"Beautiful Bad"

Annie Ward has a BA in English Literature from UCLA and a MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute. Her first short screenplay, Strange Habit, starring Adam Scott was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Jury Award winner at the Aspen Film Festival. She has received a Fulbright Scholarship and An Escape to Create Artists residency. She lives in Kansas with her family.

Ward applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Beautiful Bad, and reported the following:

From page 69:

I took a deep breath and glanced at Joanna, who was glaring at him with such naked hatred that I suddenly felt nervous. On my last visit it was hugs and laughter between them. Something had gone rotten.

Joanna slumped there in her metal chair, moving her bracelets up and down her arm. When had she become so withdrawn and remote? So tight and coiled like a tiny, poisonous, gorgeous snake. Oh, and her eyes. Olives and almonds. Reptilian.

Suddenly I was very unhappy. We’d been so close. We knew everything about each other. It was starting to feel like that was no longer the case.

Joanna’s eyes rolled up and took in the table. Me, hunched and looking grief stricken for no apparent reason. The men, bloodied, pleased and preening. And then she was back. She stood and said, “I’m going to go dance.” It was clear that she was not asking me to come with her.

And dance she did, by herself, while everyone watched.

In this scene, we are witnessing the beginning of the end for both a friendship and an affair. Two American women are seated at a table with three British soldiers who have just been in a bar fight in a shady nightclub in Eastern Europe.

It’s truly representative of the book as the core of the story in Beautiful Bad is a toxic love triangle and in this scene, all of the key characters are present.

The woman speaking is Maddie, and she is describing her best friend Joanna, who has become suddenly and suspiciously distant. The man who Joanna is looking at with “naked hatred” is Ian, a British soldier both women met recently. Joanna has been having a secret affair with him and the romance is in its death throes. She suspects that his interest has pivoted to Maddie and is not happy with either of them. Jealousy and grief are starting to evolve into hatred and vengeance.

Maddie, who is admittedly smitten with Ian, has only the slightest suspicion that anything is going on between her best friend and the soldier who has been flirting with her all night.

The twisted attraction between these three risk-takers who are each damaged in their own way will ultimately come to a fatal conclusion.

In this scene there are three broken people but only one murderous psychopath.

You have to hear their story in order to understand who it is.

Visit Annie Ward's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Last Year of the War"

Susan Meissner is a former managing editor of a weekly newspaper and an award-winning columnist. She is the award-winning author of A Bridge Across the Ocean, Secrets of a Charmed Life, A Fall of Marigolds, Stars Over Sunset Boulevard, and As Bright as Heaven, among other novels.

Meissner applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Last Year of the War, and reported the following:

The Last Year of the War is a work of historical fiction narrated by the main character, Elise Sontag. She is the American-born daughter of German immigrant parents interned during World War II and then repatriated in January 1945 to Germany in a prisoner exchange. But it is more than just Elise’s fictional story; it is representative of hundreds upon hundreds of real German immigrant parents and their American-born children who were incarcerated in the US during the war based on little more than fear and suspicion. They were never convicted of a war crime nor had they ever declared themselves loyal to the Nazi regime, but they were nonetheless looked upon as the enemy and then treated as such.

This book allows us, as it allowed me when I was writing it, to consider how we look at people who are ethnically not just like us. Do we look at them as mere slices of geography or as humans first before anything else? Page 69 of The Last Year of the War, aptly underscores what it feels like to be told “This is who you are to me no matter who you really are.” Elise, who was born in Davenport, Iowa, and never lived anywhere else, is with her family and other German Americans and Japanese Americans is at a train station. They are all headed to Crystal City Family Internment Camp in a remote corner of southwest Texas. She is fourteen on this summer day in 1943. Elise is American through and through, except for her parentage, and doesn’t even speak German, but ever since her father was arrested six months earlier, she feels less and less sure she knows who she is. Here’s a quote from page 69 from her viewpoint:

We must have made quite a visual tableau, a dozen happy families speaking different languages crying tears of relief into each other’s necks and being led by local police and armed INS agents from one platform to a second one. Other travelers gape at us. Some clearly understood who we were and rewarded us with cold stares; others appeared unsure and therefore were warily curious. The window shades had been lowered on this other train to keep out the scorching sun, but also to remind all of us in our car – it was full of other families bound for the internment camp – that we were not vacationers on a pleasure trip. We were detainees who could not be trusted to see where we were headed or to be seen.

