"He Started It"

Samantha Downing is the author of My Lovely Wife, her first novel.

She currently lives in New Orleans, where she is furiously typing away on her next thrilling standalone.

Downing applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, He Started It, and reported the following:

Page 69 of He Started It is an interesting peek into the book. While most of the story focuses on the sibling relationships in the Morgan family, page 69 is about the relationship between the narrator, Beth, and her husband, Felix.

The book takes place over the course of a 2-week road trip. Just before the trip began, Beth and Felix weren’t getting along. Felix wants to have children, Beth doesn’t know if she wants to or not. This page includes a flashback to a dinner a few weeks before the trip, where Felix insinuates that they’ll be trying to have children soon. Beth doesn’t like that, and she continues to think about it.

While their marriage isn’t the central story to the road trip, it’s an important part of who Beth is and where she is in life. How much she tells her husband—or doesn’t—is crucial.

There are a lot of secrets between all the characters in He Started It. Beth and Felix’s relationship, which they don’t talk about in front of the siblings, is one of them. It’s a great example of just how much everyone is hiding—or at least not sharing.

Visit Samantha Downing's website.

The Page 69 Test: My Lovely Wife.

--Marshal Zeringue