"The Conspiracy of Us"

Maggie Hall indulges her obsession with distant lands and far-flung adventures as often as she can. She has played with baby tigers in Thailand, learned to make homemade pasta in Italy, and taken thousands of miles of trains through the vibrant countryside of India. In her past life, she was a bookstore events coordinator and marketing manager, and when she’s not on the other side of the world, she lives with her husband and their cats in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she watches USC football, dabbles in graphic design, and blogs about young adult literature for YA Misfits.

Hall applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Conspiracy of Us, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Elisa led me to a three-way mirror, where a girl who hardly looked like me stared back in triplicate. In the silver gown, the girl looked more serious, more elegant, then they changed me into the gold dress again, and she was glamorous, striking.

I found myself hoping fiercely that my mom would let me stay for the ball, and even a little longer. Meet the Saxons, find out more about my father's family and the rest of the Circle. To feel like I belonged in this strange, fascinating world.

"You have to choose eventually." Elisa smiled. In the mirror, the gold sequins shimmered. But there was something about the silver. It belonged on me.

Aimee unzipped the gold dress and left me to get out of it, following Elisa downstairs to wrap the silver one. I watched it go. I couldn't believe that, just like that, it was going to be mine.

I was about step out of the gold dress when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. "Elisa?" I said. "Aimee?" There was no answer.

In case it was one of the men come to escort me down, I zipped the dress up.

The girls were nowhere in sight, but the man who had let us in stood at the top of the staircase.

"Sorry, I'm not ready yet," I said. I smiled at him, and he reached into his jacket pocket.

He pulled out something that, for a moment, didn't register. It was too discordant with the marble floors, the dresses, the Bach chiming from the speakers.

It was a knife.

Hilariously, page 69-70 is the excerpt on the back of The Conspiracy of Us! So yes, I suppose it’s a pretty good introduction to the book. There’s danger. There’s action. There are beautiful ball gowns. And Avery is thinking about everything that’s happening to her, so you’d have a pretty good idea about her family and how she feels about her new situation if you read only this page—which is why we chose it for the back!

And as for whether a reader would read on? If I were a reader, I would! I'd be dying to see what Avery would do in this situation. I hope other readers feel the same way!

Visit Maggie Hall's website.

--Marshal Zeringue