"Last Seen"

J.T. Ellison is the Nashville-based New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 30 psychological thrillers, and the Emmy® award-winning co-host of A Word on Words on Nashville PBS. She created the Taylor Jackson and Dr. Samantha Owens series, co-wrote the Brit in the FBI series with Catherine Coulter, and has penned multiple standalone hits like A Very Bad Thing, It’s One of Us, and Lie to Me. With millions of books sold across 30 countries, her work has earned the ITW Thriller Award, Indie Next picks, Amazon Editor’s Pick, Book of the Month, among other honors.

Ellison applied the Page 69 Test to Last Seen, her most recent thriller, and shared the following:

I love applying the Page 69 Test to my work. I never know what I might find on this particular page—will it be a quiet moment, or an explosive action scene? Something intrinsic to the story, or a cliffhanger, or something not really relevant because it’s being taken out of context, but obviously exists in the book for a compelling reason. I’ve experienced all of these situations in previous tests. This one, though, might just be my favorite.

As it happens, page 69 of Last Seen is a critical moment in the book. It is a confession. And also an insight into why my character is named Halley. A very important page.

My main character, Halley James, returns home to help her father after an accident and discovers that the story she’s been told her whole life about the car accident that took her mother’s and sister’s lives, and left her with a head injury, is a lie. In truth, her mother was murdered, and her father hid that from her for various reasons, including the fact that the murderer is known and went to jail. And that person is closer to Halley than she’d like.

In this scene, Quentin James is confessing one of the reasons he hid the truth and revealing part of the world that he’s kept hidden from her for the past 28 years. Her sister, who was also supposedly killed in the accident, had a very troubled past.

“She was very jealous and, turns out, at a really difficult age for a bad divorce and remarriage. Her behavior was getting more and more aggressive, so we took her to doctors. They said she was having issues adjusting because of an impulse disorder and put her on a stimulant medication. And it helped. Tremendously. Until it didn’t. They call it borderline personality disorder now, and they’re more careful with the medications. She was diagnosed in 1986, right before the comet.”

Halley’s Comet was the through line of Halley’s young life. It is her first memory, the four of them at the planetarium, her dad shivering in excitement. She was three, and she can remember almost all of that night—the darkened sky, the tail of the comet, her sister holding her hand and saying in awe, “You were named after that. Cool.” Her mother, laughing and kissing her dad as if he was the one to discover it through his telescope in the living room. As if he named it himself.

Three years later, her mother and sister were dead, and her memories become flaky.

“A year before she . . . it happened, things went bad again. It was like a light switch. She wouldn’t take the medicine willingly, said it made her feel weird. She was depressed, then she was manic, then mean, then crying. They tried all kinds of different treatments. She finally admitted she was hearing voices. It was getting worse and worse, and we were afraid for you, and for ourselves. At that point, she was beyond our abilities as parents. We thought you were in danger.”

He blows out a breath, and Halley feels for him. He is struggling for control. She should tell him they can talk later, but she has to know. This is too big to wait any longer.

Too big to wait, indeed. I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the novel!

Follow J.T. Ellison @thrillerchick and read about the process of writing Last Seen at The Creative Edge Substack.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

My Book, The Movie: No One Knows.

The Page 69 Test: Lie to Me.

My Book, The Movie: Good Girls Lie.

The Page 69 Test: Good Girls Lie.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison (January 2020).

Q&A with J.T. Ellison.

The Page 69 Test: A Very Bad Thing.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ashes to Ashes"

Thomas Maltman’s first novel, The Night Birds, won an Alex Award, a Spur Award, and the Friends of American Writers Literary Award. In 2009 the American Library Association chose The Night Birds as an “Outstanding Book for the College Bound.” Little Wolves, his second novel, was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award and won the All Iowa Reads selection in 2014. He teaches at Normandale Community College and lives in the Twin Cities area with his wife, a Lutheran pastor, and his three daughters. His third novel, The Land, was published in October, 2020.

Maltman applied the Page 69 Test to his fourth novel, Ashes to Ashes, and reported the following:

Here’s page sixty-nine in the entirety:

Chapter Nine

At home, beef stroganoff steams in the cast-iron skillet and the rich, creamy aroma fills the farmhouse kitchen. His father’s hands tremble as he carries the hot skillet over to the table. He looks better in this golden hour, his eyes clear instead of bloodshot. Even though he’s shaved and cleaned himself up, a light down of perspiration clings to his upper lip.

“Happy belated,” his father says. “I’m sorry I fell asleep early last night.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Basil says. Beef stroganoff is one of his favorite dinners, but he hesitates before joining them at the table.

“Cows tried to get out again,” Davy says.

“It’s that old heifer with the bent ear,” his dad says as he pulls back a chair. “She’s trouble. But Davy spotted them in time.”

Basil stands there, uncertain how to explain himself.

“What’s wrong?” his dad asks, reading his face.

“I hurt a kid today.” There’s no easy way to say it. “Broke his arm.”

“Ah no,” his father says.

“I meant to hurt him, Dad. And I feel terrible about it.”

His father takes this in as he sits, his gaze steady on Basil. “You quit, didn’t you?”

Basil nods, unable to say any more.

If readers turned to page sixty-nine of my book, would they know what it’s about? Absolutely. Turn to that page and you’ll meet the central protagonist, Basil Thorson, who has just caused a terrible injury to another boy during a wrestling match. You’ll meet his wounded father, whose health Basil fears for. You’ll glimpse how this story takes place in a rural area with many of the characters either farming or living on farms. Does it capture the story entirely? No.

There’s so much more to Ashes to Ashes, which includes magical realism. The people of the town of Andwen are marked with ashes during an Ash Wednesday service that mysteriously won’t wash away. There’s magical realism and a stone bearing strange markings that speaks of a journey by Vikings deep into American territory, a hundred years before Columbus.

The page sixty-nine test doesn’t capture these things, but it does get to the beating heart of the story.

Learn more about the book and author at Thomas Maltman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Little Wolves.

Writers Read: Thomas Maltman (February 2013).

--Marshal Zeringue

"House of Beth"

Kerry Cullen's short fiction has been published in The Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, One Teen Story, and more. She is a freelance editor focusing on literary and genre fiction, and she lives in New York.

Cullen applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, House of Beth, with the following results:

Page 69 reads:

“Um,” I called, too quietly. In the kitchen, the faucet ran. I cursed, gathered my dress high around my waist, and leapt with both feet into the center of the flames.

Embers scattered under my boots, and I crushed them. I felt crazed, cursed, like a dancer from a fairy tale, stomping out tongue after tongue of flame. I was starting to make progress when Preston skidded back in and hurled a bucketful of water at me. Steam hissed and I felt like an idiot, soaking wet and coughing in the wreckage. The carpet was ruined. My boots squelched when I moved.

“Sorry?” Preston asked, and I laughed awkwardly. Annabel barreled into me, threw her arms fiercely around my waist. “You saved our lives.”


Later, I was back home and replaying it all, working to quash the part of my brain that wanted to tell me I had purposely set up the whole situation to convince them of my false heroism. Annabel’s hug was imprinted on my body; I could remember the exact weight of her head pressing against my belly, her ridiculous hair bows digging in under my ribs. My dad’s house was quiet, devoid of cannibal hamsters and house fires. I kept remembering the turmoil with blushing warmth, like it was a celebration or a kiss, a little embarrassing in its intimacy. I wondered if they were all still replaying it too, telling the story over and over together like I was telling it to myself, alone.

This test is so interesting. I wouldn't say that a reader who read only this page would understand the tone or plot of the rest of the book. However, this page is, to me, one of the top three most important pages in the book.

The main character, Cassie, has harm OCD, which means she is constantly terrified that she might secretly be a villain--a serial killer, or otherwise depraved. At this point in the story, has just met her new paramour (and old friend) Eli's kids for the first time, at Christmas. There is an accidental fire, which Cassie puts out amid the hubbub, showing herself that she can be helpful, heroic, even, and save lives rather than ruining them.

Until this point in the book, Cassie has mostly been fleeing connection. In the beginning of the book, she left her job, her girlfriend, and her friends. She’s crashing alone at her dad’s house in her hometown, avoiding running into anyone she knows aside from Eli. She's wary of taking on an important role in anyone's life, fearing that she will hurt anyone she gets close to. This page is the first moment in the book when she lets herself believe that she might be needed by people around her--and that she might need them, too.

Visit Kerry Cullen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Sky"

Carolyn Dasher grew up in a military family, which meant she lived in ten different places before she graduated from high school. It also meant that every 4th of July she got to climb around on tanks and helicopters and watch the Blue Angels buzz overhead in tight formation. When she learned about the WASP—amazing women who stepped up during World War II to serve their country, and, as soon as the war was over, were told to step right back down again and transfer their talent and energy to home and family life—she knew she had to write about them.

Dasher applied the Page 69 Test to American Sky, her first novel, and shared the following:

From page 69:

Yet here she was, stuck on a back road for another half hour while he drove her home.

“Aw, George. Don’t cry, now. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

If only she could make lightning come out of her eyes instead of tears. She wasn’t sad. She was furious. “Just take me home.” She put her face in her hands and didn’t look up until they reached her house. As soon as he braked, she bolted out of the car, not even bothering to slam the door shut behind her. She raced up the steps and into the house with a roar.

“George!” Adele tossed aside the latest issue of Popular Mechanics and rushed toward her. “Oh, honey, what is it?” George flung herself into her mother’s arms and sobbed.

Adele stroked her hair back from her forehead, the way she had when George was little. George wished she were little again so she could curl up in her mother’s lap.

“What happened? Did he . . .”

George snorted through her tears. Mel was a coward. Too cowardly to go up in her plane. Too cowardly to introduce her to his mother. Too cowardly to do more than kiss her, even though she’d given him every indication that he could.

“No. Nothing like that.” She sniffled and pulled away.

“Then what?”

“He asked me when I planned to stop flying.”

“He what?”

“He asked me when I thought I’d get it out of my system.”

Even though page 69 is mostly dialog, it gives readers a decent sense of the novel’s “aboutness.” Georgeanne (George) is a teenage girl who dreams of becoming an aviator. Unlike her best friend, Vivian, she’s fortunate that her family can afford flying lessons, and she’s just earned her pilot’s license. Leading up to page 69, her boyfriend dismisses her offer to take him up for a flight. (He’s also not as adventurous in the backseat as she’d like.) The boyfriend assumes flying is something George will “get out of her system.” Because flying planes isn’t something nice, normal girls do, especially in middle America in the early 20th century.

American Sky follows three generations of women who refuse to live life on nice, normal girl terms. They repair cars, fly planes, serve in combat zones, and more. The book is also about female friendship and family secrets, but readers will have to look beyond page 69 for that part of the story.

Visit Carolyn Dasher's website.

Q&A with Carolyn Dasher.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Felons' Ball"

Polly Stewart is the author of The Good Ones. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and other publications, and she writes the monthly Backlist column for CrimeReads. She lives in Lexington, VA.

Stewart applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Felons' Ball, and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Felons’ Ball includes an interview between the main character, Natalie Macready and the local sheriff, Hardy Underwood, after the murder of Natalie’s boyfriend, Ben Marsh. The sheriff is asking Natalie, who found Ben’s body, whether she knows what happened to the weapon that killed him, and then they move into a more general conversation about why Ben might have been stabbed rather than shot. A reader opening the book to this page would lack quite a bit in context, but they’d also get a great insight into some of the underlying tensions at work in this novel. Natalie wants to know who killed Ben, but she has a strong suspicion that her father might be responsible for his death, and she wants to keep the sheriff from looking in his direction. In this conversation and throughout the novel, she’s torn between helping law enforcement and actively trying to obstruct them.

I think this push-and-pull within the character and the dialogue illustrates something important about the novel as a whole. In his younger days, Natalie’s father, Trey Macready, made his living as a moonshiner, and though he’s now a legitimate businessman, Natalie wonders if Trey and his brother might have returned to making illegal liquor on the side. The whole family is caught between living within the law and outside it, and that’s what we see in this conversation between Natalie and Hardy. A man in Natalie’s situation might try to pay off the local cops, but Natalie and Hardy end up in a relationship instead. The reader will have to figure out not only who killed Ben, but what Natalie will do when faced with a choice between finding the truth and protecting her family.

Visit Polly Stewart's website and follow her on Instagram.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Ones.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Night Sparrow"

Shelly Sanders is the bestselling author of the adult novel Daughters of the Occupation and the acclaimed young adult historical novels The Rachel Trilogy. She began her writing career as a freelance journalist working for major publications, including the Toronto Star, National Post, Maclean’s, Canadian Living, Reader’s Digest, and Today’s Parent. She lives in Ontario.

Sanders applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Night Sparrow, with the following results:

On page 69 of The Night Sparrow, Elena Bruskina is being prodded by her superior, Major Bystrov, to finish translating the Berliner Frontblatt. She’d started the night before but had promptly fallen asleep. The Major tells her to get it to him before they leave.

I need more time, she wanted to shout. I need more sleep. I need to pee. She wobbled into the bathroom and shut the door. She looked in the mirror and saw newsprint on the right side of her face. She started to laugh at herself and didn’t stop until she saw black ink smeared on her cheeks and realized she was crying.


“Reprehensible, says Bystrov.

He was poring over Elena’s hastily scribbled translation of the front page of the newspaper, a statement from Hitler. They were in the jeep driving through a chalky mist.

The statement said anyone who “approves of orders that weaken our resolve” would be considered a traitor, ordering them to be “shot or hanged.”

