The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is a slasher horror novel written by Philip Fracassi, published by Run For It. A bloody banger that delivers all you can expect from a slasher, and elevates it by twisting many of the classical tropes associated with the genre; refreshing as the cast is shifted to be a group of elderly people who are cleverly examined and developed as the chaos is unleashed.

Autumn Springs Retirement Home is a quiet place, a calm space where mortality is silently acknowledged; Rose DuBois is in her late 70s, spending her golden years there. When a friend dies in her apartment, all the hints point towards an accident, something not unusual at these ages. However, as more residents drop dead, Rose can't stop thinking if there's something more behind those "accidents"; together with her friend Miller, she starts to investigate, digging further and slowly getting convinced about a serial killer being loose at Autumn Springs. Time is running out, and if she's not careful, she might be the next victim.

Shifting the age of the group of characters from the classical youngness associated with slashers to our elderly characters is a brilliant concept: not only many of the killings might be confused with an accident, but also there's a certain mortality that we quietly acknowledge associated with age and with retirement homes.
Rose Dubois is a marvelous main character, a final girl far from the tropes, curious and charming, letting her imagination run wild and deeply caring of her friends (a characteristic that later will be exploited). The rest of the cast is a bit picturesque, but you can still empathize with them, being great support characters to our final girl.

This novel mixes not only the gore and murderous bit of slasher with an unlikely group of protagonists, but also there's space for some romance, some funny parts and a tiny bit of supernatural things. The mystery is well-layered, with Fracassi eventually throwing some clues that might point or not towards the assassin, adding to the intrigue; the reader is invited to formulate their own theories.
In terms of pacing, you can expect it to accelerate in parallel with how the tension grows, leading towards the grand finale; I practically devoured this book in two-three sessions because I needed to know.

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is a great twist on the slasher classics, a fun novel perfect for this spooky season; a super entertaining book that scratches your itch for something like Scream but with a more developed cast.