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Younger
Eternity has a price . . .
Harriet is tired of being old. There was a time when she commanded a room, was looked up to, even celebrated. But like so many women her age, she’s been relegated to the background. Overlooked. Made invisible. Now that her daughter has stashed her away at a retirement home and early-stage dementia is blurring the world’s edges, life has become a slow, inexorable march towards death.
But when her friend Margaret convinces her to participate in a ritual séance, things suddenly begin to change. Harriet feels spryer, sharper, even more hopeful. Is it the last gasps of a senile old woman or is it something more . . . sinister? As Harriet seems to grow younger—reawakening physically, mentally, and sexually—the people around her begin declining, even dying, at a rapid pace. Before long, she realizes that her only shot at saving those she cares most about is to make an unthinkable sacrifice.
Younger is a chilling story about the horrors of aging and the allure of youth. It’s a cautionary tale about the things we give up when we fail to embrace every stage of our all-too-short lives.
Harriet is tired of being old. There was a time when she commanded a room, was looked up to, even celebrated. But like so many women her age, she’s been relegated to the background. Overlooked. Made invisible. Now that her daughter has stashed her away at a retirement home and early-stage dementia is blurring the world’s edges, life has become a slow, inexorable march towards death.
But when her friend Margaret convinces her to participate in a ritual séance, things suddenly begin to change. Harriet feels spryer, sharper, even more hopeful. Is it the last gasps of a senile old woman or is it something more . . . sinister? As Harriet seems to grow younger—reawakening physically, mentally, and sexually—the people around her begin declining, even dying, at a rapid pace. Before long, she realizes that her only shot at saving those she cares most about is to make an unthinkable sacrifice.
Younger is a chilling story about the horrors of aging and the allure of youth. It’s a cautionary tale about the things we give up when we fail to embrace every stage of our all-too-short lives.
276 pages, Paperback
Published March 4, 2025
9 people want to read
About the author
Dani Lamia
10 books18 followersDani Lamia is a pseudonym for the writing team of William Roetzheim and Randy Becker.
William’s love of writing began at a young age, however he started his career as an early pioneer in the field of AI software development. His systems have been deployed on Navy ships, submarines, and NASA space shuttles, as well as by businesses and government agencies. After launching multiple software companies, William turned his attention to the arts and became an award-winning playwright, poet, and published author.
Randy is an Emmy-nominated producer who began his career as an actor starring in film, television, and on Broadway (including the Tony Award–winning play Love! Valour! Compassion!). After producing a film of his own, he made a dramatic career change and now expresses his creativity through writing and producing.
William’s love of writing began at a young age, however he started his career as an early pioneer in the field of AI software development. His systems have been deployed on Navy ships, submarines, and NASA space shuttles, as well as by businesses and government agencies. After launching multiple software companies, William turned his attention to the arts and became an award-winning playwright, poet, and published author.
Randy is an Emmy-nominated producer who began his career as an actor starring in film, television, and on Broadway (including the Tony Award–winning play Love! Valour! Compassion!). After producing a film of his own, he made a dramatic career change and now expresses his creativity through writing and producing.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 15, 2025
Younger by Dani Lamia with Clare Dean is a novel that drew me in and kept me reading despite my sense that it’s not my usual kind of story. It includes twists and turns that reflect on what is important in life, differences between self-perceptions and reality, and what individuals can and cannot control, especially as they age.
The setting is a retirement facility similar to one where my friends live which means that the characters have their own space, prepared meals, and plenty of activities to keep them active mentally and physically. They have contact with the outside world and the comforts of being cared for and visited.
Main character Harriet, however, is not happy despite having a best friend in Margaret with whom she spends much of her time. She thinks, “ Age is so devastatingly unfair, with so many barriers to joy. It’s not enough to find beauty in the things around me. Having lost my own, it’s like standing outside life, looking in. … But it wasn’t just beauty, I had presence. … I stirred people. Motivated them to be better. I charged a room. … I do nothing to a room now” (70).
Margaret, a retired professor of literature, watches as aging and dementia depress Harriet so much that Margaret suggests they have a seance after which Harriet feels, yep, younger. The repercussions of that comprise the novel.
Skillfully written, Younger includes well-placed foreshadowing, plausible character development, and skillful description, i.e.:
Referring to the residents of Marryat Manor, Dean writes “Even the tiniest whisper of breeze makes them flock like cats to the nearest heat source, zombies trying to prove they’re still alive” (6).
A key symbol is an Adonis blue butterfly—the rarest of blue butterflies in England—and the model for a brooch Harriet’s husband gave her for their first Christmas together.
Spoiler alert. Plot details follow.
Harriet falls at the seance and is given a variety of medical tests after to determine what happened. She feels better almost daily, though, more like her former self, and is initially delighted with the changes she experiences even though they include occasional frightening visions. Although those around her change also, she initially notices less about them as she becomes younger and younger, more and more like the self she misses. She enjoys a renewed sex drive, appetite and physical energy, and accepts the diagnosis of epilepsy when tests illogically show two sets of brains waves instead of one. Fairly quickly, everyone else in the Manor and in her company age, more and more quickly, while she and Margaret’s son Ralph take their friendly relationship into serious flirtation, and then an idyllic relationship, physical and emotional in which each feels appreciated, loved and understood even as the 30 years between them shifts rapidly. This destroys the friendship between Harriet and Margaret, and Margaret finds books about mysticism and the occult in the Manor library that reveal past demonic possession and its consequences.
Margaret and the doctor ponder the validity of this information, and share it with Harriet who comes to accept it only after many, finally including Margaret and not too long after, Ralph, die. Harriet tries to commit suicide but fails. She persuades the doctor to give her drugs to knock her out before climbing into Ralph’s coffin, assuming that when it is buried in the hallowed ground of a church yard, she and the demon will die. She comes to, though, finding herself alive and in the presence of the evil spirit. For eternity?
The setting is a retirement facility similar to one where my friends live which means that the characters have their own space, prepared meals, and plenty of activities to keep them active mentally and physically. They have contact with the outside world and the comforts of being cared for and visited.
Main character Harriet, however, is not happy despite having a best friend in Margaret with whom she spends much of her time. She thinks, “ Age is so devastatingly unfair, with so many barriers to joy. It’s not enough to find beauty in the things around me. Having lost my own, it’s like standing outside life, looking in. … But it wasn’t just beauty, I had presence. … I stirred people. Motivated them to be better. I charged a room. … I do nothing to a room now” (70).
Margaret, a retired professor of literature, watches as aging and dementia depress Harriet so much that Margaret suggests they have a seance after which Harriet feels, yep, younger. The repercussions of that comprise the novel.
Skillfully written, Younger includes well-placed foreshadowing, plausible character development, and skillful description, i.e.:
Referring to the residents of Marryat Manor, Dean writes “Even the tiniest whisper of breeze makes them flock like cats to the nearest heat source, zombies trying to prove they’re still alive” (6).
A key symbol is an Adonis blue butterfly—the rarest of blue butterflies in England—and the model for a brooch Harriet’s husband gave her for their first Christmas together.
Spoiler alert. Plot details follow.
Harriet falls at the seance and is given a variety of medical tests after to determine what happened. She feels better almost daily, though, more like her former self, and is initially delighted with the changes she experiences even though they include occasional frightening visions. Although those around her change also, she initially notices less about them as she becomes younger and younger, more and more like the self she misses. She enjoys a renewed sex drive, appetite and physical energy, and accepts the diagnosis of epilepsy when tests illogically show two sets of brains waves instead of one. Fairly quickly, everyone else in the Manor and in her company age, more and more quickly, while she and Margaret’s son Ralph take their friendly relationship into serious flirtation, and then an idyllic relationship, physical and emotional in which each feels appreciated, loved and understood even as the 30 years between them shifts rapidly. This destroys the friendship between Harriet and Margaret, and Margaret finds books about mysticism and the occult in the Manor library that reveal past demonic possession and its consequences.
Margaret and the doctor ponder the validity of this information, and share it with Harriet who comes to accept it only after many, finally including Margaret and not too long after, Ralph, die. Harriet tries to commit suicide but fails. She persuades the doctor to give her drugs to knock her out before climbing into Ralph’s coffin, assuming that when it is buried in the hallowed ground of a church yard, she and the demon will die. She comes to, though, finding herself alive and in the presence of the evil spirit. For eternity?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 18, 2025
Younger by Dani Lamia with Clare Dean
A big thank you to @level4press for the ebook.
Harriet lives in a retirement home. She resents her daughter for putting her there as much as she dislikes getting older. Now in her early eightees she has felt irrelevant and invisible for many years.
It's only her best friend Margaret that makes life bearable and the visits of Margaret's son Ralph.
Harriet hates all the fuss and having to regularly see the kindly doctor just because she's old and muddles up the days.
Harriet doesn't realise she has dementia and the disorientation she feels builds up the atmosphere in the novel before the horror seeps in.
Margaret has found literature about the history of Marryat Manor and about a rejuvenating séance.
A group gathers and performs the séance but Harriet has a fit. Early diagnosis is a form of epilepsy but the truth is so much worse.
Soon afterwards Harriet feels more energetic. Less muddled. Over a few weeks she starts feeling and looking younger. Coincidentally her friend Margaret feels sick.
And then one or two of the most elderly residents start to die.
What is happening to Harriet and the subsequent effects on the residents and staff escalates in a skillfully written tale of suspense that feels cinematic.
The novel makes important points about the nature of aging and how people will do anything to cling to their youth while also making us realise that it is important to embrace every stage of life.
Harriet is a sympathetic character in her dementia muddled state but as she grows younger her greedy, selfish nature is exposed. Will she accept what has happened in time to save those closest to her?
There are plenty of surprises including a romance and terrifying visions and an ending that I desperately want to tell you about but can't. A recommended read.
A big thank you to @level4press for the ebook.
Harriet lives in a retirement home. She resents her daughter for putting her there as much as she dislikes getting older. Now in her early eightees she has felt irrelevant and invisible for many years.
It's only her best friend Margaret that makes life bearable and the visits of Margaret's son Ralph.
Harriet hates all the fuss and having to regularly see the kindly doctor just because she's old and muddles up the days.
Harriet doesn't realise she has dementia and the disorientation she feels builds up the atmosphere in the novel before the horror seeps in.
Margaret has found literature about the history of Marryat Manor and about a rejuvenating séance.
A group gathers and performs the séance but Harriet has a fit. Early diagnosis is a form of epilepsy but the truth is so much worse.
Soon afterwards Harriet feels more energetic. Less muddled. Over a few weeks she starts feeling and looking younger. Coincidentally her friend Margaret feels sick.
And then one or two of the most elderly residents start to die.
What is happening to Harriet and the subsequent effects on the residents and staff escalates in a skillfully written tale of suspense that feels cinematic.
The novel makes important points about the nature of aging and how people will do anything to cling to their youth while also making us realise that it is important to embrace every stage of life.
Harriet is a sympathetic character in her dementia muddled state but as she grows younger her greedy, selfish nature is exposed. Will she accept what has happened in time to save those closest to her?
There are plenty of surprises including a romance and terrifying visions and an ending that I desperately want to tell you about but can't. A recommended read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews