"Midsummer Nights"

Lara Stokes grew up in Northern Ontario and now lives and writes in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario. Her work has appeared in The Danforth Review, The Ottawa Arts Review, Burnt Toast (newsletter for The Writer’s Union of Canada) and has been shortlisted for the Toronto Fringe New Play Contest and Geist’s CanLit Short Fiction contest. In 2007 she completed an Honors BA in Theatre and Creative Writing at York University, where she was the recipient of the b.p. Nichol award and the Judith Eve Gewertz Award.

Stokes's debut novel is Midsummer Nights.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Midsummer Nights and shared the following:

From page 69:

A log splits in the fire, setting off a shower of sparks. Our eyes turn to the fire, then back to each other.

“Would you want to hang out sometime?” Will asks.

“We are hanging out,” I say.

“For real, I mean.” He looks at me, hope on his face. “I mean, no pressure, or whatever.” He takes a drink.

I have been a version of here before. I have been here too recently. I am still shaken from the aftermath of Nick. Will is nothing like him. I can see right away that we could go out, we could probably have a really lovely summer thing. I want to hang out with him. I want to very much.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. To his credit, his expression doesn’t change. “I’d like to. I-I’d really like to. I just got out of something . . .” It sounds so lame. “I—I just think, maybe, with the show, and it’s my parents’ company . . . I feel like I shouldn’t do anything . . .”

“Hey, it’s cool.” He smiles kindly. “I hope you won’t feel uncomfortable or anything working together, knowing I . . .” He stops as Theo returns, plopping himself into one of the large chairs. I smile and shake my head, No, it’s all good, but the truth is, I am realizing in a rush, that it is going to be extremely uncomfortable working with someone whose smile, whose apple scent, makes my insides flip like this.

First, I will say that when I opened the book to conduct the test, I happened to open it to page 69. So, the book is on board!

Page 69 is the last page of a chapter where the protagonist, Miranda, has made amends with her estranged best friend and is hanging out at a local cidery owned by her love interest in the play they are in - A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This page is the first real hint at what is the central romance in the book is, and sets up Miranda’s reasons not to pursue it.

While this book is not strictly a romance, this page does speak to the journey Miranda takes over the course of the novel. Her past relationships will haunt her this summer in more ways than one, and she is finally rediscovering her love of theatre and her identity as an artist. This page does hint at the four players in the ‘love quadrangle’ and while it is a fairly offhand moment, in many ways, it is the exact isolated moment that turns things for her. This page accurately establishes the tone of the book, and while it does not take place in the theatre (where most of the book is set) it establishes enough dynamics to provide the reader with a good sense of the book.

I was doubtful, but I think Midsummer Nights successfully passes the Page 69 Test!

Visit Lara Stokes's website.

Writers Read: Lara Stokes.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies"

Kate Westbury grew up a voracious reader of detective fiction, and unraveling plot twists became her favorite pastime. She now puts her whodunnit obsession to good use writing historical mysteries. Beyond the page, Westbury teaches Latin and dreams of moving to an English village with crimes to solve.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies, and reported the following:

From page 69:

He and Ginevra Bishop were very different sorts of people, but both were broken, brittle creatures with shadows dusting their heels. She needed his help, and walking away from someone with a real need was impossible for him.

A maelstrom of defensive emotions swirled, but Sidney shunted them to the back of his mind. He knew he was more than capable of tracking down the informant, and the money would be useful, much as he was loath to admit it. A break from squeezing in odd jobs, from long nights studying to compensate. […] He would become the Rook’s ideal agent, compartmentalized and cold, and keep his contact with Ginevra Bishop professional and brief—which was best, as he didn’t have the time nor capacity to train her properly. Despite the Rook’s appreciation of her charm, Sidney still thought her dynamic personality would be hard to restrain when needed.

Though it’s a historical mystery, Oxford Guide is very much a character-driven story, too. My two protagonists, Sidney and Ginevra, are an ex-serviceman and a debutante-turned-scholar, and their clashing partnership while working for MI5 encapsulates the lingering class divide that was breaking down in 1950s England. This particular page falls at the very end of Act I and highlights both Sidney’s struggles with his personal ghosts and the pull toward Ginevra that he’s resisting. The only thing that page doesn’t include that colors a good bit of the story is humor, but I think it’s still an excellent representation of the rest of the novel and tells a reader if they would enjoy spending time with these characters.

Sidney’s brooding, however, is only half the picture. Ginevra is his opposite in upbringing, taste, and temperament, but money doesn’t buy happiness. Her mother died while she was away at finishing school, her father is emotionally distant, and she’s fighting for a fulfilling life in a world that expects her to marry well and become a domestic ornament. She is buoyed by an irrepressible optimism and curiosity that makes her an excellent recruit for the Security Service, and also a first-rate thorn in Sidney’s side trying to work with her. This kind of opposites-thrown-together pairing makes for all kinds of natural comedy, but I think the best part of their relationship is the slow turn toward mutual understanding and respect that starts to blossom into something more.

Visit Kate Westbury's website.

Q&A with Kate Westbury.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Ninth Circle"

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, The Ninth Circle, the twenty-first installment of the Billy Boyle series, with the following results:

From page 69:

“What are you doing here?” I said to Cordano from the backseat. Max was up front clutching his wounded arm while Kaz and I bookended our semiconscious passenger.

“What’s he doing here?” Cordano said, crooking a thumb in our general direction. He drove slowly, his eyes straight ahead as two cop cars passed, sirens wailing. Cordano knew how not to look guilty behind the wheel.

“I wanted my chance at him before the cops hauled him off,” I said. “Max, how’re you doing?”

“A bullet went through my arm, courtesy of that bastard you brought along. How do you think I’m doing? I’m in pain and wish I had the strength to throttle him,” Max said. “Remember the list of contacts in Sinclair’s file?” I said. “Look.” I raised Rafael’s arm, hoping that Rafael was his name. An angry, thick, ropey scar ran from his elbow to his wrist. Max turned to look, wincing in pain.

“Lots of people have scars,” Max said. “Myself included, once this heals up.”

Chaos! Page 69, which kicks off Chapter Eleven, highlights the aftermath of an assassination attempt in Havana, Cuba, where Billy Boyle has been sent at the request of Commander Ian Fleming of Royal Navy Intelligence. A local spy, Max, who works for the British has been wounded and after the shooter has been taken down, he’s bundled into a car along with Max, who is not pleased.

The Ninth Circle tells a story of spies, hidden agendas, and betrayal. The Page 69 Test highlights the aftermath of sudden, unexpected violence, which mirrors the opening chapter of the book. There’s a touch of exasperated humor in Max’s sardonic last line, which reflects the confused situation Billy finds himself in. The browser test is vindicated!

Maxmillian ‘Max’ Fox is an important character, not only for the plot, but for what he represents. In May 1939, the German liner St. Louis sailed from Germany for Cuba. On board were over nine hundred Jews, mostly German, fleeing the Third Reich, armed with transit visas sold by the Cuban Director-General of Immigration. What they did not know was that Cuba now required a bond of five hundred dollars for visa holders to disembark. Only twenty-eight passengers—those holding valid entry documents—were allowed off the ship. One of them was Max. I’d always wondered how those twenty-eight people fared, and the character of Max, marooned in a strange land, served as a way to explore that notion and illuminate this sad story. The St. Louis had to return to Europe, and many of the passengers ultimately perished in the Holocaust.

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).

The Page 69 Test: A Bitter Wind.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ravenous"

Sara Cooper is a novelist and an award-winning playwright-lyricist. She lives in New York with her husband John and their son Theo. Major awards include Richard Rodgers Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters (2022); ASCAP Foundation Lucille and Jack Yellen Award (2021); Grand Jury Prize, Barnstorm Media (2020); Jonathan Larson Grant, American Theatre Wing (2014).

Ravenous, her debut novel, was a Finalist for the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards.

Cooper applied the Page 69 Test to Ravenous and shared the following:

From page 69:

I’m claustrophobic. My ears are ringing. My belly button aches. Skin crawling, overstimulated, I drag my poor tender flesh shell into the hell dungeon of the kitchen before returning to the land of the living room with the stainless steel garbage can and my Messermeister Cheflamme Culinary Torch. I can smell my sweat, acrid and vile. I close my eyes and shake the contents of the dozen or so closest unpacked boxes into the bin and light them on fire.

The smoke detector begins to wail.

Daddy’s disembodied voice floats in from his office. “You okay?” it says.

“Shut the fuck up,” I say.

“What?” it says.

“Totally,” I shout, yanking the batteries free from the wretched smoke detector and yeeting my culinary torch out the window before it can start an uncontrollable chain reaction that burns down the whole neighborhood and blows up my spot.

I nurse the flame, keeping it alive but manageable, passing it from one moving box to the next with my Terrain Oaxacan Floral Taper Candle in Medium Pink. When I’ve destroyed enough that it looks like I’ve been massively productive, I drench the molten remains with the water from my S’Well and triple lock the lid.

Won’t Daddy notice you’re missing, like, half your worldly belongings?

No, Baby, no, no, no, child, no, this is why God created Amazon Prime. I can replace everything that’s missing before he even notices it’s gone and put it all away when it comes, one at a time, neatly, responsibly, without the heartache and difficulty of thought. Everything is interchangeable. There’s always more stuff.

This is a surprisingly good encapsulation of Ravenous. You get a real sense of the tone, which I would describe as fever pitch fever dream. We meet both Baby and Daddy, the two most important characters besides our narrator, Breigh. This page also hints at some of the major themes: capitalism, self-commodification, and over-consumption. I'm actually shocked at how well this test worked!

Visit Sara Cooper's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ravenous.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mortal Enemy Murder Club"

Gloria Chao is a USA Today bestselling author and a screenwriter. Her novels include The Mortal Enemy Murder Club, The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club, Ex Marks the Spot, When You Wish Upon a Lantern, Rent a Boyfriend, Our Wayward Fate, and American Panda. She graduated from MIT and became a dentist before realizing she’d rather spend her days in fictional characters’ heads instead of real people’s mouths. When she’s not writing, you can find her on the curling ice, where she and her husband are world-ranked in mixed doubles.

Chao applied the Page 69 Test to The Mortal Enemy Murder Club and reported the following:

From page 69 of The Mortal Enemy Murder Club:

Reminding myself this could be life or death, I marched into the men’s bathroom as if I belonged there. And I nearly bumped into an almost naked guy at the sink washing vomit off his pants and shirt.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!”

He instinctively tried to cover himself with his clothes, only to flick the vomit onto his face. And from the extreme disgust that appeared on his now puke-speckled face, it didn’t seem to be his vomit.

“Sorry!” I had to make it up to him somehow. “Can I buy you a drink?” Then I realized that seemed like I was coming on to him. “Or dessert!” That made it worse. “I mean, I’m just sorry!” I pulled out a five-dollar bill and threw it at him. Now it seemed like I was paying him for the peep show. “Fuck!”

This was going well. So well. At least I hadn’t seen a ball of flames or Olivia’s ballet flats in there.

I exited and turned toward the family restroom at the end of the hallway. The last place to check, and also a great hiding spot for Mandy, Olivia, and me if it was empty.

The door was unlocked. Success. Everything was going according to plan.

I’d just have to text Olivia and tell her to find Mandy and come meet me here—I screamed. The second bloody-murder scream of my life.

Because there was a limp body on the floor. Sprawled. Unmoving.

Again, familiar.

Page 69 of The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is a fantastic representation of the whole work. It captures the humor and shenanigans of the entire Hu Done It series as well as the murder mystery that keeps the pages turning. The reason I love reading and now writing humorous murder mysteries is because laughter helps balance the inherent darkness of crime, and the passage here is a great example of this. When writing both The Mortal Enemy Murder Club and The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club, one of my favorite craft tricks was to ask at every turn, How can I make this as funny as possible? Which was what led to protagonist Kat discovering her boyfriend is cheating on her in the first book by walking in, half-naked, on him proposing to one of his other two girlfriends. It also led to this page 69 scene where Kat walks into the men’s bathroom in an attempt to stop a murder.

This scene also showcases Kat’s social awkwardness, which is a defining part of her character and the source of some of the humor throughout the series.

This short scene (made shorter because it’s the end of a chapter) captures almost all the most important parts of this series. The only element missing is the ride-or-die female friendship at the heart of these books, which is only alluded to here, mostly because Kat happens to be by herself, having been separated from the others by the chaos occurring in this scene.

Visit Gloria Chao's website.

The Page 69 Test: American Panda.

The Page 69 Test: When You Wish Upon a Lantern.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Postmistress of Puddlington"

Bestselling, award-winning author Laura Jensen Walker is the Agatha and Lefty-nominated author of more than 20 books including Murder Most Sweet, Hope, Faith & a Corpse, and Death of a Flying Nightingale.

A rabid Anglophile since being stationed at an RAF base with the USAF in her twenties, Walker lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband and two rescue terriers, where she drinks tea and dreams of England.

Walker applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Postmistress of Puddlington, with the following results:

In my historical novel, The Postmistress of Puddlington, set in a small English village during WWII, on page 69 best friends Violet and Nora are discussing the recent brutal beating of conscientious objector William Barclay by soldiers, wondering how people can be so cruel. William owns Barclay’s, the local draper’s shop, which he runs with his mother, Winnie.

[Note to readers: Since this book is set in England and peopled with British characters, the spelling and punctuation is English style, e.g., defence spelled with a c, rather than s, and single quotes for dialogue rather than double.]

‘With his refusal to fight and do his bit, folk think William’s not united with them. [Nora, a Wren in the Royal Navy, speaking]

‘Do you? [Vicar’s daughter Violet]

‘No, but I know plenty that do, especially those in His Majesty’s Armed Forces.’

‘William’s never been a fighter. Remember in school when the other lads would pick on him and tease him about being a mummy’s boy? He’d never fight back or defend himself.’

‘That’s because you and Ned were always quick to jump to his defence.’

‘We weren’t the only ones.’ Violet slid Nora a sideways glance, a smile curving her lips. ‘I seem to recall a certain member of the Clarke family punching Harold Hastings in the nose after he’d kicked William.’

‘I’ve never liked bullies, and I feel sorry for William. His mother is so helpless and dependent on him; I don’t see how he’s ever going to break away and have his own life.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he will.’ Violet gave Nora an arch look.

‘You look like the cat that got the cream. What do you know?’

Violet looked round to make sure no one could overhear. ‘Only that William has met someone in London and is planning to move there in the not-too-distant future. He’s working up his courage to tell his mum.’

‘Good for him. But what about Barclay’s?’

‘William told me, in confidence, he’ll likely sell it to the Trimble’s. Florrie’s been eyeing it for years, eager to expand her shopkeeping reach. Barclay’s has been losing money for some time now, and the war has made it clear to William that draper’s shops are on the way out. He’s ready for a fresh start.’

‘Would he take Winnie to London with him?’

‘Heavens, no! His mum has a widowed sister in Yorkshire who’s been asking Winnie to move in with her for year, but she always said she couldn’t leave Puddlington—she was tied to the shop. Now she won’t be.’

‘Do you think Winnie’s ready to let her only chick fly the nest?’

This page is a good representation of what readers will find in my book which revolves around the daily lives of women in a Dorset village during WWII doing their bit on the home front while the men are off fighting on the front lines. The featured women include Mary Robins, vicar’s wife and president of the local WI (Women’s Institute); Minerva Winterbottom, the bohemian lady of the manor who takes in a child evacuee from London; Violet Robins, the vicar’s daughter who becomes a Land Girl and catches the eye of a Yank G.I.; Nora Clarke, Violet’s best friend who enlists in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, and Hester Smith, the spinster, bookish postmistress who acts as the unifying link delivering both good news and bad to the villagers.

Visit Laura Jensen Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Q&A with Laura Jensen Walker.

The Page 69 Test: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker (February 2026).

My Book, The Movie: The Postmistress of Puddlington.

--Marshal Zeringue

"My Best French Wedding"

Amanda Sellet (pronounced Sell-ay) is a former journalist who has written book reviews for The Washington Post, personal essays for NPR, and music and movie coverage for VH1. She has an M.A. in Cinema Studies from NYU. After a mostly coastal childhood, she now lives in Kansas with her husband, daughter, and cats.

Sellet applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, My Best French Wedding, and shared the following:

Page 69 of My Best French Wedding opens a new chapter, so we get important information even before the first line.

As the banner held aloft by a pair of doves informs us, this is a “Now” scene, narrated by Hildy, one of the dual (and dueling) POV characters. More specifically—since the book’s alternating timelines run in opposite directions, and there is a lot of jumping around—the action takes place one week before the epic destination wedding referenced in the title.

Finally, we see a newspaper-style dateline (TAMNIÈS, France—) as both a clue to the current location in the glorious French countryside and a nod to the fact that our main characters are rival journalists, since the story is a loose retelling of the classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday.

After the reader has (hopefully!) digested all that context, we dive straight into the scene, featuring Hildy and her wisecracking sidekick:

“Do you think I’m being punished?” Hildy asked Corinne. She’d already given a blow- by-blow account of her confrontation with Walter and his new girlfriend, during which Corinne had remained surprisingly calm. Hildy suspected it had something to do with the two-hour massage that had left the hotel room smelling like a field of lavender.

“Let’s not make it more than it is.” Corinne sipped her detoxifying lemon water. She’d turned down Hildy’s offer of wine on the grounds that she planned to drink her body weight in rosé tonight.

That was the theme of this evening’s welcome party: Roses and Rosé. Hildy had been planning to repaint her nails a delicate pink, but the bloody red she was currently rocking seemed more fitting under the circumstances. The goal was warrior queen, not bubblegum princess. Which Corinne would understand if she hadn’t had all the stress pounded out of her.

“Walter being here is not a small thing,” Hildy argued. “It’s an outrage. How dare he pull a stunt like that?”

Corinne rubbed more lotion into the back of her hand. “A wedding reporter chasing the biggest wedding of the year? Shocking.”

What does this scene tell us? Beyond the set dressing (luxury, French delicacies, and a wedding celebration stretching far beyond the standard ceremony and reception), we glimpse two key pieces of Hildy’s personality: she cares deeply about her image, and she’s always obsessing over Walter Burns, her alleged nemesis.

Corinne, by contrast, is deliberately blasé, and has been calling out Hildy’s exaggerations and histrionics since they met a decade ago. Her deadpan reactions are one of my favorite parts of the book, though it’s not until the next page that she gets in one of her best zingers, about “how hard it is for some people to tell the difference between destiny and dysfunction. They have so many of the same letters.”

So yes, this is a very representative sampling of the whole. The place, the premise, the people, and the eternal question of destiny vs. dysfunction are all there on page 69 of My Best French Wedding.

Visit Amanda Sellet's website.

Q&A with Amanda Sellet.

The Page 69 Test: By the Book.

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (December 2022).

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (August 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Odds of Getting Even.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Thousand Painted Hours"

Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in 21 countries and spent many months on both the most sold and most read Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. O’Neal is an avid traveler and passionate cook, and discovered the Oregon coast on a pandemic-era trip with her husband. She now lives on that rocky, moody coast in a quirky beach house and writes her books from a room overlooking the sea. She lives with her British husband, who has promised to never lose his accent, and their cats and dogs.

O’Neal applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, A Thousand Painted Hours, and reported the following:

Page 69 of my book is a divider. It reads "Bread, Vinegar, And Runner Beans." 1940 London.

I suppose it give a little whiff of the story, but not very much.

I will say it goes to the fascination I felt over the way people fed themselves in wartime London. Who knew, for example, that you could make more vinegar with vinegar? A useful trick. Elsie is trying to keep her ill mother as healthy as possible on rations that were quite slim, so she supplements with a garden ("it was a very good year for carrots") and trades with neighbors. A friend keeps hens, so she has the glory of extra eggs. Everyone in London was quite thin by the time it was all over.

Visit Barbara O'Neal's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Thousand Painted Hours.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Where There’s Smoke…"

E.J. Copperman is the nom de plume for Jeff Cohen, writer of intentionally funny murder mysteries. As E.J., he is the author of the Haunted Guest house series, the Agent to the Paws series and the Jersey Girl Legal mysteries, as well as the Fran and Ken Stein mysteries. As Jeff, he is the author of the Double Feature and Aaron Tucker series; and he collaborates with himself on the Samuel Hoenig Asperger's mysteries.

Copperman applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Where There’s Smoke…, with the following results:

I’ve done this test a few times now, and I’m struck by the realization that page 69 in my books tends to be the dullest, most plot-driven page in the whole enterprise. I should have picked another page.

In this case, the book in question is Where There’s Smoke…, the second book in the Haunted Paint Store mystery series. By this point in the story, Laura Meehan, who owns the paint (and wallpaper) store in question, is dealing with a situation that doesn’t involve choosing just the right color. The local library, a place that Laura considers her personal sanctuary from the days when she was growing up in town, has suffered some damage in a fire that is, at least, suspicious. She feels personally insulted.

So Laura, whose deceased father is currently occupying the office in her store (she inherited it from him and he doesn’t let go easily), goes to a meeting of the library board at which it is promised news about the library’s restoration and a possible target date for its reopening will be discussed.

Now, just because I said it might be the dullest page in the book, I do not encourage you to skip page 69. For one thing, I try to make every page entertaining, so even the dullest one should have something to recommend it. But also, there is story information being given here that you’ll need for page 70 and the rest.

Visit E. J. Copperman's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Thrill of the Haunt.

Writers Read: E. J. Copperman (November 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Thrill of the Haunt.

My Book, The Movie: Ukulele of Death.

The Page 69 Test: Ukulele of Death.

Q&A with E. J. Copperman.

The Page 69 Test: Same Difference.

Writers Read: E. J. Copperman (February 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Breathing Under Water"

Jacqueline Friedland is the USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of both historical and contemporary women’s fiction. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School, she practiced as a commercial litigator for as long as she could stand it. She then returned to school to earn her Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and has been writing ever since.

Friedland’s books have been awarded the 2020 and 2021 gold medals in fiction from Readers’ Favorite. Her novels have also been named the 2021 Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Book of the Year, the SheReads Best Book Club Pick of 2021, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star finalist for 2022. She regularly reviews fiction for trade publications and appears at schools and other locations as a guest lecturer.

Friedland lives in Westchester, New York with her husband, four children, and two dogs.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Breathing Under Water, and shared the following:

On page 69 of Breathing Under Water, one of the main characters, Berry, is just getting home from work. She works as an assistant principal at a fancy prep school, and she's vying for promotion. One of her challenges is that her sixteen-year-old son, Leo, is on the spectrum, and she's worried that she doesn't have time to take on a more demanding role at work. As she gets home on page 69, she's thinking about Leo's older brother Harrison and how the family is always asking Harrison to pinch hit and help with Leo one way or another. Berry doesn't want to keep putting so many requests on her older son. But taking on the new position might require Berry to rely more on her other family members for help with Leo. The remainder of the page is about Berry's internal conflict over whether she could handle the job of principal and how badly she wants it.

Do we find out the main themes of the story from looking at page 69?

If this book were entirely about Berry, the answer would be yes. She is a mother who has struggled with the question of how to best raise each of her very different sons. She has a job she loves, but juggling it with her complicated home life has always been tough. You see all of that on page 69. However, the book has another main character, McKenna, who narrates several of the chapters. She's a college athlete with many challenges of her own. During the story, she gets framed for something she didn't do, and she's at risk of losing everything. McKenna's chapters are very focused on the unreasonable demands on college athletes, friendship, and ambition. What connects Berry and McKenna is Leo. I would say you get the gist of about fifty percent of the relevant story by looking at page 69.

Visit Jacqueline Friedland's website.

Writers Read: Jacqueline Friedland.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Where Her Secrets Lie"

Katie Tallo has more than three decades of experience as an award-winning screenwriter and director. After winning an international novel contest, she began writing mystery thrillers. In 2020, her debut thriller, Dark August, was an instant bestseller, earning acclaim as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and an Apple Book of the Month. It also made the Globe 100 list. Since then, Tallo has written two more novels in the critically acclaimed Gus Monet trilogy including Poison Lilies and Buried Road. Her first standalone crime thriller, Where Her Secrets Lie, comes out August 2026 and her next thriller, The Last Villa, comes out in June 2027. Tallo lives with her husband in Ottawa where she is currently cooking up her next novel.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Where Her Secrets Lie and reported the following:

If you were to open my book to page 69, you might not understand everything about the novel’s plot but you would be dropped into the middle of Lenny’s trauma as she sits at a bar with her friend ruminating on the death of her daughter over a pint. They talk of the unsolved murder, the abusive relationship her daughter was involved in, and the feeling of helplessness that Lenny has because she didn’t do more to prevent the tragedy. The past swirls around them, permeating Lenny’s conversation and signalling that something has happened in her present to bring the past roaring back. That page is really a reflection of what the entire novel is about—the past seeping into this woman’s daily life and forcing her to come to terms with secrets she long ago buried—literally in her back yard.

Visit Katie Tallo's website.

The Page 69 Test: Dark August.

Q&A with Katie Tallo.

Writers Read: Katie Tallo (June 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Buried Road.

Writers Read: Katie Tallo (December 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Where Her Secrets Lie.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Killing Sadie"

Rachel Peterson graduated from Miami University of Ohio with a degree in English and creative writing. Born and raised in Ohio, she started her career in advertising before spending nearly a decade in New York City as a marketing executive for technology companies. An avid traveler, Peterson now splits her time between Manhattan and the Midwest, where she lives with her husband, Ken; their dog, Olive; and horse, Hope.

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

While the Page 69 Test is new to me as an author and reader, I think it holds a lot of truth for Killing Sadie. My writing style is very stream of conscious, with our cast of unreliable teen narrators constantly surprising me! That means I was honestly curious where page 69 might take us in this twisty thriller … okay, here we go!

Flipping to page 69 of Killing Sadie, we find ourselves in the middle of a flashback before the murder from bestie Liz. The page features an exchange between Sadie and her twin sister Jayne talking about the upcoming McClain family barn party – the party where everything happens – and Liz hints (via internal dialogue) at the biggest mistake she ever made from her party girl days. Murder? Maybe.

Jayne shares a haunting, deliciously foreboding line just after agreeing to cover for Sadie and Liz so they can go to the party:

“What are sisters for? I swear to God, though, you’d better not do anything too crazy tonight. I don’t mind covering for you, but it’s a lot easier if things stay chill at Trevor’s.”

I let out a short laugh.

“Something funny?” Jayne asks.

“No, it just … Come on, when has anything about Trevor’s ever been chill?”

I will say, giving credit to Marshall McLuhan and his Page 69 Test, that this page does give readers a good idea of Killing Sadie, but I think moreover, makes us crave the page turn to 70, which is even better!

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My Book, The Movie: Killing Sadie.

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--Marshal Zeringue