"Burn"

Sarah Fine is a clinical child psychologist and the author of the Guards of the Shadowlands series and Of Metal and Wishes. She is also a co-author, with Walter Jury, of Scan and Burn.

Under his real name, Walter Jury is one of the movie producers of the Divergent series, among other films and television shows he is developing.

Fine applied the Page 69 Test to Burn and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Don’t touch me,” I slur, my defiance hardwired even though it feels like I’m swimming in a sea of motor oil and rebar, everything sharp and jagged, the air too thick to breathe. I’m upright, but only because I’m bound to a chair.

Congers is squatting in front of me as I open my eyes. His expression is stern, and his face is paler than it was before. “Cooperate, and I won’t.”

It takes effort, but I raise my head. I’m in a windowless box of a room. Buzzing fluorescent lighting above me. Old radiator against the wall. Not a new building, nothing high-tech. I glance at the door, painted metal, covered in nicks and scrapes. I blink, trying to gather my wits.

“I expected your lab facility to be a little swankier,” I say, my consonants a bit more defined this time.

Congers slides his finger along the bridge of his nose. “We thought it best not to flee straight to a top secret facility.”

“And what exactly would constitute ‘cooperating’?” My hands are cuffed behind the office chair I’m sitting on. My ankles are shackled to its legs. Graham is standing near the door, his gray-green eyes on me. His posture straightens as I size him up.

Congers glances at the young agent before returning his attention to me. “As you are aware, your father had something that belongs to us. We need to reacquire it immediately, especially given this evening’s unfortunate series of events. Even more unfortunate, we need your help.”

I think page 69 of Burn is very nicely representative of the entire book. Here we have Tate, our main character, in a really tight spot—he’s seemingly at the mercy of an enemy who has him drugged and shackled to a chair. But even here, we see him analyzing his surroundings, both the logistical and concrete as well as the emotional—he’s in the process of trying to figure out this young agent named Graham—and all this information will be useful to him in the pages that follow.

Page 69 encapsulates some of the conflict in the book nicely as well. Congers is an H2 agent—he’s one of the aliens who wants not only the scanner Tate’s father invented, but also access to his father’s lab, which contains pieces of extraterrestrial tech that everyone is trying to acquire. And on this page, they’re also dealing with a new variable. Congers mentions fleeing—and that’s because they have a new enemy in Burn, one that makes Tate question everything he thought he understood.

This page gives readers a taste of the characters and conflict in the entire book, and I certainly hope they’ll want to keep reading!

Visit Sarah Fine's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch, and Walter Jury's Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Memory Painter"

Originally from Houston, Texas, Gwendolyn Womack began writing plays in college while freezing in the tundra at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She received an MFA from CalArts in Directing for theater and film and was a semi-finalist in the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship. She currently she resides in California and can be found at her keyboard.

Womack applied the Page 69 Test to The Memory Painter, her first novel, and reported the following:

Well, this was a fun test. On page 69 of The Memory Painter our heroine, Linz, is talking to her father in a seemingly innocent exchange, but by the bottom of the page she lets two vital bits of information slip in their conversation: that she’s met an artist (Bryan Pierce) who has somehow painted the recurring dream that she’s suffered from her whole life—and that she’s also discovered the person in her dream really existed in history. These two revelations set a lot of things in motion for the story, so I’d say page 69 is holding up quite nicely.

The reality is Bryan has painted a lot of dreams and all the people have lived in history, but Linz discovering those two truths about her dream will form the bridge that draws her into Bryan’s world and solidifies their bond. So page 69 does touch on the crux of the story and represents to an extent what happens in the book.

Visit Gwendolyn Womack's website.

Writers Read: Gwendolyn Womack.

My Book, The Movie: The Memory Painter.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fig"

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz grew up in a bookstore named The Rue Morgue—one of the first mystery bookstores in the US. She is an accomplished short-storyist, with many awards under her belt. Schantz holds an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University. She currently lives with her family in an old farmhouse on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado, where they are surrounded by open sky, century-old cottonwoods, coyote, and screech owls.

Schantz applied the Page 69 Test to Fig, her first novel, and reported the following:

In this scene, Fig has been called into the principal’s office for crucifying a Barbie at school (she nailed it to the back of the playground shed and used lipstick for the blood). Her mother has recently been released from the hospital after a schizophrenic episode (for which Fig was present) and a subsequent suicide attempt. Fig, who has just turned seven has not only fallen to the wayside of the family’s concerns, she is also beginning to figure out that Mama might not be getting better.