“Unbelievable,” she agreed. Much like Stalin’s order to die rather than retreat, she thought.

Elena was confused and disappointed by Bystrov’s unquestioning obedience. How did he not see that Stalin and Hitler were cut from the same cloth? She’d only been a child when Stalin had killed thousands of his own people—generals, those who spoke out against the Party, bourgeoisie—but she remembered, with an astonishing clarity, how this had embittered her father. He’d yelled at the newspaper and the radio. He’d become paranoid, looking over his shoulder whenever he was out of their flat…

If browsers opened to Page 69, they would wonder why Elena is translating a German newspaper instead of sniping on the front line. Although The Night Sparrow is told entirely from Elena Bruskina’s point of view, the chapters shift from her progression to becoming a sniper to her secretive role as an interpreter within SMERSH (death to spies), a Soviet counterintelligence agency responsible for exterminating spies. This alternation means that no matter what page browsers opened to, they would be limited to just one of the several positions Elena fills throughout the war. On page 69, browsers miss part of the historical significance of the novel, the story of the first female snipers in history. However, they do get a glimpse of Elena’s divisive thoughts about Stalin and Hitler.

Page 69 is interesting in its own right as it reveals an underlying theme of the novel, Elena’s dangerous belief that “…Stalin and Hitler were cut from the same cloth.” On this page, browsers can infer that her opinion was shaped by her father who was “embittered” by Stalin’s purges. And browsers could surmise that she is frustrated by people like Major Bystrov who can’t or won’t see the frightening similarities between Hitler and Stalin.

Visit Shelly Sanders's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Myth Maker"

Alie Dumas-Heidt lives in the Puget Sound with her husband, adult kids, and two Goldendoodles – Astrid and Torvi. Growing up she wanted to be a detective and a writer and spent a few years working as a police dispatcher. Now, working is writing in her home office with the dogs at her feet. When she’s not writing she enjoys being in the forest, creating glass art, yarn crafts, and watching baseball.

Dumas-Heidt applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Myth Maker, and shared the following:

Page 69 of The Myth Maker starts: “Every major news studio had caught wind of the latest suspicious death.” and goes on to recap the difficulty the lead detectives had gaining access to a scene that is already overcrowded once they arrive. The rest of the page is Detective Cassidy Cantwell and her partner Bryan Ramirez walking into a home that is now a murder scene, being greeted by the officers who were first on scene and making a quick assessment of differences between this scene and an earlier scene. Amazingly, the page offers no spoilers!

If someone was browsing through a bookshop or a library and flipped to page 69 of The Myth Maker I believe they’d have a pretty good idea of what type of story they were reading. They would meet the main character, Detective Cassidy Cantwell, and her partner, Bryan. I think they would get a feel for the setting and time period – modern day, city – and the pace of the characters because there is a bit of dialogue. There is mention of a chandelier our narrator thinks would fit better at Buckingham Palace, which I realize could make someone question what city we’re in. They would be at the start of a new murder scene, where there are no answers, only questions, and I think readers would want to know what was going on.

It’s an interesting test to jump into a random page and see if you could be pulled into a story. Looking over page 69 of The Myth Maker, I realized there’s plenty to give away what genre a reader picked up, but it gives little of the actual story away. You wouldn't know that our main character is new in her career as a detective. You wouldn't know about her connection to an early suspect, or that she's trying to balance her own failing two-year romance, and her family with her new career. A previous victim is mentioned without detail, and while the officers are at the general location of a murder, there’s no details revealed before the end of the page. It’s not even clear on that page who our main character is. If they hadn’t at least peeked at the jacket blurb, a reader wouldn’t even know our main character’s name! While Cassidy speaks and is spoken to on page 69, her name is not used at all, and that was not something I'd ever thought about before doing this test.

Visit Alie Dumas-Heidt's website.

Q&A with Alie Dumas-Heidt.

Writers Read: Alie Dumas-Heidt.

My Book, The Movie: The Myth Maker.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Daikon"

Samuel Hawley is a Canadian writer with BA and MA degrees in history from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He was born and grew up in South Korea and taught English there and in Japan for many years. His books include The Imjin War, the definitive account in English of Japan’s 16th-century invasion of Korea and attempted conquest of China; Speed Duel, about the 1960s rivalry between Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons for the world land speed record; Ultimate Speed, the authorized biography of land speed racing legend Craig Breedlove; and The Fight That Started the Movies: The World Heavyweight Championship, the Birth of Cinema and the First Feature Film.

Hawley applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Daikon, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Daikon, we are meeting the fourth and final main character in the story, Noriko Kan. She is the wife of Dr. Keizo Kan, the scientist tasked with investigating the atomic bomb the Japanese have recovered from the wreckage of a crashed B-29. Noriko is a Japanese-American who Keizo met and married during his studies at UC Berkeley in the States. And she is now in prison. She has run afoul of the Tokko, the Japanese version of the Gestapo. Locked in her solitary prison cell, the propaganda broadcasts she used to make at Radio Tokyo run through her mind.

I think—I hope—the Page 69 Test works in the sense Marshall McLuhan intended, namely that a reader would find page 69 intriguing and compelling enough to want to read the whole novel. But in terms of giving a good idea of the whole book, what it’s about—maybe not. Noriko’s storyline in the novel is quite different from the rest.

That being said, she plays a key role in the dangerous game of cat-and-mouse between Colonel Sagara, the officer who wants to use the atomic bomb against the United States to stave off defeat, and Keizo Kan, ordered by Sagara to turn the recovered bomb into a workable weapon. Keizo doesn’t want to take on the job, but he does so, and risks his own life, in order to get his wife freed. This sets Noriko on a journey of redemption and survival, a starving wraith using her last reserves of strength to keep going on the long walk back to Tokyo to find her husband and try to rebuild their lives.

Visit Samuel Hawley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Haggard House"

Elisabeth Rhoads is the author of Haggard House and numerous short stories. She has a B.A. in Theatre Arts and is the current Vice-President on the board of the California Writers Club, Orange County branch. Since 2021, she has been volunteer judging the Scholastic Writing Awards.

Rhoads applied the Page 69 Test to Haggard House with the following results:

From page 69:

Chapter 15

The Narrative of Adam Bolton

“Come in,” Mrs. Haworth said, taking my arm and leading me into the warm house. The dim light in the hall momentarily blinded me.

“My horse,” said I.

As if invited, the bay’s muzzle came sniffing and snorting over my shoulder. Mrs. Haworth leapt back and then laughed. She took hold of the bridle and motioned me inside.

“I’ll stable your horse,” she said, moving to put on her boots.

“I can stable her,” said I, stubbornly holding my place. “You oughtn’t go out.”

“Very well,” she said, eyeing me curiously. “Follow the house that way.” She pointed toward the back. “You’ll find a rope that leads to the barn.”