Visit Susan Meissner's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Meissner & Bella.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Finding Katarina M."

Elisabeth Elo grew up in Boston, attended Brown University, and earned a PhD in American Literature at Brandeis University. She has published scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as Walt Whitman and Cinderella, and her essays and Pushcart-nominated short stories have appeared in a variety of publications. Elo worked as a magazine editor, a high-tech product manager, and a halfway house counselor before beginning to write fiction.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Finding Katarina M., and reported the following:

From page 69:

find life-sized stuffed mammoths, whatever they are. And there’s a khomus museum, the only one of its kind in the world!”

“Khomus?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen one, Nat. It’s that metal instrument that people hold against their lips, and then they pluck a reed that vibrates at different speeds? Apparently, there are a lot of excellent khomus players in Yakutsk. And did you know that our own President Abraham Lincoln was quite a good khomus player himself? He’s even featured in the museum’s Hall of Fame!”

“Gosh. I didn’t know that, Mom.”

“See? There’s always so much to learn about a place.”

I sighed, knowing I was beat. Vera would never forgive me if I left Yakutsk so fast. In a few days, maybe she’d see things differently. After she’d had a little more time to prepare herself psychologically for what she would probably experience as a personal rejection, though I would do my best to talk her out of that.

“Okay. You made your point. There is a lot to see here,” I said, trying to work myself into the tourist spirit.

Vera paused. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? It’s not too much to ask, is it? A few more days, just to be sure there hasn’t been some simple mix-up that will be straightened out soon?”

“It’s fine, Mom,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense to have come all this way just to turn around and go home. And who knows—I may get a call from Lena tonight.”

“I hope so. I truly do.”

“So do I. Now you take it easy, okay? No traipsing up and down the halls in the middle of the night.”

“You make it sound like I’m out on safari.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Oh, Natalie. I love you, too.”

Finding Katarina M. is about an American woman who travels to Russia to find her estranged grandmother, only to find herself in some unexpected and very dangerous situations. It’s a dark, thriller-ish story, but it does have its lighter moments, and this is one of them. In this scene, Natalie, the protagonist, has gone to the Siberian city of Yakutsk to meet her aunt, who is supposed to take her to see her grandmother in a remote village. But the aunt didn’t show up at the airport to meet her as promised, and she isn’t answering her phone. Natalie is flummoxed. After doing everything she can think of to contact her aunt, she reluctantly decides to return to the States. She breaks the news to her invalid mother, Vera, over the phone. Vera is terribly disappointed. She convinces Natalie to stay in Yakutsk a little longer by touting the charms of the city—the Permafrost Institute, the Mammoth Museum, and, on this page, the allegedly world famous Khomus Museum.

There really is a Khomus Museum in Yakutsk. I went there myself, and it’s true that Abraham Lincoln is in the museum’s Hall of Fame. I was a bit startled when I saw his stern, familiar photograph on the wall of esteemed khomus players!

Visit Elisabeth Elo's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Elisabeth Elo & Freddie.

My Book, The Movies: Finding Katarina M.

--Marshal Zeringue

"My Lovely Wife"

Samantha Downing currently lives in New Orleans, where she is furiously typing away on her next thrilling standalone.

She applied the Page 69 Test to My Lovely Wife, her first novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 of My Lovely Wife contains part of Millicent’s backstory. She is the title character, though not the narrator. Everything we know about Millicent is told through her husband. On this particular page, Millicent is telling him about her childhood and specifically about her older sister. I think it is a decent representation of the book overall, because it all contributes to Millicent being who she is. That is, of course, My Lovely Wife!

Visit Samantha Downing's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Liar's Child"

Carla Buckley is the author of The Good Goodbye, The Deepest Secret, Invisible, and The Things That Keep Us Here, which was nominated for a Thriller Award as a best first novel and the Ohioana Book Award for fiction. She is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Wharton School of Business, and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband and three children.

Buckley applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Liar's Child, and reported the following:

The Liar's Child is told from the perspectives of four narrators, and page 69 finds us hearing from Sara, the novel’s main protagonist. We’re at the beginning of Chapter 12, and Sara’s up to something. So far, we’ve learned that Sara (which isn’t her real name) is a reluctant participant in the federal Witness Protection program for crimes as yet unnamed. She’s been driven across the country, dropped at a seedy apartment building on the North Carolina coast, and given a job cleaning beach rentals. Right now, it’s late, and Sara’s been waiting for the rest of the apartment residents to settle down for the night. We follow her as she quietly sneaks down to the courtyard, and over to her own car. She’s brought tools with her, and goes to work.

Sara waited for the people working the third shift to drift across the courtyard to their cars and drive away before she quietly let herself out of her apartment. It was just before midnight. The partiers were still out. She figured she had maybe an hour before they returned, tires squealing and music blaring out of car windows, searching for anything that might extend the party. The last thing Sara wanted was some amped-up drunk stumbling over and calling out, Hey, baby.

This scene captures Sara’s central conflicts—the one she knows about (chafing at the federal restrictions she’s under) and the one she doesn’t know about (the children who live in the apartment next door, who are about to make an appearance.) It reveals her ability to focus on the task at hand, her sheer grit and determination in achieving her goals, and hints at her vulnerability—the parts of herself she ignores and therefore doesn’t quite understand. She’s a keen observer of other people, but she never asks herself the same hard questions. Consequently, we wonder at her reliability as a narrator. How can we trust someone who can’t see the entire picture?

Visit Carla Buckley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"All the Wrong Places"

Joy Fielding is the New York Times bestselling author of Someone Is Watching, Now You See Her, Still Life, Mad River Road, See Jane Run, and other acclaimed novels. She divides her time between Toronto and Palm Beach, Florida.

Fielding applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, All the Wrong Places, and reported the following:

All the Wrong Places is about four women, all of whom are checking out various dating apps, unaware that a serial killer is also browsing these sites, looking for his next victim. Chloe, one of the four women, has just discovered her husband is listed on these sites and on page 69, she is preparing to confront him. While this page isn't representative of the more "thriller" aspect of this book, it is perhaps more representative of the concerns of the book as a whole, and is, in my opinion, every bit as suspenseful.

Learn more about the book and author at Joy Fielding's website.

My Book, The Movie: All the Wrong Places.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Dangerous Duet"

Karen Odden's interest in the Victorian era goes back to her New York University doctoral dissertation, which explored how the medical, parliamentary, and literary representations of nineteenth-century railway disasters helped to create a discourse out of which Freud and others fashioned their ideas of “trauma.”

Her first book, A Lady in the Smoke, was a USA Today Bestseller and won the 2017 New Mexico-Arizona award for eBook Fiction.

Odden applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, A Dangerous Duet, and reported the following:

Page 69 ends a chapter, so it’s a short page, with a sentence that begins on page 68:

Yes, Sebastian was physically powerful enough to inflict this sort of injury; I’d seen his taut body arc and somersault in the air and watched him catch his sister, bearing both her weight and his with only one hand. But from what I’d seen, the two of them seemed intensely protective of each other. Wasn’t the trapeze act itself a testament to the trust that was between them?

But perhaps it was precisely that—an act, with the trust merely an artifice that vanished offstage, like Amalie’s French accent.

Somewhat to my surprise, this short page is fairly representative! One important theme in the novel is the interplay between on-stage and off-stage identities. Wherein lies the foundation for an authentic self? Is it in the series of repeated actions (for example, a nightly performance) that approximates some sort of solid “core” of traits? Or does it inhere in “essential” elements such as race or gender? My heroine, Nell Hallam, dresses as a man because male performers are paid twice as much, but her costume also allows her certain liberties that facilitate her ambition and courage. Onstage, Amalie sings French songs with a pure accent, but she grew up in the East End and doesn’t understand the meaning of the lyrics she sings. For Stephen, an embittered performer, the distinction between truth and lies is blurred by the music hall roles. He insists that character is like an onion; one only finds different layers, and there is no solid foundation. Part of Nell’s trajectory is to clarify for herself the sorts of truth and the elements of character that matter.

Visit Karen Odden's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Odden and Rosy.

The Page 69 Test: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Duet.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tiny Americans"

Devin Murphy grew up near Buffalo, NY in a family with Dutch roots. He holds a BA/MA from St. Bonaventure University, an MFA from Colorado State University, a PhD from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, and is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Bradley University. He has worked various jobs in national parks around the country and once had a three–year stint at sea that led him to over fifty countries on all seven continents. His fiction has appeared in over 60 literary journals and anthologies, including The Missouri Review, Glimmer Train, The Chicago Tribune, New Stories from the Midwest, and Confrontation. He lives with his wife and children in Chicago.