In many ways, she crucified the doll to get her mother’s attention—to impress Mama with her own feminist inclinations. Fig is sitting in the office with the principal and her teacher waiting for Mama so they can discuss the incident. At the top of the page, the reader learns that Fig has a photographic memory, another component of her high IQ, but toward the bottom, as Fig messes with a scab, it becomes evident that her need to pick is escalating into a form of self-harm that will only get worse.

The manifestations of Mama’s mental illness have only happened at home, and just the one night. Until now, it’s always been a private affair, but now the problem is about to become public knowledge. In the next few pages, Mama will not only walk in, she will rudely dismiss the principal and the teacher. Acting like “an actress playing herself” (72), Mama will sit in such a way that the principal can’t help but see her underwear through the rip in her jeans, deeply embarrassing Fig. When Mama drags Fig out of the building, the “acting” doesn’t stop. Mama stands in front of Douglas Elementary looking at the principal’s window, and then “Mama does something” Fig has “never seen her do before” (72). She lights a cigarette, and Fig sees her mother as a monster for the first time: “She smiles, but her lips are shut tight. And . . . two thin clouds of gray come twisting out of each nostril, and . . . [she] is a fire-breathing dragon” (73).

Despite the humiliation and horror Fig endures, she will never give up on Mama. Fig will ferociously defend Mama for the next eleven years. She will do anything to bring Mama back, even if it means sacrificing her own needs.

Visit Sarah Elizabeth Schantz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"False Tongues"

Kate Charles, who was described by the Oxford Times as "a most English writer", is in fact an expatriate American, though an unashamedly Anglophilic one. She has a special interest and expertise in clerical mysteries, and lectures frequently on crime novels with church backgrounds. After more than twenty years in Bedford, Kate and her husband now live in Ludlow with their Border Terrier, Rosie.

Charles applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, False Tongues, and reported the following:

From page 69:

‘Oh, hello.’ Jane smiled in spite of herself. She dropped her handbag and her shopping bag on the table and pulled out a chair.

It used to be that Simon was the one who rang her, just for a chat. But now that he had a girlfriend – a serious one, who seemed to consume his every waking moment – those chatty calls were few and far between. Now it was far more likely to be Charlie who made those calls. On her part, Jane was always reluctant to ring her sons, in case they were in lectures or tutorials, or busy with important course work.

‘I’m bored,’ Charlie said. ‘Up to my eyes with this blasted essay. And there’s no one else around. So I thought I’d ring you for a bit of a gossip.’

Well, Jane thought philosophically, it was better to be a last resort, a relief from boredom, than the alternative of no call at all. And she always enjoyed Charlie’s gossip: unlike the more earnest Simon, he had a tendency to be amusingly ironic. He was observant, as well – a useful characteristic for the priesthood. That was Charlie’s chosen career, though of course it would be up to the Church whether to accept him or not. From a young age he’d stated his intention to follow his father into the Church, and was reading theology at Oxford with the aim of going straight on to theological college.

‘I don’t have any gossip,’ Jane admitted. Charlie wouldn’t be interested in the churchwarden running out of mouthwash, the only thing she could recall from her recent encounter. She emptied her shopping bag onto the table and lined up the items she’d bought as cover: a box of paracetamol tablets, a packet of sausages, a cucumber. Just in case Brian asked about her urgent errands.

‘Well, I do.’ Her son paused, then went on. ‘I was in the Bodders on Saturday afternoon. After a few hours I had to go out and get some air. I stopped at a little caf to grab a cup of tea, and who do you think I saw?’

The Archbishop of Canterbury? Lady Gaga? ‘Surprise me,’ Jane said obediently.

Page 69 of False Tongues contains a telephone conversation which is in no way essential to the plot of the novel. The principals in this scene, vicar’s wife Jane and her son Charlie, are continuing series characters but this is Charlie’s only appearance in False Tongues, and Jane is no more than a minor player in a storyline which involves the murder of a teenage boy.

Thematically, though, this scene could not be more representative of the book. A bored Charlie has rung his mother for the purpose of exchanging gossip. False Tongues is largely about the damage that can be inflicted on people by careless gossip – gossip which is not necessarily meant to be malicious, but which can nonetheless destroy lives and blight happiness.

