She applied the Page 69 Test to Letters from Skye and reported the following:Oh, page 69 is a good one. Elspeth, my reclusive poet, had been trying to overcome her fear of water to leave her native Skye and meet David, her correspondent of two years. “Eight weeks ago,” she writes to him, “I stood on the pier, trying to find the nerve to step on that ferry. I kept my eyes on that horizon, knowing that if I went to meet it, to meet you, everything would change. Not necessarily in the going, but in the leaving.”Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Brockmole's website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
But life interrupts her indecision. “Four days before, Great Britain declared war on Germany. While I had sat alone in my cottage, reading through old letters and fortifying my heart, the world went to war.” Up on Skye, isolated from the rumblings that had had brought Europe to the brink of war that hot summer of 1914, Elspeth doesn’t know how the war will change things, whether it will touch her and her family. That hesitation on the pier, and her chance is gone.
It’s a good little sample of Letters from Skye, especially as it comes at a crossroads for my cautious heroine. Her flash of regret at missing that chance to travel across the water, her worry at the onset of war, her guilty stab of irritation at having the world’s battles interfere with her own. The moment the war begins, so do many things for my characters.
--Marshal Zeringue
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