"Call of the Camino"

Suzanne Redfearn is the #1 Amazon and USA Today bestselling author of eight novels: Call of the Camino, Two Good Men, Where Butterflies Wander, Moment In Time, Hadley & Grace, In an Instant, No Ordinary Life, and Hush Little Baby. Her books have been translated into twenty-seven languages and have been recognized by RT Reviews, Target Recommends, Goodreads, Publisher’s Marketplace, and Kirkus Reviews. She has been awarded Best New Fiction from Best Book Awards and has been a Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist.

Born and raised on the east coast, Redfearn moved to California when she was fifteen. Currently, she lives in Laguna Beach with her husband where they own Lumberyard Restaurant. In addition to being an author, Redfearn is an architect specializing in residential and commercial design. When not writing, she enjoys doing anything and everything with her family—skiing, golf, tennis, pickleball, hiking, board games, and watching reality TV. She is an avid baseball fan. Her team is the Angels.

Redfearn applied the Page 69 Test to Call of the Camino with the following results:

I have always loved this test for how well it works. For whatever reason, page sixty-nine always seems to be highly indicative of what is at the heart of the story, and applying the Page 69 Test to Call of the Camino was no exception.

On page sixty-nine, Isabelle, one of the two protagonists, meets the love of her life, Peter, who she doesn’t know is the love of her life at the time, but their friendship and eventual romance is what will drive her storyline from that point forward. She also happens to meet him in a cathedral, where she is praying for the loss of two friends, and her relationship with her faith is also central to her journey.

Opening the book to page sixty-nine would give a reader a good sense of one of the underlying, driving forces of one of the two storylines. But since Call of the Camino is about two journeys along the path of St. James, it only gives a glimpse at half the book. It also does not show any of the Camino de Santiago, which is the backbone of the story. I think a reader might mistakenly believe, based on that single page, that the story is a romance and not the story of two women’s transformative journeys along an ancient, legendary trail told a generation apart.

Call of the Camino was inspired by my own experience walking the Camino de Santiago, a five-hundred-mile pilgrimage across Spain, and the characters were inspired by the amazing people I met along the way.

Visit Suzanne Redfearn's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Coffee with a Canine: Suzanne Redfearn and Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: No Ordinary Life.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2016).

My Book, The Movie: No Ordinary Life.

My Book, The Movie: In an Instant.

The Page 69 Test: In an Instant.

Q&A with Suzanne Redfearn.

My Book, The Movie: Hadley and Grace.

The Page 69 Test: Hadley & Grace.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (March 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Moment in Time.

My Book, The Movie: Moment in Time.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2024).

Writers Read: S. E. Redfearn (October 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Two Good Men.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (October 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Call of the Camino.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Silent Creek"

Tony Wirt was born in Lake Mills, IA, and got his first taste of publication in first grade, when his essay on Airplane II: The Sequel appeared in the Lake Mills Elementary School’s Creative Courier.

He's a graduate of the University of Iowa and spent nine years doing media relations in the Hawkeye Athletic Department. He's also been a sportswriter, movie ticket taker and Dairy Queen ice cream slinger who can still do the little curly thing on top of a soft serve cone.

He currently lives in Rochester, MN, with his wife and two daughters.

Wirt applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Silent Creek, and reported the following:

Page 69 is the final page of chapter ten, a scene I really liked writing. There isn’t much action or suspense, so I wouldn’t say it’s a great example of what a reader would be in for, but I’d like to think it really fleshes out our characters.

It’s a scene in the gym where Jim is helping Kelli, the coach of their high school’s girls team, prep for the upcoming basketabll season, but Kyle shows up as a bit of a third wheel. He’s been hounding Jim to come on as his assistant coach for the boys team, something he has absolutely no interest in doing.

While It may not be a great example of the book, as a character building chapter it does a good job. The scene is a great example of the tug of war going on inside Jim’s head ever since he returned home. Kyle represents everything Jim wants to leave behind, while Kelli represents the future he’s always wanted. It also shows the pressure that Jim is feeling to be everything his hometown wants him to be. This struggle is what guides Jim’s actions for the whole book—for better or worse.

Visit Tony Wirt's website.

The Page 69 Test: Pike Island.

Q&A with Tony Wirt.

My Book, The Movie: Pike Island.

My Book, The Movie: Silent Creek.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Resurrectionist"

Kathleen S. Allen is a young adult writer of gothic horror, historical, fantasy, and speculative fiction. She has published poems, short stories, novellas, and novels. She prefers dark to light, salty to sweet, and tea to coffee. She is a fan of K-Pop, classic rock, and British detective shows. She loves gray, foggy, cool, rainy days; unfortunately she lives in Los Angeles which is usually sunny and warm.

Allen applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Resurrectionist, and shared the following:

On page 69 Dilly is interacting with a visiting professor, Victor Clerval who is an Anatomist based out of Scotland. Dilly finds out he knew her recently deceased father and is eager to learn more of what he knows about her father’s research. She also hopes to secure him as a sponsor to medical college since she is financially unable to pay for it. He considers it and tells her to use his name as a reference for applying to medical colleges. She is thrilled to being one step closer to her dream of becoming a surgeon like her father. Except his caveat is she must first find a college who will admit her and that is a daunting task since so few (if any) medical colleges admit women to study medicine with the idea of becoming a physician and none will admit a woman who wants to be a surgeon. But Dilly is determined to pursue her dream.

In part this page introduces the main character as someone with determination and scientific knowledge but it doesn’t address the resurrectionist part which is the crux of the book. This page shows Dilly to be serious about the medical profession, however it might lead to the browser to think the book was only about a Victorian young lady (although her age isn’t mentioned on this page) who is trying to become a surgeon. So, no, the Page 69 Test doesn’t work for The Resurrectionist.

The Resurrectionist is a young adult gothic horror reimagining of Frankenstein taking place in 1888 Victorian England. It’s about a seventeen-year-old young woman who dreams of following in her recently deceased father’s footsteps to become a surgeon. But aspiring to be a physician or even a surgeon is frowned upon in 1888. Victorian women are seen as inappropriate and unladylike to even want any career instead of being a wife and mother. Dilly defies societal rules throughout, breaking one after another until she only follows her own rules. Along the way she’s caught up in a tangled web of graverobbing, dead bodies, murder and scientific experiments gone horribly wrong.

Visit Kathleen S. Allen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Curse of the Savoy"

Ron Base is a former newspaper and magazine journalist and movie critic. His works include twenty novels, two novellas and four non-fiction books. Base lives in Milton, Ontario. Prudence Emery worked as the press and public relations officer at the Savoy Hotel, and later as a publicist on more than a hundred film productions. She is also the author of the bestselling memoir Nanaimo Girl (2020).

Base tasked DCI Lightfoot from their Priscilla Tempest mystery series to apply the Page 69 Test to the latest installment, Curse of the Savoy, with the following results:

Detective Chief Inspector Robert Lightfoot of Scotland Yard here. I play a supporting role in the four Priscilla Tempest novels, usually accusing Miss Tempest of some misdeed or other.

I’ve been asked to take charge of the Page 69 Test investigation, the mystery surrounding it, particularly since it has been revealed that the originator of the test is none other than that famed Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLuhan. Mr. Ron Base, the co-author of the novels, reports to me that he once spent an evening with Mr. McLuhan listening to his thoughts on media theory. He is still scratching his head.

Finding my way to page 69 of Curse of the Savoy, the latest novel in the series, I soon discover that I am not mentioned. More’s the pity. I’m quite an interesting chap.

On page 69, the book’s heroine, Miss Tempest, is preoccupied with the recent murder of a well-known young British diplomat, a cad of the first order. I am the lead detective on that case and since Miss Tempest found the body, I regard her as a person of interest and highly suspicious.

Miss Tempest heads the press office at London’s iconic Savoy Hotel and is a member of the Gossip’s Bridle Club whose other members consist of three of London’s most famous theatrical figures—the renowned playwright Noël Coward and the actors Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.

On page 69, the club has convened to discuss the gossip of the day—who is failing in a dreadful play, who is sleeping with whom, and, on this occasion, who might have murdered the diplomat.

My examination concludes that the page in question succeeds by throwing the reader into the heart of the novel’s mystery and provides insight into the character of our plucky heroine. Miss Tempest is young, lovely, prone to attracting the wrong men, and getting herself into the sort of trouble that convinces me she is up to no good.

I was pleased to see that the page also touches upon the plot that drives the novel—a mysterious curse involving a black cat, a dinner party hosted by the legendary filmmaker Orson Welles, and the movie star Cary Grant, who, it seems, is attracted to Miss Tempest.

Ah, but the mystery …What is it about the magic of page 69 that draws in readers?

That investigation is ongoing.

Visit Ron Base's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"I Am You"

Victoria Redel is a first-generation American author of four books of poetry and six books of fiction. Her newest novel is I Am You. Redel’s work has been widely anthologized, awarded, and translated in ten languages. Her debut novel, Loverboy (2001) was adapted for feature film directed by Kevin Bacon. Redel’s short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O, and NOON among many others. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. Redel is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate Creative Writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York and Utah.

She applied the Page 69 Test to I Am You with the following results:

I love the Page 69 Test because I’m a full-throttle believer that a potential reader should be able to open to any page in a novel and begin to tease out the threads that weave through the novel. So, I confess I was relieved to see that page 69 of I Am You stays true to my belief.

At the top of page 69, a scene where Gerta, a maid and narrator of the novel, which takes place in the 1600s, has revealed to Maria, her master and a masterful painter, that she has, in secret, taught herself to paint. She shows her new skill by boldly painting directly on a still-life of Maria’s. But true to Maria’s nature, she hardly flinches, instead moving forward as if this is not a revelation but an inevitability. Gerta reflects, “Her reaction was as I’d hoped. Pragmatic. She needed an apprentice. And she knew it. If she was annoyed by anything that morning, it was only that she hadn’t realized before me that I’d become her apprentice. Though, of course, that’s eventually what she told the others. That she’d taught her maid. That she’d done what no one else had done before and turned a servant girl into a painter.”

Over the course of page 69, a browser would encounter a few of the essential threads in the novel—the power current between the two women that keeps shifting throughout the book and the role of secrets. That secret, that Gerta is Maria’s assistant, also leads to greater intimacy between the two women, and a new facet of their relationship begins to emerge as Gerta emerges as a painter in her own right. The two women at that point in the novel have forged a union determined to increase Maria’s position in the male-dominated art world of the 17th century.

Visit Victoria Redel's website.

The Page 69 Test: Before Everything.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Man in the Stone Cottage"

Before turning to novel writing, Stephanie Cowell was an opera singer, balladeer, founded an outdoor arts series in New York City's Bryant Park, a Renaissance festival, a chamber opera company and many other things. She has lived in New York City all her life, indeed in the same apartment building for fifty-two years in the neighborhood (and sometimes down the block) where they filmed You've Got Mail. Cowell has loved England and Europe all her life and traveled there almost every year.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Man in the Stone Cottage, and reported the following:

Page 69 is one of those important scenes in a novel which I’d call place markers or linking scenes. It is from Charlotte’s point-of-view. It is a long shot which shows us the Brontë family at a celebratory Christmas dinner such as most families have. They speak of politics, the neighbors, they gossip and exchange small gifts and eat good food. Towards the bottom of the page, Charlotte draws back a little to observe how happy they are and then ruminates how to make enough money to keep them all in the house together, well-fed and contented. It then moves from the long shot to the closeup. By the following page, she is once more making determined plans.

Actually, I think page 69 and the family dinner scene is perfect to introduce the book. The moments of happy family are what they all yearn for (though the brother Branwell will wreck his part of it) and have too seldom.

For those who do not know the story of the real little Brontë family in 1844 Victorian England, they are living in a Yorkshire parsonage of the church where the father is the curate (priest-in-charge). Though there are three sisters and one wayward brother at the table, they feel the presence of their mother and two other sisters who died as children. Charlotte as the eldest was charged to keeping them altogether. But though she will of course within three years write Jane Eyre and make more money than she ever dreamed, happy scenes like this will not often come again. Grave sickness will end these dinners. And Emily while writing Wuthering Heights. will become more remote, involved with a man in a stone cottage on the moor who no one else has ever seen.

Visit Stephanie Cowell's website.