‘No smoke without fire’ – how many times are those words thoughtlessly spoken? Jane herself is a victim, when two church workers speculate about her vicar husband’s relationship with his female curate Callie. And in Cambridge, where Callie has gone to a reunion at her theological college, seemingly harmless gossip comes close to derailing the future happiness of the Principal.

But the meaning of the novel’s title goes beyond gossip to something even more lethal: deliberate lies, and words intended to wound. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me’. Anyone who has ever been verbally bullied will know how spurious that old chestnut is. Today, verbal bullying no longer relies on face-to-face contact. Social media and texting provide a convenient cover for those who prefer to hide behind anonymity to practice cruelty. Cyber-bullying is real, and it has directly brought about the death of vulnerable victims – teenagers who have killed themselves rather than face another hateful message, for instance. Words can kill.

So, in False Tongues, when young Sebastian Frost is stabbed to death, the police want to know why. What they find out makes his parents question how well they knew their gifted, popular son. Was he what he seemed to be, or … not?

Visit Kate Charles's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest"

Melanie Dickerson is a two-time Christy Award finalist and author of The Healer’s Apprentice, winner of the National Readers Choice Award for Best First Book in 2010, and The Merchant’s Daughter, winner of the 2012 Carol Award. She spends her time writing medieval stories at her home near Huntsville, Alabama, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

Dickerson applied the Page 69 Test to The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest, her first historical romance for adults, and reported the following:

On page 69 of The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest, you have quite a few key elements of the story. On the first half of the page, the forester, Jorgen, has been delighting the orphan children with some stories he has written—and making Odette fall just a bit more in love with him.

Odette, the heroine, is conflicted. Throughout the book, she questions whether she is doing the right thing by poaching the margrave’s deer to feed the poor. And now that she is falling in love with the forester, who is in charge of capturing poachers, she is more conflicted than ever.

On the second half of the page, Odette has been talking to her best friend about Jorgen, who, if he found out she was poaching, would throw her in the dungeon.

“It is true, Jorgen is not rich.” Anna frowned. “It is a pity because he is very handsome, and he seems to like you. But what man wouldn’t adore you? You are beautiful and will make someone a very good wife. Odette, why don’t you marry?”

“And whom do you suggest?” Odette feigned a flippancy she did not feel.

Anna sighed and shook her head. “That is the trouble. There is no one worthy of you.”

Odette snorted.

“Truly, if I had to pick someone, I do not know anyone I think is good enough for you. They are all either too old or too ugly or too . . . something.”

Would Anna feel the same way if she knew the secret Odette was keeping from her? She hated hiding things from Anna. Now she was even hiding something from her uncle...

I like the foreshadowing of secrets in that last paragraph. For a good portion of the story, no one knows about Odette’s poaching except her uncle, not even her best friend Anna. The reader is left to question: When everyone finds out about her secret, how will they react? What will be the consequences? And Odette has a few surprises in store for her as well, as she discovers hers are not the only secrets that can’t be hidden forever.

Visit Melanie Dickerson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Love and Miss Communication"

Elyssa Friedland graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 2007 and subsequently worked as an associate at a major firm.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Love and Miss Communication, her debut novel, and reported the following:

This page focuses on my main character Evie Rosen’s relationship with her family, specifically her mother Fran. Evie’s father died when she was in college and within a year her mother Fran had met her second husband. Evie, on the other hand, is far from settled on the romantic front and has a hard time explaining to her not-so-technologically-savvy mother about modern dating (i.e. swiping for dates).

Here’s a passage:

It was Evie who felt alone. But how much could she discuss dating, loneliness, and sex in the twenty-first century with Fran? Heaven forbid her mother knew Evie was accepting dates requested via text minutes in the form of “U free 2nite? Want 2 hang?” The mention of Tinder would have her picturing fireplaces.

The more nuanced relationship in the book is actually between Evie and her grandmother, Bette. Bette is a classic, meddling bubbe, and she considers her granddaughter’s single status to be a major cause for concern, going so far as to feebly cough and suggest to Evie that she’s not going to be around forever so why not hurry up and get married already.

What I like about page 69 is the focus on the texting and the Internet. Evie does the unthinkable in the book, she gives up the Internet and texting for an entire year, and the story revolves around how making that drastic move affects her friendships, her career and her love life. And the above passage hits on the realities of what it’s like to a single girl nowadays. Getting a guy to pick up a phone and call is considered prehistoric. Emoticons pass for genuine emotion. And while meeting people and keeping in touch has never been easier thanks to social media, paradoxically, loneliness of a new variety is simultaneously peaking.

