"Trouble Island"

Sharon Short is the author of sixteen published books. Her newest, Trouble Island, is historical suspense set in the 1930s on a Lake Erie island. Short is a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, for which she writes the column, “Level Up Your Writing (Life)” and teaches for Writer’s Digest University. She is a frequent, in-demand speaker at libraries, book clubs, and writing groups.

Short applied the Page 69 Test to Trouble Island and reported the following:

Trouble Island is set on a Lake Erie private island owned by a Prohibition gangster’s estranged wife, and narrated by an alleged murderess—forced into hiding as the wife’s servant—who plots her escape just as the gangster and a rogue ice storm make unexpected landfall.

Page 69 of Trouble Island reads as follows:

…the way she sang it made me realize I’d only been running away, not toward something. So I just finished lamely, “—it reminded me of home.”

To my surprise, Rosita asked with genuine curiosity, “Where’s that?”

“Southeast Ohio. Nowhere important.” The way she’d sung it, I couldn’t help but wonder what the song meant to her. So the question burst out of me: “Is that what you were thinking of? Home? You seemed somewhere else when you sang. I think that’s why it took me back—”

“That’s nonsense, doll,” Pony said. “But ma’am, it’s good to meet you, and uh, before you women folk get to gabbing, I’d love an introduction to your husband—I did some, ah, work for one of his men, over on Third—”

That took me by surprise. He hadn’t told me this. But then, he’d been coming home late, sometimes after midnight. And he had given me a more generous grocery allowance, and told me to get better cuts of meat for supper. I’d only asked him about it once. He’d backhanded me, and when my nose bled, told me that’s what I got for being nosy, and then cackled like he’d just made the cleverest joke.

Pony went on, “We came here tonight ’cause I was hoping to meet him, but, ah, it’s hard to get—” He stopped, stared longingly over at Eddie’s table, then jumped a little, straightening his shoulders like he was already a good soldier, for Eddie was making his way over to us.

I almost laughed at Pony. Couldn’t he see that Eddie didn’t notice him, or me? That Eddie’s smoldering gaze, the hint of a tender smile on his otherwise cruel slash of a mouth, was only for Rosita?

This page from Trouble Island captures the driving force of the plot: Aurelia (the narrator) is on the lam on a Lake Erie island owned by the estranged wife (Rosita) of a major gangster (Eddie). However, the scene on page 69 takes place before Aurelia must go on the lam, and before Rosita and Eddie’s marriage falls apart. Aurelia and Rosita are meeting for the first time, as Aurelia and her then-husband Pony go to a speakeasy where Rosita is performing. Their friendship ends up rocking both of their worlds.

I love that this page also captures Aurelia’s past insecurity and troubled life, which serves as a marked contrast with her current life on Trouble Island—the bulk of the novel—and her striving to break free from her past haunts and get a fresh start.

Learn more about the book and author at Sharon Short's website.

The Page 69 Test: My One Square Inch of Alaska.

--Marshal Zeringue