I found and followed it. Once inside, I took a deep breath of air. It smelled familiarly of sweet hay blended with manure. The Shorthorn, being unexpectedly disturbed, lowed loudly, and the Haworth’s Morgan, several hands shorter than the bay, shoved her head over the stall door to see who had interrupted her dinner. It was a small barn, easily a quarter of the size of mine, but it was large enough to store the Haworth’s buggy and sleigh.

Since page 69 starts a new chapter, it’s on the shorter side, but the nice thing is that a new chapter is always a fresh start. I think a reader opening to this page would find it a good representation of certain aspects of the novel.

First off, you immediately get the sense that this chapter is building on action that takes place previously, which is something I really made an effort to do—continuously move the plot forward.

You also get a taste of the dialogue, which, as a reader, is one of my favorite elements of a book.

This section also reveals a bit about the protagonist Adam’s character with the description after his dialogue “stubbornly holding my place.” If that doesn’t show he’s a bit stubborn, I don’t know what would!

Interestingly enough, I think that one thing that isn’t showcased on this page is the sense of foreboding throughout the novel. Because the reader is introduced to an in-progress action/adventure scene, you don’t really get the sense that this is a dark work of fiction.

So, while I would say that page 69 is an accurate representation of writing style and pace, it’s probably not the best representation of the darker/suspenseful tone of the novel as a whole.

Visit Elisabeth Rhoads's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue"

Spencer Quinn is the pen name of Peter Abrahams, the Edgar-award winning author of many novels, including the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery series, Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, The Right Side, and Oblivion, as well as the New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for younger readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana―and Dottie, a loyal and energetic member of the four-pawed nation within.

Quinn applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue, and shared the following:

Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue is a crime novel built on three interrelated mysteries concerning an explosion, a possibly missing person, and a secret buried long ago. None of that has a damn thing to do with page 69, which is taken up entirely by a conversation between Mrs. Plansky, a retired 71-year-old widow in Florida, and Lucrecia, “the home health aide who came to Mrs. Plansky’s place for four hours every weekday to … well, to basically entertain Mrs. Plansky’s dad—who despite being 98 had no apparent health problems, although he himself in toto was just about unfailingly problematic.” That quote is taken from earlier in the book. Lucrecia’s mother—who lives with her and her husband Joe, a firefighter who figures in the explosion scene—is also unfailingly problematic. Clara’s her name and she’s around the same age as Mrs. Plansky’s dad. She came from an aristocratic Cuban background, fled the revolution, and arrived in Florida with nothing but a now useless pedigree. One more little fact: She and Mrs. Plansky’s dad are having an affair. On page 69 Lucrecia is broaching an idea:

“I’ve been thinking,” Lucrecia said. “About the assisted living problem.”

“You have my attention.”

“My mom’s not against it, not the way she can get when she’s deep down against.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Plansky. “I thought you were talking about my dad.”

“I am, partly.” Lucrecia took some cheerfully colored brochures from her purse. “There’s a few assisted livings that take couples. In the same quarters, I mean, a kind of suite. My mom would be okay with that.”

“With him, you mean?”

“Si.”

“Do you think he’d do it?”

“We’d leave that in her … in her hands.”

They both thought about that for a few moments.

“Just one catch,” Lucrecia said.

“What’s that?”

“They’d have to be married. That’s the rule.”

“An assisted living company rule?”

Lucrecia shook her head. “Her rule.”

“But they’re having—they’re together now.”

“Not living together, under the same roof.” Lucrecia glanced at Mrs. Plansky over the rim of her mug. “My rule too, actually.”

Mrs. Plansky nodded, her instincts possibly in agreement even if her rational mind was not. “But will he do it? Get married?”

“Again, that will be up to her.”

“Meaning she’ll pop the question?”

“Clara Dominguez de Soto y Camondo—and those aren’t even all of her names—pop the question? Nunca en el vida. She will persuade him to pop the question.”

“What if he says no?”

“Is he the type to say no?”

“Lucrecia! It’s his go-to.”

“Ha!” said Lucrecia. “Not to worry.”

So, nothing to do with those three plot points. But the canny reader will suspect that this is one of those stories that might end in a wedding, and who’s against that? Also, just as important as the plot—at least in the mysteries I write—are the characters, especially the central one, in this case Mrs. Plansky. An amateur sleuth, yes, but with inner resources. As you can tell, I hope from the above passage. And therefore, in the end, page 69 represents the whole rather well.

Visit Spencer Quinn's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Audrey (September 2011).

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Pearl (August 2012).

The Page 69 Test: The Dog Who Knew Too Much.

The Page 69 Test: Paw and Order.

The Page 69 Test: Scents and Sensibility.

The Page 69 Test: Bow Wow.

The Page 69 Test: Heart of Barkness.

Q&A with Spencer Quinn.

The Page 69 Test: A Farewell to Arfs.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Twilight Town"

Terrence McCauley is the author of The Twilight Town: A Dallas ’63 Novel. This first book in a trilogy about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has received early acclaim from authors like I.S. Berry, Meg Gardiner, James Grady and others.

McCauley has published more than thirty novels across three genres, including the acclaimed University Series thrillers, the Charlie Doherty 1930s crime novels, and two award-winning western series. He has also ghostwritten for several projects. He grew up in the Bronx, New York and now calls Dutchess County, New York home.

McCauley applied the Page 69 Test to The Twilight Town and reported the following:

From page 69:

Revill lowered his voice. “General Walker and Reverend Hargis. How do you like that?”

Wilson didn’t like it. He didn’t have to. “They’ve been all over the news lately. What’s it about?”

“The mayor’s office didn’t tell me, but I hear they’re planning on holding a couple of rallies here in Dallas.” Revill heard gossip, but didn’t spread it. He only repeated what he knew. “The mayor want us to work with them. To keep an eye on things and our ears to the ground for any trouble. Make sure no one gets too carried away on either side. You’d be a big help in making sure it all goes as smooth as silk.”

Zeke would be glad to hear the news. Hoover would be pleased by the intel. Walker and Hargis hated the Kennedys. Just like J. Edgar. “Just let me know the time and I’ll be there.”

“Meeting’s at nine, so it’d be great if you could be there by eight-thirty.” Revill acted as if he had just remembered something. “I almost forgot. Are you and Connie still going to that shin dig at the de Mohrenschildt place tonight?”

Wilson had forgotten he’d told Revill about it the previous week. But Revill never forgot anything.

“Unfortunately. Some kind of benefit for Russian refugees. Connie’s been looking forward to it.”

“I don’t blame her,” Revill said. “I hear the de Mohrenschildts really know how to throw a good party.”

“You should go in my place.”

“Connie would kill both of us. But it might be a good idea if you paid attention to everyone who’s there. De Mohrenschildt runs with an interesting crowd. Knowing who his friends are could come in handy later.”

Wilson had the CID drill down cold. “I’ll write up a full report and have it on your desk in the morning.”

“Nah, Monday’s soon enough.” Revill rarely flat-out asked his men for anything. He led them in a certain direction. He let them think it was their idea.

This test yielded some interesting results. The Twilight Town isn’t just about the JFK assassination. It’s about the dynamics of relationships and manipulation. Keep in mind that I also consider being enemies a form of relationship. Here, we see an example of soft power being used on Wilson by Revill. Wilson knows he’s being manipulated, but plays the game anyway. We see Revill’s cunning as he softens the order by placing it in the form of a favor.

General Walker’s relationship with Mayor Cabell is also demonstrated on this page. The audience sees the general has enough influence with the mayor to have a meeting with the city’s top officials. It implies power that goes beyond just the characters mentioned in this scene.

Discussion of the de Mohrenschildt party deepens the intrigue, with Revill knowing there will be attendees who are of interest to Dallas PD.

I feel the Page 69 Test gives the reader a strong sense of the main themes present throughout the book.

Visit Terrence McCauley's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Conspiracy of Ravens.

The Page 69 Test: A Conspiracy of Ravens.

Writers Read: Terrence McCauley (October 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue

"There'll Be Shell to Pay"

Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore; may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.

MacRae lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she recently retired from connecting children with books at the public library.

MacRae applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, There'll Be Shell to Pay, with the following results:

If browsers open There’ll Be Shell to Pay at page 69, will they get a good or a poor idea of the whole story? Page 69 is the first page of chapter eleven, so it’s somewhat short. Here it is in full.

The young guy who glanced up from a computer screen when I opened the station door had to be Deputy Matt Kincaid. Figuring that out took no skill whatsoever. Tate only had one deputy. That deputy had a broken leg. Here was a deputy in a regulation khaki shirt, rising to greet me on one leg, with a hand on the desk to steady himself. Also, dead giveaway, a pair of crutches leaned against the wall behind him.

‘Good morning!’ He had an engaging smile and looked wobbly.

I waved him back down. ‘Don’t stand on my account.’

‘Okey-doke. Thanks.’ He eased himself back down. He looked younger than Kelly and O’Connor. Brawnier, too. Like a brawny surfer—blond with a fading tan. ‘You know, time doesn’t exactly fly when you’re stuck here like a dam—like a desk jockey—but I can at least get it right and say good afternoon instead of good morning.’

‘Good afternoon.’ Did people still talk about desk jockeys? Did young deputies say okey-doke? ‘Are you Deputy Kincaid?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Nice to meet you. I’m Maureen Nash.’

‘New owner of the Moon Shell,’ he said promptly.’

A browser can pick up quite a bit of information from page 69. The story takes place in a community so small that the sheriff has only one deputy. Small enough, too, that these two people, who have never met each other, know who each other must be. We know their names. We can guess that Maureen Nash is new here. Their exchange is friendly. Maureen is empathetic. Deputy Kincaid, though young, might be somewhat old-fashioned. All of this could rightly lead the browser to guess that the story isn’t terribly dark. While all of that gleaned information is helpful, too much is left out to consider the Page 69 Test accurate for this book.

What does page 69 leave out? Murder—There’ll Be Shell to Pay is a murder mystery. The browser only reading page 69 also doesn’t find out that the story takes place on Ocracoke, a tiny barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. Maureen, a storyteller and malacologist (a scientist who studies shells and the critters who create them), is also an amateur sleuth. The Moon Shell, that Maureen now owns, is a shell shop. The shop is haunted by the ghost of an 18th-century pirate.

So, no, the Page 69 Test doesn’t quite work for this book, but it has for others of my books and that’s why I enjoy applying it.

Visit Molly MacRae's website.

My Book, The Movie: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Scones and Scoundrels.

My Book, The Movie: Scones and Scoundrels.

The Page 69 Test: Crewel and Unusual.

The Page 69 Test: Heather and Homicide.

Q&A with Molly MacRae.

Writers Read: Molly MacRae (July 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Come Shell or High Water.

My Book, The Movie: Come Shell or High Water.

Writers Read: Molly MacRae.

My Book, The Movie: There'll Be Shell to Pay.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Five Oaks"

Julie Hensley is the author of three books, Five Oaks, Landfall: A Ring of Stories, and Viable. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Real World and The Language of Horses. A professor at Eastern Kentucky University and core faculty member in the Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-Res MFA Program, she lives in Richmond with her husband, the writer R Dean Johnson, and their two children.

Hensley applied the Page 69 Test to Five Oaks and shared the following:

Page 69, from Chapter 4: Into the Woods:

I liked the sound of the balloon tires whizzing over the blacktop, the feel of the bills clutched soft and damp between my palm and the handlebars. This had been my mother’s bike, and Papaw had fixed it up just for me. I didn’t mind the rust creeping through the pink paint. At the store, Mr. Jessup, fiddling with a transistor radio, would always look up and smile when I passed the counter. I could smell the minnow tanks and the cricket cage in the back of the store. Mr. Jessup usually slid a little something extra across the counter for me. He stocked all sorts of candy I’d never heard of before—waxy root beer bottles, caramel Cow Tales, tiny boxes of Boston Baked Beans.

This paragraph is a pretty good representation of Five Oaks. I love that page 69 takes us to a Sylvie chapter. She is the narrator of the entire novel, but in certain chapters, her voice nearly dissolves into the imagined the consciousnesses of her mother and grandmother. I think you can see some of Five Oaks’ thematic concerns simmering in this paragraph: the conflux of the old and the new in that pink, slightly rusted bicycle (and, of course, how that accordions out into the hauntings of familial history and adventure of new experience). The same goes for that old-timey candy, all of which is completely new and fascinating to Sylvie. The idea of “the lure” comes through the image of the bait creatures in the recess of the store. The idea of hunting/predation.

Visit Julie Hensley's website.

Q&A with Julie Hensley.

My Book, The Movie: Five Oaks.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Black Highway"

Simon Toyne is the author of the internationally bestselling Sanctus trilogy (Sanctus, The Key, and The Tower), The Searcher, The Boy Who Saw, Dark Objects, and The Clearing, and has worked in British television for more than twenty years. As a writer, director, and producer he’s made several award-winning shows, one of which won a BAFTA. He lives in England with his wife and family, where he is permanently at work on his next novel.

Toyne applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Black Highway, and reported the following:

My new book starts with a headless, handless body washing up on the banks of the River Thames in the heart of London, and page 69 is right in the middle of the autopsy, so it’s a crucial scene that reveals key pieces of information that will propel the story forward towards an eventual solution to the mystery of who this man is.

Having a body with no head or hands – apart from being downright bizarre – also makes it incredibly hard to identify the victim, so this scene largely revolves around speculation as to who the man is and, by extension, who might have wanted to kill him in such a violent and brutal way.

It’s a very visual scene, a hallmark of all my books and a legacy of my previous career in television, and takes place in a makeshift morgue by the river, convened in haste because the body washed up somewhere very visible and is already becoming a big news story that the police want to get ahead of. As a result, the pathologist, Dr Evelyn Prior, a fearsome glamazon who looks like a 1950’s Italian film star, is in a couture dress she wore to the opera before her evening was interrupted, ninja uniformed river police watch on like attendant courtiers, and my two series characters Dr Laughton Rees, highly respected criminologist, and DCI Tannahill Khan, Metropolitan homicide detective, confer about the clothes the dead man was wearing, looking for clues in the well-cut suit and handmade shoes, and puzzled as to why someone who is a ‘someone’ and clearly not a vagrant has not yet been reported missing.

At the end of this scene - not quite on page 69, but close – they find a clue on the body, something that at first looks like a tattoo but is in fact something written in marker pen - P. Brannigan.

Is this the headless man’s name, they wonder? Or maybe even the man who killed him leaving a bizarre calling card. No, Laughton Rees, realises, it most likely refers to a building close by to where the body was found, the Brannigan building, with the P standing for the Penthouse. Laughton knows the building and the Penthouse well, because it’s not only where she lives, but also where her teenage daughter Gracie is currently home alone…

Visit Simon Toyne's website, Facebook page, Twitter perch, and Instagram page.

My Book, The Movie: Sanctus.

The Page 69 Test: Sanctus.

The Page 69 Test: The Tower.

My Book, The Movie: The Tower.

My Book, The Movie: The Searcher.

Writers Read: Simon Toyne (October 2015).

The Page 69 Test: The Searcher.

The Page 69 Test: The Clearing.

My Book, The Movie: The Clearing.

Q&A with Simon Toyne.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sunburned"

Katherine Wood also writes under the pen name Katherine St. John. She is a native of Mississippi and a graduate of the University of Southern California who spent over a decade in the film industry as an actress, screenwriter, and director before turning to penning novels. When she's not writing, she can be found hiking or on the beach with a good book. Wood currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and two daughters.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Sunburned, with the following results:

Page 69 of Sunburned is really a half-page, as it finds us at the beginning of Chapter 7. Our protagonist, Audrey, has been summoned to the swanky island of St. Barth’s by her ex-boyfriend Tyson, who has become a tech billionaire in the ten years since they broke up. Their relationship ended badly, and she wanted nothing more than to turn him down, but he’s being blackmailed about secrets they share, and has threatened to turn on her if she doesn’t help him find out who in his inner circle is extorting him.

On page 69, Audrey has just retired to her bedroom at Tyson’s lavish island estate after a tense dinner during which she met all the suspects, including the brother who has always been in his shadow, the celebrity business partner he's been butting heads with, the gorgeous young wife whose wings he’s clipped, and the sexy French butler who seems to know more than he should. In this scene, Audrey is eavesdropping on a conversation between the brother and the business partner while texting with her best friend about what’s going on, and she uses their code word to let her know she can’t talk for fear of being surveillance… that code word? Sunburned––which is of course the title of the book.

Is page 69 the most exciting page in the book? Nope. At this point, our victim hasn’t even been murdered yet! Things are definitely gonna get twistier and more thrilling as Audrey tracks down the murderer before she becomes the scape goat… or worse, the next victim. But is this page on theme and does it give you an idea of where the book might go? Absolutely.

Visit Katherine Wood's website.

Q&A with Katherine St. John.

The Page 69 Test: The Vicious Circle.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Typewriter Beach"

Meg Waite Clayton is the internationally bestselling author of nine novels, including the new Typewriter Beach, "an irresistible story of 1950s Hollywood..." (Publishers Weekly, starred review) "sure to be a big summer hit" (Library Journal, starred review), the New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and Good Morning America Buzz Book The Postmistress of Paris, and the National Jewish Book Award finalist The Last Train to London.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Typewriter Beach and shared the following:

Page 69 of Typewriter Beach recounts the afternoon after Léon Chazen, my blacklisted screenwriter, finds out he’s been blacklisted — a fact he learns when he shows up at his studio and is told by the security guard who has greeted him every morning for years that he cannot enter. Not knowing what else to do, he drives to a movie theater matinee, then leaves early only to have an FBI agent fall in beside him:

“Do you have time to answer a few questions, Mr. Chazan?” the agent said, lest there be any doubt that he knew exactly who Leo was, that he’d known that Leo was in that theater, that he’d waited for him.

Leo climbed into Buttercup and drove off, leaving the man watching him go. He knew as surely as the agent did that it wouldn’t matter, that answers weren’t what the man was after. The FBI simply wanted Leo to know he was being watched, that at any moment he could be seen— his world changed so quickly, just as it had been in France all those years ago.

He called about the cottage that afternoon and agreed to buy it sight unseen. And long before dawn the morning the sale was to close, he loaded Ole Mr. Miracle and a few things into Buttercup, leaving everything else behind once again.

What Leo earned after that, writing secretly due to the blacklist, was so little that he had to work constantly just to pay the mortgage…

The cottage referred to is in Carmel-by-the-Sea, where much of the story takes place. Buttercup us Leo’s beautiful pale yellow roadster convertible he bought with the money he earned from selling his first screenplay. And Ole Mr. Miracle is his typewriter.

The page is a pretty nice summary of where Leo finds himself in the 1957 thread of Typewriter Beach. And that story was where Typewriter Beach started for me, with this history of voices being silenced by our own government in ways that clearly violated people’s constitutional rights.

But the novel is much broader than that, too. It’s set in 1957 and 2018 Hollywood and Carmel-by-the-Sea, and is the story of the unlikely friendship between Leo and Isabella Giori, a young actress whose studio has in mind to make her the new Grace Kelly/Hitchcock’s new blonde—if she can toe the line. It’s told from four points of view, and the smallest one, page-wise, is Leo. Most of the 1957 story is told by Isabella. And in 2018, Leo has died and his granddaughter, Gemma, is in Carmel to clean out his cottage. There, she meets Isabella and the last point-of-view character, a creative tech guy who lives in the oceanfront mansion across the road from Leo.

The page exposes one aspect of the dark history underlying the novel: the Hollywood blacklist. But another thread of the story is the particular challenges women in Hollywood faced under the studio system, and also now, and the double standard between what transgressions men are allowed (lots) compared to women (none).

The page is also largely narration, whereas the great bulk of the novel is in scene. It opens, for example, with Isabella auditioning with Hitchcock, thanks to my wise editor, Sara Nelson at Harper Books. One of her first comments was that I should open with that scene, which she said was like nothing she has ever seen. And as usual she was right—although it took me some time to see that! And Typewriter Beach ends, also in scene, with an uplifting ending that I hope leaves readers laughing and crying at the same time.

Learn more about the book and author at Meg Waite Clayton's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Ms. Bradwells.

The Page 69 Test: The Wednesday Daughters.