Murphy applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Tiny Americans, and reported the following:

This page of my novel is the middle of a scene where a character has to drag a dead horse out of a paddock at a Girl Scout Ranch and bury it on the mountainside. This has to be done before the campers wake up and see the horse. The scene is representative of the rest of the book which travels across the country and the world, paying close attention to the natural world and where it is both gritty and beautiful.

Visit Devin Murphy's website.

My Book, The Movie: Tiny Americans.

Writers Read: Devin Murphy.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Pure Chocolate"

Amber Royer writes fun science fiction involving chocolate, aliens, lovesick AIs, time travel, and more. She teaches enrichment/continuing education creative writing classes for both teens and adults at UT Arlington.

Royer applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Pure Chocolate, and reported the following:

From page 69:

I am not dressed for diving. I can already feel myself walking in squishy shoes, chafing from wet jeans.

“Don’t look so nervous,” Mertex says. “We’re the shore crew.”

The helicopter hovers over one of the “teeth” and the guy sitting nearest the doorway throws out a nylon-looking ladder. He turns back to us, “Your turn.”

We climb down the ladder, and the helicopter moves on, leaving us in a wild, beautiful place, part beach, part riverbank, with stumpy lavender-barked trees and tangled yellow vines trailing down into the water, all decorated with driftwood and shells and tumbled bits of glass.

“Stay close, you guys. It would be embarrassing to lose part of our rescue party.” Mertex scans the area like Kaliel might appear if he looks hard enough. “If you see any mounds of dirt, or any giant green eggs, leave them alone.”

“What are they?” Brill asks.

Mertex shudders. “Yawds are vegetarians, and they’re shy, so as long as you don’t disturb their nests, they won’t stomp on you.”

“Good to know.” Brill takes a few steps down the shoreline, then hesitates, waiting to make sure we’re following him.

We walk for a couple of hours. I’m thirsty. I should have brought along some of Tawny’s bottled agua. Mertex didn’t bring any water either. Apparently Zantites can go longer without rehydrating.

“Babe.” Brill hands me a bottle of agua he had tucked in his jacket. I drink it greedily, while he sips at one of his own. An animal jumps in the channel, making a splash about ten feet out. Brill grabs my arm. I freeze, afraid I’m about to be Zandy-gater food.

Brill brings his face close to my ear, like he’s brushing my cheek with un beso. “Someone’s following us.”

In the stillness behind us, a twig snaps.

This page drops you into a big part of the book’s conflict and gives you a flavor of the first alien world Bo visits in the book. Kaliel is the pilot from the first book that Bo kissed – and after he shows back up and gets close to Bo on the dancefloor, Brill (Bo’s boyfriend) and Kaliel have a fight. So when Kaliel goes missing under mysterious circumstances, Brill becomes the prime suspect on a planet where it’s guilty until proven innocent.

Bo and Brill are the only non-Zantites in the search and rescue crew. They’re desperate to find Kaliel alive. The third character with them, Mertex, is a Zantite (if you didn’t read Book 1, picture a bald lemon-yellow giant with shark-teeth and whale-like eyes). In Free Chocolate, he’s the one who dumped Brill in that giant chocolate mold. (At this point, Mertex’s life has become bound to Bo’s, so obviously the relationships between all three characters have changed, but I won’t give spoilers as to how that happened.) Mertex is an important character this time around, so the fact that he shows up on this page is exceptionally cool.

You know that the foreshadowing on this page about not disturbing a yawd’s nest has to be followed up on. It’s going to be both comical and dangerous and a little gross – and drive the plot forward. And that gives you a true flavor of the book – comedy balanced with adventure.

Sadly, Bo doesn’t get any dialogue on this page ... which is not typical of the rest of the book. But the tone and pacing is about right.

Visit Amber Royer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Free Chocolate.

My Book, The Movie: Pure Chocolate.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Waking Forest"

In between training in ballet and watching lots of Disney movies, Alyssa Wees grew up writing stories starring her Beanie Babies. She earned a BA in English from Creighton University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Currently she works as an assistant librarian in youth services at an awesome public library. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband and their two cats.

Wees applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, The Waking Forest, and reported the following:

From page 69:

I enter the blackness between the trees, and the forest does not vanish.

No—it collapses.

The branches curl in on themselves like fingers into a fist and the leaves drop all at once, a scratchy swirl of anemic green. The trunk nearest me begins to tip, and I jump out of the way into the path of another falling trunk, and another and another, until I’m forced to dart backward out of the woods. I stumble on a raised root and tumble to the lawn, the brief spark of sunlight from before now gone. I watch as the trees twist and tilt and crumble in a great plume of dust. Broken branches, cracked trunks, shriveled leaves—when the dust clears, floating up and up and up, all of it is gone.

It happens in perfect silence, and I have no idea when the screaming stopped.

At this point in The Waking Forest, the protagonist, Rhea, has had visions of a mysterious forest that always vanishes when she reaches out to touch it. No one else can see this forest. But in this scene, Rhea finally reaches the forest and manages to enter it for the very first time, even as it falls apart around her. Her visions are growing stronger and more tangible, and the fantasy world she sees is beginning to merge with her reality. This passage is absolutely representative of the rest of the novel. From here her visions are only going to grow more real—and more frightening.

Visit Alyssa Wees's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Waking Forest.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Last Night"

Karen Ellis is a pseudonym of author Katia Lief. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and The Authors Guild. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Last Night, and reported the following:

If you open to page 69 of Last Night you’ll find yourself in an abandoned warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn with my three favorite characters in this novel. It’s the night of high school graduation for Crisp and Glynnie, who visit with twelve-year-old weed dealer JJ. Crisp has just asked JJ, “How’d you get to be homeless?” and the boy has described how his Haitian parents were deported and he cycled through miserable foster families.

“That’s when I moved in here,” JJ tells them. “No one bothers me. I get good grades. A lot of food gets tossed in the dumpster by Fairway every night. For pocket money, I do a little selling for Big Man.”

Cossetted and entitled Glynnie, who has been JJ’s incurious customer for a while, finally wakes up to his plight.

Glynnie pivots to her knees, throws her arms around JJ, slight, bony, skin so soft, and whispers, “It’s okay.” Why did she never think to ask him that question: “Why are you homeless?” Now, she knows that he’s not ‘JJ, her kid dealer’ but ‘Janjak St. Fleur, beloved son of Ester and Kervens.’ Homeless, abused, neglected, surviving by his wits.

This is the moment when Crisp, biracial and himself fatherless and keenly aware of JJ’s challenges, makes the crucial decision to help JJ—a decision that fuels the story as it unfolds through the hours of a long and treacherous night.

Visit Karen Ellis's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Chef’s Secret"

Crystal King is a novelist, editor, professor, social media professional, and critical & creative thinker.

Her debut novel, Feast of Sorrow, is about Marcus Gavius Apicius, the man whose name is on the world’s oldest known cookbook.

Her new novel, The Chef's Secret, is a story about a famous Italian Renaissance chef, Bartolomeo Scappi, who was the cuoco segreto (private cook) to several Popes.

King applied the Page 69 Test to the new novel and reported the following:

Page 69 drops the reader into the heart of the main conflict between my protagonist and villain.

The feather in Romoli’s green velvet hat fluttered in the breeze. He continued as though he had not heard me. “When Bartolomeo gifted me his recipes, it was the most important thing that ever happened to me. I could never thank him enough. Tell me, Giovanni, did they read the will yet? Barto told me when he passed he would leave more of his recipes to me.”

The heat rose to my face and to the tips of my ears. I jabbed a finger at Romoli’s chest. “You stole those recipes! How dare you ask if there are more for you.”

Romoli brushed my hand away. “I don’t understand this jealousy, Giovanni. I worked with him long before you did. I was called into service by the Medici and could not say no. It is because of that appointment you were even allowed into Bartolomeo’s good graces. Why should you be so surprised he would promise his recipes to me?”

This is a page of incredible fictional license. All of the people mentioned on this page were real, but none of these actions likely happened. It’s a “what-if” scenario, a bold connecting of the dots between the things we know and don’t know about these individuals: the Renaissance celebrity chef, Bartolomeo Scappi; his apprentice and nephew, Giovanni; and Medici steward, Domenico Romoli. I try to stay true to what we know about historical figures, but when there are big gaps between those facts, that’s where the joy of invention comes in for authors of historical fiction.

In this case, I assume that Scappi and Romoli certainly were familiar in at least name, as they had cookbooks published within the same decade, and the world of Renaissance Italy was a small one. I wondered, what if they were jealous of each other? How would that rivalry manifest? This is one of those scenes that came from such conjecture.

Visit Crystal King's website.

The Page 69 Test: Feast of Sorrow.

Writers Read: Crystal King.

--Marshal Zeringue