"The Little Giant of Aberdeen County"

Tiffany Baker has a graduate degree in creative writing from UC Irvine and a PhD in Victorian literature.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, and reported the following:

Page sixty-nine of The Little Giant of Aberdeen County gives you an excellent, little slice of the whole novel. Truly, the main character, has just been orphaned by her father's death, and she is being shipped off to live with the Dyersons, who are "the most genuine of upstaters." In this passage, we learn that the Dyersons have weedlike roots sunk into the history of Aberdeen. Like weeds, they're not the most attractive part of the town, but they aren't going anywhere, either. The mini-story of James Dyerson, a tragic veteran of the Civil War, tells you this.

I had so much fun writing all the down-and-out, hardscrabble Dyerson characters. I like to think of them as Aberdeen's underbelly, the darker foil to the proper history of the Morgan family of doctors. They're related to Tabitha, the witch, and maybe that's why they live such poor, broken lives--a fate Truly is joined to. Even if they do always lose at cards, horses, and everything else, my heart still belongs to them. In the end, I'm always going to pick the underdog.

Read an excerpt from The Little Giant of Aberdeen County.

Learn more about the author and her work at Tiffany Baker's website and blog.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue