Pettigrew is the demure, India-born resident of a small English town, concerned with such tidy things as the best way to brew a proper cup of tea, when he falls for a shopkeeper named Mrs. Ali, an Englishwoman with Pakistani roots. The prejudices of their neighbors threaten to keep them apart, but as the novel’s title suggests, Major Pettigrew isn’t going to let such narrow-mindedness take away his chance for love. Simonson’s debut is a Romeo-and-Juliet-ish story with a nice dose of humor; The Christian Science Monitor praised it as “delightful,” adding, “Simonson nails the genteel British comedy of manners with elegant aplomb.”

43. The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old by Hendrik Groen, translated by Hester Velmans (2014)

This international bestseller chronicles a joyfully rebellious 83-year-old named — you may have guessed — Hendrik Groen, who makes trouble in his Amsterdam retirement home. Among his antics: forming the Old-But-Not-Dead Club with his pals and keeping an exposé-like journal filled with funny reflections on the indignities of aging. Groen is a pseudonym chosen by the Dutch author Peter de Smet, whose novel began as a diary-like column by “Hendrik Groen” on the website of the literary magazine Torpedo. “There’s not one sentence that’s a lie, but not every word is true,” de Smet has said of his Hendrikian tales.  

44. Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (2015)

Haruf’s brief and final novel, published a few months after he died, tells the quiet, beautiful story of two neighbors in their 70s, Addie Moore and Louis Waters, who have each lost a spouse and start sharing a bed every night for solace and warmth — regardless of what their other neighbors think. Author Kristin Hannah told AARP it was one of her favorite grownup love stories; she called it “a complex, intimate portrait of life and loneliness, family expectations and love.” Robert Redford and Jane Fonda starred in a 2017 Netflix adaptation.

45. The Switch by Beth O’Leary (2020)

In this fun, classic switcheroo story, a burned-out English career woman, Leena, retreats to her grandmother’s cottage in Yorkshire, while grandma Eileen, 79, takes up residence in her granddaughter’s London flat. Leena wants relaxation and quiet. Eileen is looking for something spicier. Eileen is a fantastic character — an adventurous, sexually alive older woman who’s reinvigorated and reinvigorates her newfound community.

Late-life adventures

46. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (2012)

Retired English gentleman Harold Fry receives a letter from an old colleague, Queenie Hennessy, who tells him she’s dying of cancer. He writes her a letter in response, then, completely out of character, decides to walk across England to deliver it in person (first sending a note: “I’m very sorry.… Wait for me”). It’s not a love story; it’s about kindness and connection and so much more. It’s also a favorite of the illustrious former Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles, whose 2012 review included some of AARP books editor Christina Ianzito’s favorite lines from a book review ever: “It’s the kind of quirky book you want to shepherd into just the right hands. If your friends don’t like it, you may have to stop returning their calls for a little while until you can bring yourself to forgive them.” Just, yes. (Also wonderful? Joyce’s 2015 companion novel, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy.)  

47. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett (2025)

This hilarious, oddball — is there any other kind? — road trip story proves that even a hoarder with an alcohol problem and a trunkful of emotional baggage can have some gas left in the tank. P.J. Halliday, 63, a divorced former postal worker and unlicensed driver (there have been DUIs) who has been drinking away his million-dollar lottery win, sets off from his Massachusetts home with his daughter, Sophie; two young orphans; and Pancakes, a cat who has the weird ability to predict death. The destination: the Tender Hearts retirement community in Tucson, Arizona, where, he’s learned, his high school love resides (and she’s single!). What could go wrong?

48. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (2012)

In this international best-selling Swedish novel, Allan Karlsson, annoyed by the paltry vodka ration allotted for his 100th birthday party, slips out a window to escape his retirement home. He immediately becomes entangled in some incredible capers involving drug dealers, an elephant and other wackiness. Interspersed are tales of his globe-trotting career as an explosives expert with an uncanny knack for encountering famous people, including Harry S. Truman and Mao Tse-tung. The fantastical, Forrest Gump-ian tale was made into a 2013 Swedish-language movie.

49. West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge (2021)

Inspired by a real 1938 news event, this book club favorite follows the cross-country journey of two giraffes shipped from New York to the San Diego Zoo, delighting Depression-weary Americans. The story is told by Woodrow Wilson Nickel, 105, who recalls falling in love with the animals at 17 and talking his way into joining their transport. He fondly remembers the 12-day trip, despite the hardships along the way, and the young female journalist who came along to chronicle the westward adventure. “Few true friends have I known, and two were giraffes,” Woodrow says, reminiscing.

50. How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior (2020)

A prim, rather stubborn 85-year-old British hero named Veronica McCreedy will steal your heart. In this charming novel, a box of mementos and a nature show inspire Veronica to life-changing action, leading to the discovery of a scruffy adult grandson, Patrick, and a newfound mission to save the penguins in Antarctica. It’s a warm tonic for troubled times and a fun read that brings to mind another wonderful, feel-good novel, Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (2012) — because of its humor as well as its fleeing-to-Antarctica theme.