"The Taming of the Drew"

Stephanie Kate Strohm is the author of Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink and the Confederates Don't Wear Couture.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Taming of the Drew, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“If you’re no angel, Cass” – Taylor turned to me – “what are you doing way up here in the middle of the woods?”

“We work at Shakespeare at Dunmore.”

“What, you an actress, Red?” He straightened.

“We both are,” Amy said.

“Dag, that’s ill, Betty!” He leapt off the steps to join me in the dirt at the bottom. “This shit is mad timely!”

Page 69 lets us know where we are. The Taming of the Drew takes place way up in the middle of the woods, where our heroine, Cass – aka Red aka Betty – is working as an actress in the apprentice company at Shakespeare at Dunmore, an outdoor summer Shakespeare theater in Vermont. Cass is playing Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, and couldn’t be more excited to be acting professionally. Page 69, however, isn’t really about Cass’s acting career at all – it’s about Taylor Griffith, a pro skateboarder with impressive abdominal musculature Cass has just met outside of the only store in town, the Bait ‘n’ Bite. He might speak in nearly incomprehensible slang, but there’s something about him that Cass finds irresistible. It might be the tan. It might be the blinding smile. Or it might be the aforementioned abs. But whatever it is, for the first time in Vermont, Cass feels like her summer might be even more romantic than anything Shakespeare has written.

Visit Stephanie Kate Strohm's website.

--Marshal Zeringue