in English and creative writing, respectively, as well as a trained classical musician.Palombo applied the Page 69 Test to The Violinist of Venice, her first novel, and reported the following:
Page 69 of The Violinist of Venice happens to be a very short one – it’s the last page before the end of chapter 12. As such, I’ll quote the whole thing here:Visit Alyssa Palombo's website.
I nodded, my head buried against his shoulder. “Yes. But even knowing that cannot change how I feel.”In chapter 12, Adriana and Vivaldi are seeing one another for the first time since they consummated their love. Vivaldi tries to end it, tries to send Adriana away before any irreversible damage can be done to either of their lives, but she manages to convince him that their love – however impossible or ill-considered – deserves a chance to bring them both whatever happiness it can. Short as this page is, I think it does capture more of the novel than it may first appear: there is a shadow of the conflict that haunts their relationship from start to finish even as this passage shows the love and desire between them. I like to think that someone picking up the book and reading only this page would be sufficiently intrigued to read more!
“Nor I.” I thought I heard him whisper, under his breath, something that sounded like the words miserere nobis, yet I could not be certain. But then his lips were seeking mine, and he was leading me to his bedchamber, and I returned to that world of passion and light and joy that I had recalled in my mind over and over throughout the past few days. I felt the ghost that I had been disappear, and again I knew myself to be real, made of flesh and sensation and feeling.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
