"One Level Down"

Mary G. Thompson is the author of The Word, Flicker and Mist, and other novels for children and young adults, as well as the new sci-fi novella One Level Down. Her contemporary thriller Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee was a winner of the 2017 Westchester Fiction Award and a finalist for the 2018-2019 Missouri Gateway award. Her short fiction has appeared in Dark Matter Magazine, Apex Magazine, and others. Thompson is originally from Eugene, Oregon, where she attended the University of Oregon School of Law. She practiced law for seven years, including five years in the US Navy JAGC, and now works as a law librarian. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children from The New School and completed the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television's Professional Program in Screenwriting. She lives in Washington, DC.

Thompson applied the Page 69 Test to One Level Down and reported the following:

Since this is a novella and the text is only 158 pages long, page 69 is a decent way into the book. Here we have Ella, who is fifty-eight but being forced by Daddy to look and act as if she’s five, finally meeting the Technician who came from outside. Now she’s realizing how difficult her plan for escape is going to be to execute:

I know I’ll never get Niclaus alone at the party. After we leave this house, he’ll be pulled in a million directions. He’ll exit our universe, fix our glitches, and never be seen again. And my next chance won't come for another sixty years. I’ve spent a thousand hours thinking about what I’d do in this moment. Now that it’s here, I realize how stupid my plan is. It’s not a plan really, it’s just a hope.

“Sounds like fun,” Niclaus says as they disappear into Daddy’s office and Daddy closes the door in front of me. I don’t go to my room, though. I go to the living room and pace around. I circle and circle and circle, and I know that with every moment I’m acting less like a child. I’m letting my entire facade, and everything I need to survive, fall apart because this moment is too important and too quick, and I have to hang on.

This page does a pretty good job of telling you what the story is about. You learn that this is a simulated universe, what the technician is there to do, and that Ella is trapped and needs his help. You also get a sense of Ella’s desperation. Also on this page, we see her thinking of her deleted stepmother and leaping back into the act of pretending she’s a five-year-old.

“I’m going to build a spaceship,” I say, pretending like I’ve understood nothing. “Daddy says we have lots of planets out there just like you do.”

One thing I tried to convey is that even though Ella is trapped in a terrible situation, there are positive things about their universe. If you weren’t under Daddy’s thumb, you could appreciate the beautiful nature and the potential for building up a society. There’s a tremendous amount of lost potential when we hold people back to suit our own interests, and a lot of promise in allowing our children to explore. And ultimately, you often can’t hold others back no matter how much you want to. Ella is determined to find a way out, whether it’s via the Technician or other means. She knows she deserves to be able to go out into the world and build spaceships instead of being trapped in one man’s house. I hope readers will root for her to get what she needs.

Visit Mary G. Thompson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Four Queens of Crime"

Rosanne Limoncelli is an author, filmmaker, and storyteller living in Brooklyn. She has written, directed, and produced short narrative films, documentaries, and educational films. Limoncelli also writes plays, feature scripts, poetry, games, mysteries, and science fiction. Her short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Suspense Magazine, and Noir Nation, and her short films have been screened in festivals around the world.

Limoncelli applied the Page 69 Test to her debut mystery novel, The Four Queens of Crime, and reported the following:

From page 69:

The two beautiful young women had danced a quick-paced, swinging sort of dance, laughing with joy, their eyes only for each other. The song ended and they hugged, catching their breath. The next tune was a slow romantic ballad and the embrace turned into a slow dance. Kate and Sofia seemed completely lost in the music and the rhythm. Dorothy couldn’t take her eyes off them. Suddenly, Sir Henry had stormed onto the dance floor and pulled them apart.

He had grabbed Kate’s arm, his mouth close to her ear, saying something low and harsh. Kate’s face had turned red, her fists clenched in anger. Sir Henry’s hand twisted her arm as he held it tightly. Then he had marched her to the buffet, Sofia following behind them in confusion.

Remembering it now, Dorothy felt her own face flush. Being reprimanded in public by your father was not something a young person felt lightly, which she knew from firsthand experience. She had loved her own father, and revered his reputation and intellect. But there had been times when his Victorian sensibility had made her heart ache. Going away to school, and the friendships she made with the other girls there, had been liberating. She looked at Kate and Sofia near her at the dining table—it was obvious they meant a lot to each other.

“Cara mia,” Sofia was saying to Kate. “Non ti preoccupare. Io sono qui.”

Dorothy was fluent in Italian and knew that she had said, ‘My dear, don’t worry, I am here.’ Kate was still weeping softly, on and off, Sofia stroked her hair and squeezed her hand. Dorothy wondered what exactly Kate’s father had said to her as he pulled her off the dance floor. Perhaps he thought the girls were a little too close. After all, they weren’t children any longer, they were young ladies, and it was a very public event. Whatever he had said, it now would linger in Kate’s heart as her last interaction with her father. Unless they had had another meeting or confrontation later in the night? Tears could stem from sorrow, Dorothy thought, but also from guilt or fear.

Whether the reader checks the blurb on the back of the book or not, I am surprised to discover that I think page 69 would help the reader jump right into the story without being confusing. Important characters make an appearance, and the interactions between them are good clues to possible suspects in the murder, and this small piece of the story gives an insight to an important theme in the novel. The dancing of two teenage girls at a fancy gala ball has enraged one girl’s father. What was really happening between the two girls? What made the father so angry? The incident was witnessed by Dorothy L Sayers, one of the famous authors (Queens of Crime) hosting the ball, and she connects it to a memory of her youth. This gives her an emotional reaction to the incident, which brings on thoughts and suspicions. The scene is a good example of what the book is like, a queen of crime observing people, their actions and reactions, and how the information may relate to the death of the victim. The thought process that pushes the plot forward and asks the reader do their own investigation to help figure out the end. Another insight on page 69 is that even though this story takes place in 1938, it could just as well have happened today. That’s another important aspect to the story; the political and philosophical parallels from 1938 to now.

Visit Rosanne Limoncelli's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime.

--Marshal Zeringue

"White Line Fever"

KC Jones is a screenwriter-turned-novelist currently living in western Washington. When not writing, he can be found watching movies, playing video and board games, or enjoying nature—whenever it isn’t raining.

He graduated from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas with a degree in film production. His first published novel, Black Tide, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a first novel.

Jones applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, White Line Fever, and reported the following:

Page 69 of White Line Fever is the title page for Part 2. Maybe not the greatest indicator of what's in the rest of the book. But at the same time, the design team chose art for these breaks that slowly shift to reveal a full picture over the course of the story. On page 69, we see a night sky entirely unpolluted by city lights, so that the galaxy is clearly visible. Underneath that, a black, lightless forest silhouetted against the nightscape, the trees blurred slightly from the apparent motion of the viewer. In the foreground, a road is just hinted at, also blurred by the viewer’s speedy passing through this place. It's an eerie shot, even without context. It suggests being chased, or moving quickly toward somewhere else. It hints of a road trip gone awry, a spooky forest, and cosmic horror, which sums up the vibes of this book pretty well. It’s at least probably enough to get a browser to turn the page, which is a much better sampling of things to come, as the main character notes the strangeness of the woods and the road as she and her friends drive through it, before her head smacks the window glass and shocks her out of the highway hypnosis-induced trance she hadn’t even realized came over her. It's just the first time that this road is going to get into her head, and things are only going to get worse for the four friends from here. This road is only fifteen miles long, but it's going to take these characters to places they hoped never to go again.

Visit KC Jones's website.

--Marshal Zeringue