Live Spots Appear As We Age

As we get older, age spots often start showing on our skin. Age spots are small, flat, darker areas that appear on skin exposed to the sun, such as the shoulders, face and hands. These spots have nothing to do with the liver. Both terms, however, are used interchangeably to refer to this benign (non-cancerous) condition.

People can begin noticing age spots in their 30s and 40s. Even if they regularly apply sun screen, exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays adds up. Once you damage your skin by these tanning rays, the spots do not go away, although some treatments may provide lightening.

In “The Betrothal”, my short story in the February, 2025 issue of Black Sheet: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder, a young woman, Zoe, disappears on the eve of her betrothal. She objects to the man her father chose for her. She groused that he was a liver-spotted, foul-mouthed stick with the pong of an old man. “Ma Zeus,” she whined, “You mean I’ll have to submit to his grunts and groans, his greedy hands, and bad breath?” Even her father had to admit to Miriam that “Okay, he looks like a starving alley cat, hunchbacked at that.”

You may not be able to escape liver spots entirely, but you can start using a sun screen. And you can start reasoning like a sleuth. Miriam wasn’t particularly concerned about the old man’s liver spots. It was his savage murder in a sleazy waterfront inn that concerned her. See how she solves the case. Just click here.