"Separate Beds"

Elizabeth Buchan is the author of several highly acclaimed and bestselling books of fiction, including the bestselling Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The Good Wife Strikes Back, Everything She Thought She Wanted, and Consider the Lily.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Separate Beds, and reported the following:

Strangely enough, page 69 does encapsulate a central theme of Separate Beds (US edition) which is how the recent financial collapses and cataclysms impact on you and me, and how the family can offer a life raft when trouble hits. Tom has just lost his job with the BBC World Service and he is going to see his mother in a care home for the elderly in order to tell her and he is finding it very painful. He is bracing himself for a new kind of existence… and even though he is at very low point indeed there is a sense that he will pick himself up… and a process of repairing both his life and the things he truly cares about is about to begin.

It was important to show Tom (and the rest of the family because the book is about a family and how they renegotiate their relationships with each other) at this nadir in order to build the emotional drama up to a high point by the end of the novel.

Learn more about the book and author at Elizabeth Buchan's website and blog.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue