Sue Hincenbergs, seen here with her dog Kramer, used local spots as inspiration for some of the settings in her debut novel, The Retirement Plan.
By Julie Kish
After years of hard work and astonishing perseverance, Sue Hincenbergs’ debut novel, The Retirement Plan, has finally hit the bookstores. She received a lucrative two-book deal for her debut novel, which will be published in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. Multiple translation rights have also been purchased, and the film rights have been optioned by a Hollywood studio.
The Retirement Plan is a dark comedy about four 60ish best friends planning their well-deserved retirements when their reckless husbands lose their savings in a dodgy investment deal. The women hatch a plan to hire a hitman, collect their husbands’ life insurance and move to Florida. But things don’t go as planned, and crazy shenanigans ensue.
Sue Hincenbergs and her husband, Andy, have lived in the West Rouge/Centennial area since 1996. Sue said it was a fantastic place to raise their three boys, who have grown up and moved out.
Sue always knew she would write a novel one day. “I promised myself I would do it,” she said. But life became busy with children and a mortgage, so writing had to wait. She worked for the CBC in 1988 as a receptionist and eventually became a producer. After 12 years at the CBC, she became a freelance television producer and worked predominantly on Canada AM at CTV. She also produced a variety of shows, including the Juno Awards.
In the summer of 2020, she had six weeks off between contracts and thought, “If I’m going to write that book, I’d better get going on it.” So that’s when she started her first novel. She wrote two books over the next two years but could not find an agent or a publisher for either.
She estimates she received 150 rejections for her first two novels, but she never gave up. In the summer of 2023, she began sending her third novel, The Retirement Plan, into the world, and soon she signed with an agent. “Half the job is writing a book; the other half is selling it,” she said. After selling The Retirement Plan, Sue retired as a television producer and began writing full-time.
While The Retirement Plan isn’t set in a specific city, the author used local spots as inspiration for some of her settings. For example, when writing about the hitman’s business, Sue pictured the parking lot and the bowling alley at Island Road Plaza. When the women in the novel had pedicures, she pictured the side-by-side chairs at the Hip Hop Nail Salon at Port Union and Lawrence.
Sue has been travelling to promote her book and has five upcoming television appearances, including The Social and CTV Your Morning. Sue has already written her next novel, which is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2027.