The Page 69 Test: Beautiful Exiles.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Train to London.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder in Pitigliano"

Camilla Trinchieri worked for many years dubbing films in Rome with directors including Federico Fellini, Pietro Germi, Franco Rossi, Lina Wertmüller and Luchino Visconti. She immigrated to the US in 1980 and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Under the pseudonym Camilla Crespi, she has published eight mysteries. As Camilla Trinchieri, she has published The Price of Silence and Seeking Alice, a fictionalized account of her mother’s life in Europe during WWII.

Trinchieri applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Murder in Pitigliano, the fifth title in her Tuscan mystery series, and reported the following:

Celia, a red-haired little girl from Pitigliano, a medieval town on the southern border of Tuscany, discovers Nico is a detective and asks him to help her runaway father, who has been accused of murdering his business partner.

Page 69 takes place in the restaurant Sotto Il Fico (Under the Fig Tree) where Nico Doyle has become sous chef during the tourist season. It is now November. Nico and his rescue OneWag are eating pappardelle in veal stew sauce with his deceased wife’s cousin Tilde, her husband and her cantankerous mother-in-law, Elvira. Nico has decided to help Celia and her mother discover the truth. Never having been to Pitigliano, he asks for information. Elvira, after her usual criticism of Tilde’s cooking takes her time to answer him. She tells the story of a long-gone woman, a red-headed owner of a knit shop, whose pretty red-headed daughter ran away, not to be heard of since except for a postcard she sent from Pitigliano. Nico wonders if there is a connection to Celia and her mother. Redheads are not that common in Tuscany.

The page includes elements that are important to the whole series: Nico’s good heart, the joy of cooking and eating food, the important relationship between Nico, Tilde and her family. And it has Nico wondering. I’m glad you chose the 69th page.

Visit Camilla Trinchieri's website.

Q&A with Camilla Trinchieri.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Always Be My Bibi"

Priyanka Taslim is a Bangladeshi American writer, educator, and lifelong New Jersey resident. Having grown up in a bustling Bangladeshi diaspora community, surrounded by her mother’s entire clan and many aunties of no relation, her writing often features families, communities, and all the drama therein. Currently, Taslim teaches English by day and tells all kinds of stories about Bengali characters by night. Her writing usually stars spunky heroines finding their place in the world…and a little swoony romance, too.

Taslim applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Always Be My Bibi, with the following results:

Page 69 of Always Be My Bibi is actually the first page of chapter seven. On this page, Bibi—the bratty, American, Cher Horowitz-esque teenage heroine of the novel—is about to embark on her employee orientation for a tea estate in Bangladesh.

I think this page does a good job of giving readers a small glimpse into who Bibi is through her vibrant voice. You learn she isn’t especially excited about this new task, which is a punishment from her parents (for sneaking off with a boy back in New Jersey, although you won’t know this from page 69 alone). However, neither being in trouble nor the antiquated rules of the estate will stop her from making the most of her life, so she’s intent on being the best dressed on the farm.

Unfortunately, the page doesn’t perfectly encapsulate what the story itself is about as well as some other segments of the book. Always Be My Bibi is a YA romcom about a teenage fashionista jetting off to this tea estate for her older sister’s wedding to its heir, only to scheme with the younger brother of the groom to sabotage the engagement when they realize their families are destined for nothing but a Shakespearean-level feud. It’s a romance and a family drama all wrapped up in one, with ethereal descriptions of an underappreciated destination. You don’t get to see enough of that on page 69 alone, but if I were to choose a chapter that embodied some of the most fun elements of the book, chapter seven as a whole wouldn’t be a bad option. In the chapter, you get to see Bibi’s sense of style, some of her conflict with her older sister, her early impressions of the groom, and her banter with his brother, whom she still hates at this point. Plus, they take a tour of the tea garden and talk a little bit about the history of tea in Bangladesh, so if page 69 doesn’t quite pull you in, perhaps try finishing the chapter to see if it might be your cup of tea!

Visit Priyanka Taslim's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Love Match.

Q&A with Priyanka Taslim.

The Page 69 Test: The Love Match.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Dark Library"

Mary Anna Evans is an award-winning author, a writing professor, and she holds a PhD in English literature, a background that, as it turns out, was ideal for writing her new standalone, The Dark Library, the story of a woman still menaced by her dead father whose rare book collection holds the secrets she needs to escape him.

Evans applied the Page 69 Test to The Dark Library and shared the following:

On page 69 of The Dark Library, my protagonist Estella Ecker, who prefers to be called E, has reached rock-bottom. With her father dead and her mother missing, she’s been left alone to care for the family’s brooding Gothic mansion and for her beloved housekeeper (and substitute mother) Annie, but the money that her parents had thrown around so casually has disappeared. Desperate to meet her financial obligations, she’s landed a position as a research assistant at the local college, the best job available for a woman in her small hometown in 1942. She’s sold the car. She and Annie have sealed off most of the house to save on coal. They’re growing their own food, even foraging for mushrooms and berries to cut their grocery expenses. Even so, she can’t make ends meet. The time has come to sell the family treasures.

E spends the entirety of page 69 negotiating with an art dealer, Oscar Glenby, who has come to look at her father’s collection of paintings. He is breaking the news to her that the paintings are essentially worthless in wartime. She asks if her father’s rare book collection has any value and he says no, but he also asks to see it. This sets off her intuition. If it’s worthless, why does he want to see it?

This settles E’s mind about how she feels about Oscar Glenby. She doesn’t trust him, and she doesn’t want to do business with him. It’s a relief to see him go, but he takes with him her last hope to avoid financial ruin.

Is this a good enough sample of The Dark Library to tell readers whether it might interest them? I think so. It communicates just how impossible it would be for anybody, especially a woman, to find enough money during a war to save a money pit of a house like E’s. It shows her resolve to fight impossible odds. Annie doesn’t appear on page 69, but the rest of the chapter shows how much Annie and E mean to each other as they grapple with their next steps.

If the essence of a suspenseful plot is “a relatable character dealing with an impossible-to-solve problem,” then page 69 of The Dark Library gives a satisfying glimpse of E and her conundrum.

Learn more about the author and her work at Mary Anna Evans's website.

The Page 69 Test: Floodgates.

Writers Read: Mary Anna Evans (October 2010).

The Page 69 Test: Strangers.

My Book, The Movie: Strangers.

The Page 69 Test: Plunder.

Writers Read: Mary Anna Evans (November 2013).

The Page 69 Test: Rituals.

Q&A with Mary Anna Evans.

My Book, The Movie: The Physicists' Daughter.

The Page 69 Test: The Physicists' Daughter.

Writers Read: Mary Anna Evans (June 2023).

The Page 69 Test: The Traitor Beside Her.

My Book, The Movie: The Traitor Beside Her.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Catalog of Burnt Objects"

Shana Youngdahl is a poet, professor, and the author of the acclaimed novel As Many Nows as I Can Get, a Seventeen Best Book of the Year, a New York Public Library Top Ten Best Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year. Youngdahl hails from Paradise, California, devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire, which stirred her to write her latest novel, A Catalog of Burnt Objects. She now lives with her husband, two daughters, dog, and cat in Missouri where she is Associate Professor in the MFA in Writing Program at Lindenwood University.

Youngdahl applied the Page 69 Test to A Catalog of Burnt Objects and reported the following:

Page 69 of A Catalog of Burnt Objects begins a chapter called “Two and A Half Weeks Before,” The protagonist, Caprice is dropped off by her Gramps at Sierra’s Hole in The Dam Donuts to have a meeting about the app she is developing to promote tourism to her town. Here, she meets her best friend Alicia, who is “totally together,” and Caprice feels inadequate in her glued-together shoes. Gramps directs her inside and offers her money for donuts which she tries to refuse but he evades her. He suggests that it is her “job,” to eat the donuts and that she must complete this job because you “never take money for a job you can’t finish.” Then her brother, Beckett, and love-interest, River, pull up. Caprice reflects on how in the last week she’d only seen River at school and as she equates him with “firefly glimpses,” the page ends.

Because of the chapter header this is a short page, but it still gets to the heart of a few things that are deeply important to this book. Caprice is shown with her loving Gramps. She adores him and he supports her. He is someone that helps set her morals about money and work, and toward the end of the book this conversation will be something Caprice reflects on as she figures out her path forward.

Gramps is mentor character who is there even when she isn’t confident in her new role as someone who has to run a meeting. Her ability to focus is challenged by being seventeen and having her love interest there. The good and bad of a new love during times of change is also an important theme in the book.

Hole In The Dam donuts is an important setting because its name is an example of one of the many “Dam puns” embraced by Sierra residents, a town that celebrates the history of their local dam with an annual “Dam Days” Parade. Caprice’s family is very involved with this parade, and it is the setting of the book’s final chapter.

Two and a half-weeks before is the countdown to the catastrophic wildfire that will decimate Sierra. The fire will force Caprice to confront all of her feelings of inadequacy head-on, and realign her understanding of home, her vision for the future, and her relationships with her friends and family. It’s ultimately all there, but you might want to read more than just page 69 to really feel it!

Visit Shana Youngdahl's website.

Q&A with Shana Youngdahl.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Women Like Us"

Katia Lief’s new novel, Women Like Us, is the follow-up to Invisible Woman. Lief is also the author of A Map of the Dark and Last Night under the pseudonym Karen Ellis. Earlier work includes USA Today and international bestselling novels Five Days in Summer, One Cold Night, and The Money Kill, the fourth installment of her Karin Schaeffer series which was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She teaches fiction writing at The New School in Manhattan and lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Lief applied the Page 69 Test to Women Like Us with the following results:

When Women Like Us takes the Page 69 Test, we arrive at a relaxed moment with Joni Ackerman letting her guard down and allowing herself to enjoy a simple kindness.

Frank, who she’s just met, owns a film and television post-production company in New York where Joni and her daughter Chris might return to finish the pilot for a TV show they’re making. After visiting several uninspiring facilities in Manhattan, they’re caught off guard by a small Brooklyn-based company’s creative and technical capacity in combination with an unusual coziness and the convenience of its location near their apartment.

Joni surprises herself by feeling attracted to Frank, who is divorced and about her age, at a time when she’s written off the idea of dating. Her instinct is to bolt—but then, on this page, Frank offers his homemade scones and a cup of coffee before they leave.

Everything about the visit feels right, and it terrifies her. She doesn’t really want to return to New York after several years back home in California, and she doesn’t trust the strength of the good impression this man is making on her.

In Invisible Woman, the first in this two-book series, Joni went down the rabbit hole of her anger as her marriage dissolved. By the end, she made a life-changing choice in committing a crime and getting away with it. She left New York and returned to her Los Angeles home where she recovered her balance and a sense of inherent goodness, while weathering the pandemic with her daughter Chris. Now Chris and others at their production company are pressuring them to return to New York where the company has its headquarters

Joni is reluctant and almost wants the visits to post-production facilities to fail so she can head back west. Then she meets Frank and tastes his homemade scone.

As the novel goes on, Joni discovers that she isn’t afraid of Frank as much as she’s afraid of herself. Can she trust herself not to hurt him?

Visit Katia Lief's website.

The Page 69 Test: Next Time You See Me.

My Book, The Movie: Next Time You See Me.

The Page 69 Test: Vanishing Girls.

My Book, The Movie: The Money Kill.

The Page 69 Test: Last Night.

Q&A with Katia Lief.

The Page 69 Test: Invisible Woman.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder Takes a Vacation"

Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

Lippman applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Murder Takes a Vacation, and shared the following:

Page 69 in Murder Takes a Vacation opens to a seminal memory for the main character, Mrs. Blossom. It's about the first time she saw the work of Joan Mitchell, an abstract expressionist, and how emotional it made her. This, she thinks to herself, "was a woman who clearly was not afraid to take up space." Mrs. Blossom is a woman who's trying not to be afraid to take up space, but it doesn't come naturally to her. Newly rich through a stroke of luck, she has flown to Paris to see a Mitchell exhibit, resolved to see Mitchell's home in Vetheuil.

In her memory of her first time: “The paintings were bold, enormous . . . And so much color, so many evocations of flowers! Mrs. Blossom had wandered through the rooms transfixed, feeling as if this work had been created explicitly for her.”

The fact is, I discovered Mitchell as Mrs. Blossom did, at a show at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I am embarrassed I didn't know of her work until a few years ago, but so it goes. And, although I'm not as shy as Mrs. Blossom, I'm also a little conflicted about taking up space.

Because I became a mother quite late in life, I'm not yet at the point of the existential dilemma she finds herself in, with no one to care for. (A widow for a decade, she's been helping with her grandchildren, but now her daughter's family is relocating to Tokyo and she is pointedly not invited to join them.) But I've lately taken to bragging that I'm living my best old lady life -- still working, but enjoying travel and museums more and more. I'm even a docent at the American Visionary Art Museum.

A browser glancing at page 69 would certainly get a glimpse of the larger themes of the work — a woman alone, traveling, interested in art, feeling a little bit adrift, but trying to take positive steps.

Visit Laura Lippman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Another Thing to Fall.

The Page 69 Test: What the Dead Know.

The Page 69 Test/Page 99 Test: Life Sentences.

The Page 69 Test: I'd Know You Anywhere.

The Page 69 Test: The Most Dangerous Thing.

The Page 69 Test: Hush Hush.

The Page 69 Test: Wilde Lake.

My Book, the Movie: Wilde Lake.

The Page 69 Test: Sunburn.

The Page 69 Test: Lady in the Lake.

The Page 69 Test: Dream Girl.

The Page 69 Test: Prom Mom.

--Marshal Zeringue