Royden B. Davis, S. J., Distinguished Author Award, Brandy has bylines at WSJ, Scientific American, Globe and Mail, HuffPo, WIRED, Boston Globe, and UNDARK. She is host of Unsolved Mysteries of Medicine (2025) and the popular YouTube livestream, Peculiar Book Club, featuring bestselling authors of unusual nonfiction, from Mary Roach to Ed Yong. Schillace has appeared on Mysteries at the Museum with Don Wildman, The Unbelievable with Dan Akroyd, Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny, and Histories Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne. She gives regular keynotes and is a tireless advocate for social justice, disability and LGBTQ+ representation.
Schillace applied the Page 69 Test to The Dead Come to Stay, her second mystery featuring the amateur sleuth Jo Jones, with the following results:
From page 69:Visit Brandy Schillace's website.It still wasn’t bacon, in Jo’s opinion. And it didn’t compare with Tula’s sausage rolls. But it was hard not to enjoy something warm and buttery, especially when you were walking on your own through damp, open country.The Page 69 Test works really well for the book! Though it doesn't get to the heart of the murder mystery, it really showcases the way autistic amateur sleuth Jo Jones thinks--and it tantalizes with another of the book's mysteries (and a key to the larger plot).
Jo parted with Gwilym at the branch between Upper and Lower Lane; he was headed back to the Red Lion—she just wanted to put her feet up at home. The first time she’d taken the right to roam trail from cottage to town, it seemed endlessly long. Now she did it regularly, sometimes once a week in the warmer months. Lone walks gave her brain a chance to unspool; no conversation to keep up with, no one asking for explanations. Just her own thoughts. And a bacon butty, which would have benefited from fresher bread.
The disappearing hiker had been walking alone, too. Nothing strange about that, though mostly the hill-hikers came in pairs or groups. The Pennines could be surprisingly tricky. One hill looked a lot like the next hill, cell service was spotty, fog rolling in unexpectedly. People did get lost. A woman and her dog got lost on the peak of Ingleborough in the late fall; freezing weather moved in, and a rescue team had to track them down. Then there was the runner who fell; they didn’t find him until it was too late. Granted, Abington hugged a corner in the south east, where the geography happened to be a lot more forgiving. Still, watching a hiker disappear almost before your eyes…
It's astonishing how much a reader can learn in short order from page 69 of The Dead Come to Stay. For starters, you have the fact that Jo Jones, an American in England, has some trouble adjusting to things in her new home. "Bacon" for instance; in the US, we mean streaky, crispy, smoked bacon rashers. But in England, bacon is typically back-bacon, a different part of the pig, and it looks, tastes, and has the mouth-feel of ham. Sandwiches are sometimes called "buttys"--another clue that our heroine is in the north of England. Food textures matter a lot to autistic people (I know, as I am also autistic). Though this short excerpt doesn't explicitly tell you Jo is autistic, it mentioned the fact she needs "alone" time with her thoughts, and that keeping up with conversation or endlessly explaining herself to others (neurotypical people especially) is tiring work. We are told, too, that the weather is cool and damp, and that she is wandering alone through an area with a hiker has disappeared mysteriously... and that her understanding of the region and its terrain is bookishly precise. Jo is a book editor, and the hiker she has seen vanish will have bearing on the murder mystery! In fact, even the mention of needing fresher bread is a clue. Overall, a really great introduction to her character and the book!
The Page 69 Test: The Framed Women of Ardemore House.
--Marshal Zeringue
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