The Page 69 Test: Claude & Camille.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Book of Guilt"

Catherine Chidgey’s novels have been published to international acclaim. Her first, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. Chidgey has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize. Her novel Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novels The Wish Child and The Axeman’s Carnival both won the Acorn Prize for Fiction, New Zealand’s most prestigious literary award. She lives in Cambridge, New Zealand, and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.

Chidgey applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Book of Guilt, and shared the following:

From page 99:

‘No matter, no matter,’ said the Minister as Mother Morning blushed right through her face powder to the roots of her hair.

‘How was your journey down?’ asked Mother Afternoon. ‘Really rather pleasant, once we left the A4,’ said the Minister.

‘Ah, the A4,’ said Mother Afternoon, as if she travelled it regularly and knew its shortcomings.

‘Dreadful congestion around Chiswick,’ said Dr Roach. ‘You should ask the Prime Minister to do something about it.’

I thought he was joking, but his face was stony.

The Minister said, ‘Roading is on her radar, certainly. I’m so sorry I was late.’

‘Quite all right,’ said Mother Morning, waving an airy hand.

‘You could have driven down together,’ said William. ‘That would have saved time.’

‘Mm,’ said the Minister.

Mother Afternoon nodded towards the dainty sandwiches on the tiered cake stand and said, ‘They picked the watercress themselves, our boys.’

‘They’re most resourceful,’ added Mother Morning, handing a side plate to the Minister. ‘Fondant fancy?’

Only Mother Night was silent. I kept glancing at her, and I couldn’t shake the thought that she wanted to burst into tears – but perhaps that was just because I wasn’t used to seeing her in the daytime and understanding the way her face moved and changed in natural light.

The Minister ate one fondant fancy and half a sandwich. Mother Afternoon tried to persuade her to try the Dundee cake – she’d made special patterns with the almonds on top, and I knew she was disappointed to see it untouched – but the Minister insisted she couldn’t manage another bite, delicious as it looked. Being in the public eye, she said, she had to watch her figure. She held her hand over her side plate as if to deflect anyone attempting to slip her a piece of Dundee cake. ‘She’s in the newspaper,’ Mother Morning told Mother Afternoon.

Page 69 is pivotal to The Book of Guilt: this is the moment when the Minister of Loneliness visits a mysterious home for boys that she is charged with shutting down. The scene includes most of the major players – it’s narrated by Vincent, one of three identical triplet brothers who have grown up in the home, and readers get a good idea of how uncomfortable the boys’ carers – Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night – feel in the company of the Minister, who is just about to break the bad news. At this point, it’s all awkward small talk, but Dr Roach, who oversees the Sycamore Homes, is ‘stony’ – he knows what’s on the horizon.

This page gives just a hint of the unease that characterises the book – Mother Night’s silence suggests all is not well, as does Vincent’s slight confusion about her – but I think readers who consume the full novel will notice much more the pervasive sense that something is wrong, and the way it gradually intensifies as the story progresses. I loved turning the tension up and up, and I hope readers relish this aspect of the novel.

Mother Morning’s line ‘Fondant fancy?’ still makes me laugh, and is a small gesture towards the humour in the book. I hear my own mother in her voice – pretending at sophistication, offering some dreadful 1970s confection to a guest she wanted to impress.

Follow Catherine Chidgey on Facebook and Instagram.

Q&A with Catherine Chidgey.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Bitter Wind"

James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II series, historical mysteries set within the Allied High Command during the Second World War. The series began with Billy Boyle, which takes place in England and Norway in 1942.

Benn applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, A Bitter Wind, the twentieth installment of the Billy Boyle series, with the following results:

From page 69:

“Did you check the carbon paper?” Diana said. “You never know.”

No, you never do. I remembered a clue once being found on carbon paper, but I think that was in a movie. Real life is never that easy, but I pulled out the dark, flimsy sheets to check them. The request for the Mandrel jammer was right on top, a worn, well-used sheet that had seen its final roll around the platen. Even so, I could make out the salutation to the 101 Squadron supply officer. The sheet under that was the memo to Brockman’s commanding officer at the 36th, the unit’s name clearly visible on the fresh page.

“Wait a minute,” I said, and set the sheets down side by side. “Brockman typed this one yesterday, using a new piece of carbon paper. He typed the supply request the day before, using a sheet that was on its last legs.”

“Very economical of him,” Diana said as she waited for me to make my point.

“This is how they came out of the tray,” I said, and placed the well-used sheet on top.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “It’s in the wrong order. Someone went through the carbon papers to see what the major had typed. Someone who got here before us.”

“Which means Brockman took both the original and carbon copy with him, which is why our intruder was reduced to riffling through the carbon paper,” I said.

“Or Major Brockman made a simple mistake,” Diana said with a sigh. “Out of character, but still possible. This is thin gruel, Billy.”

At first glance, this passage may look like thin gruel indeed for establishing the value of the Page 69 Test. It’s a bit dry and workmanlike, with a previously defined technical term laid out here much like a puzzling tidbit.

But then again, a murder investigation is full of tedious factchecking and the meticulous sifting of potential clues. And that’s exactly what’s going on here. Major Brockman is the murder victim—the first, that is—found early in the book. The Mandrel jammer is a piece of top secret electronic countermeasures hardware, designed to overwhelm German early warning radar systems. Brockman’s body was found with highly classified documents concerning electronic countermeasures used by the Royal Air Force in his pocket; documents that should never have left the base.

Which brings Billy and Diana sifting through routine paperwork in order to be certain all of the electronic warfare components are exactly where they should be. Dull, boring, and inconclusive, like much of real life.

So the test works well enough. The theoretical browser will know there’s already been a murder and that our detectives are searching for clues in a realistic fashion. Plus, there’s the added nostalgic sensation of handling carbon paper for those of an age to remember.

But there’s one last section of page 69 worth a mention:

“If we didn’t find him with his head bashed in, I’d agree it was just a mistake. But you’re right, it’s not much,” I said. “This must have something to do with what Conan Doyle had you investigating.”

Conan Doyle? If our browser has paid attention to the very end of the page, that name is sure to attract attention. This is a mystery, after all. The Conan Doyle in question is Squadron Officer Jean Conan Doyle, daughter of Sir Arthur, and in real life an intelligence officer with the Royal Air Force during World War II, and she plays an active role in this novel.

The Page 69 Test: passed, with flying colors.

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Literati"

USA Today bestselling author Susan Coll is the author of eight novels, including The Literati, Real Life & Other Fictions, and Bookish People. Her other books include The Stager, Acceptance, Rockville Pike, and Karlmarx.com.

Coll applied the Page 69 Test to The Literati and reported the following:

On page 69 of The Literati, Clemi – the 26-year-old protagonist who has just begun a new job as the programs director of a troubled literary nonprofit --- is working with Skylar, the intern, to try to guess the passwords for the nonprofit’s bank accounts so that they can pay the caterer for the forthcoming awards gala. Once they succeed, the two-step verification number is sent to the landline, which serves as an example of how antiquated the systems are at WLNP---Washington Literary Nonprofit. The two women then discover that the accounts they have managed to access have essentially been drained.

Page 69 is dialogue driven, so it doesn’t provide much context, and yet it is a surprisingly useful microcosm of the book. The page captures the comically dysfunctional state of WLNP, and it also has Clemi sneezing, which is a nod to her cat allergies and another of the novel’s plot points.

As a bonus, the page opens with the sentence, “OMG, Bob’s your uncle,” which was a line that I wanted to work into the novel. Around the time that I was writing this book I heard someone use this phrase. I was unfamiliar with it at the time, but it is apparently a British expression that means something along the lines of “and there you have it.” Or in the book, I’ve just successfully just hacked my way into the bank account.

Visit Susan Coll's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Coll & Zoe.

The Page 69 Test: Acceptance.

The Page 69 Test: Beach Week.

The Page 69 Test: The Stager.

The Page 69 Test: Real Life and Other Fictions.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Room of Lost Steps"

Simon Tolkien is the grandson of JRR Tolkien and a director of the Tolkien Estate. He is also series consultant for the Amazon series, The Rings of Power. He studied Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford and went on to become a London barrister specializing in criminal defense. He left the law to become a writer in 2001 and has published five novels which mine the history of the first half of the last century to explore dark subjects – capital punishment, the Holocaust, the London Blitz and the Battle of the Somme. The epic coming-of-age story of Theo Sterling, set in 1930s New York, England and Spain, is being published in two volumes, The Palace at the End of the Sea and The Room of Lost Steps.

Tolkien applied the Page 69 Test to The Room of Lost Steps and shared the following:

From page 69:

Theo ate hunks of bread with olive oil and pieces of uncooked ham, washed down with water in a goatskin bag. Even before he’d finished, he felt his strength returning, and the men clapped him on the back. Friends now, when they would have shot him in cold blood at a nod from their leader five minutes before. They called the short man Ascaso, and Theo sensed that they would lay down their lives without hesitation if he gave them the word.

In a pew at the back, the wounded man had stopped crying out, and Theo wondered whether he was dead.

Ascaso was over by the main door of the church, which he had half opened to look out. He was smoking a cigarette, and the golden sunlight wreathed with the blue smoke to illuminate his diminutive figure as if he were an actor on a stage. The gunfire, muffled before, was now louder than ever.

Suddenly he shouted twice, calling out a name that sounded like Oliver, and ran out.

“Who’s that?” Theo asked.

“Juan García Oliver. He leads the other group,” said one of the men. “They crossed Chinatown farther up, so perhaps they didn’t lose so many when they came out. If we join together, then maybe it will be enough.” But he looked like he had no faith in what he was saying. A hundred men would be no match for machine guns protected by the walls of the barricade.

A couple of minutes later, Ascaso came back into the church. “Time to go,” he said. “We have a plan.”

He walked to the end of the church and leaned down over the man in the back pew, verifying that he’d died. He closed the man’s eyes and took his pistol and handed it to Theo with an ammunition clip. “Let’s hope you can shoot as well as you can run,” he said.

On the way out of the church, he flicked his burning cigarette into the font and laughed when he saw Theo flinch.

“This church is beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.

Theo nodded, uncertain of the right response.

“It’s the oldest in Barcelona. A thirteenth-century Romanesque jewel, but tomorrow it will burn. All of them will. You’ll see.”

Page 69 of The Room of Lost Steps, reproduced above, conveys the tension of a short still interval between two episodes of street fighting on the first day of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona. The arresting image of the anarchist leader, Francisco Ascaso, standing in the doorway of the Sant Pau del Camp Church, wreathed in smoke and illuminated by sunlight, conveys the appeal that anarchism held for the hero of the novel, Theo Sterling, but Ascaso’s casual disrespect for the font and promise that the church will burn reveal his ruthlessness, intensified in Theo’s mind by the fact that Ascaso understands that it is unique and beautiful, “a thirteenth-century Romanesque jewel.”

Attraction and repulsion: the contradictory effect that anarchism has on Theo is a central theme of the novel. He admires the anarchists’ courageous resistance to fascism, but he distrusts the violent destruction that they espouse, and this ambivalence leads to an inability to believe and commit that undermines his relationship with the anarchist girl he loves, Maria Alvarez.

The Room of Lost Steps completes Theo’s coming-of-age journey that began in The Palace at the End of the Sea. His participation in the fighting in Barcelona cements his hatred of fascism, and convinces him that he can help to change the world. He volunteers to fight with the International Brigades and so completes the journey from illusion to disillusion that is the overarching thematic arc of the two novels. Page 69 describes an episode that is an essential step along that road and so passes Marshall McLuhan’s test with flying colors.

Visit Simon Tolkien's website.

Q&A with Simon Tolkien.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fiend"

Alma Katsu's novels include Red London, The Fervor, Red Widow, and The Deep. Prior to the publication of her first novel, she had a thirty-five-year long career as a senior intelligence analyst for several U.S. agencies, including the CIA and NSA, as well as RAND. Katsu is a graduate of the master's writing program at the Johns Hopkins University and received her bachelor's degree from Brandeis University. She lives in West Virginia with her husband and is a contributing reviewer for the Washington Post.

Katsu applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Fiend, with the following results:

From page 69:

Maybe Zef assumed Dardan would keep the other boys in line. But Dardan wasn’t a leader, not of this pack. He was just one of the boys at the periphery. Grateful to be part of the tribe. Conner Garrison—a god on the lacrosse field, the one the girls could not refuse—was the undisputed star of that little universe.

Dardan always burns with shame to remember that part.

He’s always felt guilty for what happened. He knows Zef is to blame for many things, but Conner Garrison’s death is not one of them.

Dardan’s shoulders slump. “I’m sorry but you just have to accept it for what it was: a freak accident. We were night skiing. We shouldn’t have been. We didn’t know the trails well enough. We were stupid. Egging each other one. Conner lost control.”

Garrison is almost trembling with rage. Dardan knows he wants to push back: Conner was an expert skier. There’s no way he would’ve done something so foolhardy. And lose control? He’d practically grown up with skis strapped to his feet.

But Andy Garrison wasn’t there. Dardan was. And he’s plunged back to that night. Following Conner’s screams though the trees and over boulders to the bottom of a sheer drop. Kneeling in the bloodied snow, not knowing what to do, fearing it was hopeless anyway. Headlamp sputtering in and out, running out of juice. Praying while he waited for the medics to show up. Conner unresponsive by the time he heard the medevac copper landing in the distance.

There is something else, too. Something Dardan has admitted to no one else save his father.

Page 69 is not a good example of the book as a whole; that is, it doesn’t reflect all the themes and key issues in the book, but it does give the reader insight into one important part of the story, that of Dardan, one of the major characters.

Here, Dardan is looking back at an incident that happened when he was 17. He’s 28 now and being groomed to take over his family’s empire. From this one scene, you get a sense of the many pressures facing Dardan—his strong, exacting father, the pressure that comes with being part of an extremely wealthy family—as well as a sense of Dardan’s character and, most importantly, his limitations.

Crisis is a good test of character. Being the only person on the scene of a deadly accident, the victim ostensibly a good friend (or maybe more of a frenemy) lets us see exactly what kind of person Dardan is. Most importantly, we know a challenge lies ahead of him and we see through this scene that he is not equal to that challenge. Like his frenemy Conner, he’s going to be crushed—we just don’t know yet how.

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Fervor.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (April 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Red London.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything We Could Do"

David McGlynn's books include the memoirs One Day You'll Thank Me and A Door in the Ocean, and the story collection The End of the Straight and Narrow. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The American Scholar. He teaches at Lawrence University and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

McGlynn applied the Page 69 Test to his debut novel, Everything We Could Do, and reported the following:

Everything We Could Do is largely -- though not entirely -- set in a hospital, specifically in a neonatal intensive care unit that cares for premature and critically ill newborn children. I've been fascinated by the NICU for years: not only was my youngest son a NICU patient, but my wife worked as a NICU social worker for close to a decade. The babies treated in NICUs are quite often unfathomably small and live at what Diana Fei calls "the edge of life": too small to survive without intensive medical intervention. Yet life, it turns out, is a powerful force and medical advancements have learned how to treat, nurture, and incubate many of these tiny human beings until they're strong enough to live in the world. It's harrowing and frightening and redemptive and miraculous all at once.

Page 69 is the opening of Chapter 5. The protagonists of the story, Brooke and Harper Jensen, have been holding vigil beside their preemies' beds for several weeks -- long enough for initial shock to wear off and for them to learn the idiosyncrasies of the place. A mother arrives at the unit with her baby, not for treatment, but to visit the nurses and doctor who cared for him. The nurses, however, don't remember him, at least not at first, and instead pretend to marvel over his size and progress. Harper Jensen sees this artificial display of exuberance as an insult, and then as a sign that the baby must not have been in the unit for very long. On the next page -- page 70 -- the reader learns that's not the case. The baby boy was very premature, and sick, and required an unforeseen surgery to live. But in the months since he's left the NICU, he's grown -- a lot. The nurses don't recognize him not because they're callous or cold, but because he's healthy and thriving.

Everything We Could Do tries to present a realistic view of a world few people ever see or even know about. It was important to me to not turn away from the most difficult experiences, to bear witness to them. But throughout the novel are moments like the one found on page 69, in which rays of light and hope poke through, and the characters get glimpses of possible happy endings. It helps them to keep going, and (I hope) adds a little levity to a deadly serious world.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn.

Q&A with David McGlynn.

--Marshal Zeringue