"The Fort"

Born in Ithaca, New York, Aric Davis has lived most his life in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the author of A Good and Useful Hurt and the acclaimed YA novel Nickel Plated, called by Gillian Flynn a “dark but humane, chilling and sometimes heart-breaking work of noir” and given a “Top 10” Booklist designation in 2011. A punk-music and tattoo aficionado, Davis has been a professional body piercer for sixteen years.

Davis applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Fort, and reported the following:

The Page 69 Test--shockingly--turned out far better in my book, The Fort, then I ever would have guessed. Page 69 has it all, a girl running for freedom her from the man who took it away in the first place. In my page 69, the book starts to change, and the events promised on the back page or the description on your Kindle begin to come clear. Page 69 is far from the middle of The Fort but it is definitely the turning point.

Reading it over again is actually sort of surreal, after all, this is my new book for readers, the book I’m looking at was five manuscripts ago. It’s not every time that a writer looks back on their own work with anything besides derision, but in this case I think I’m clean. The page reads like something that someone I sort of know might have written, much like seeing an old friend in a crowd. It’s only been a year since I wrote The Fort but it was still a pleasant surprise to find myself interested in the story, even though of course I know what happens next. I sure hope that my readers feel the same way.

Learn more about the book and author at the official Aric Davis website.

--Marshal Zeringue