I think readers of page 69 will want to keep reading. They will find themselves relating to Evie’s complicated relationship with her mother because it represents the classic generational divide. And they will evaluate the way texting and the Internet have changed communication and reflect on its impact on their own relationships.

So yes, I think page 69 is a pretty good representation of my book. It isn’t really as funny as other parts, but it does get to the soul of the novel.

Visit Elyssa Friedland's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Some Other Town"

Elizabeth Collison grew up in the Midwest and now lives in the San Francisco Bay area. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has worked as an editor, graphic artist, and technical writer.

Collison applied the Page 69 Test to Some Other Town, her first novel, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Some Other Town, Margaret, the novel’s protagonist, discusses Joe Trout, a character in the gifted-and-talented series at the children’s educational publisher where she works. The page, or rather Margaret’s concern about Joe, is representative of the novel, as it centers on Joe’s loss of direction, which is Margaret’s issue as well.

Margaret is a former graduate student of art at the local university, a failed art star who has stayed in town long after graduation and now works as a low-level graphic artist. Lately, however, Margaret has wandered into more than just page design. Hired only to layout Joe’s pages, for months she has also been reading Joe’s text, “word by every overwrought word.”

And what she’s discovered is that Joe’s books are different from the publisher’s other programmed readers, texts based solely on tedious vowel-consonant progressions. As Margaret points out, the Joe Trout series, due in large part to Joe, amounts to more than just its phonetics:

Joe is good, even heroic company, well worth my morning reads. Joe’s heart is pure. He is hardworking, courageous, a good sport, and a tireless champion of nature. Moreover, or at least normally, he’s a seeker of beauty and truth along with, at times, paired vowels. Master of strategic “ou,” “ee,” and “ea,” he cleaves his streams on a quest—coming in, going out, turning about, seeking the unseekable Trout Route.

But then, near the bottom of page 69, Margaret realizes that something is off in Joe’s latest installment. Things are slipping with Joe. He is not his old driven self and has in fact lost the crucial Trout Route.

So the question is raised: What will become of Joe Trout and, by important extension, Margaret?

Visit Elizabeth Collison's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall"

British born, Hannah Dennison originally moved to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting. She has been an obituary reporter, antique dealer, private jet flight attendant and Hollywood story analyst. Now living in Portland, Oregon, Dennison continues to teach mystery writing at UCLA Extension and still works for a west coast advertising agency. She writes the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries (Minotaur) and the Vicky Hill Mysteries (Constable Crime) both set in the wilds of the English countryside.

Here Dennison  applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall, and reported the following:

Since page 69 takes place in the middle of the Chapter Seven, here are a couple of things you need to know.

My heroine, Kat Stanford, has learned that a high-speed rail network will be cutting through the six-hundred-year old Honeychurch Hall estate where she and her mother currently live in the Carriage House. We join Kat as she questions Valentine Prince-Avery, a consultant from the Department for Transport, in his hotel room.

From page 69:

“I had no idea there were so many [railway lines],” I said.

“The storms last winter really put the nail in the coffin,” Valentine went on. “The flooding that hit the West Country completely wiped out the line south of Dawlish and even though it’s been repaired, it illustrates just how vulnerable the old network is. It needs to be modernized.”

I remembered those storms. I’d watched the footage on television and had been shocked by the ferocity of the elements and the misery and suffering of so many people who were cut off for weeks. The floods on the Somerset Levels had been particularly brutal.

“But what’s the connection with Operation Bullet?” I asked.

“It’s all one and the same.” Valentine took a sip of wine. “Devon needs a new rail system. There is no escaping it.”

I looked at the map again. “But why does the line have to extend so far south?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” said Valentine. “My job is to solely assess the properties affected for compensation.”

“You should use this map tonight,” I suggested. “I always feel that people respond more to visual images.”

“Have you tried getting anything printed in Little Dipperton?” Valentine polished off the wine in his tooth mug and poured himself another. “But try telling that to the ministry. They’ve completely thrown me under the train—no pun intended.”

“What a horrible position to be in,” I said.

“Not only that, I arranged to have my presentation materials shipped to the pub from London but they never arrived,” he said. “To be honest, I think someone stole them.”

This excerpt definitely hints at what troubles lay ahead at Honeychurch Hall. It’s not just Kat who is upset about the proposed development and potential destruction, but the villagers as well. We’re also not quite sure who this Valentine person is—he certainly enjoys a tipple. Either way, there are plenty of motives for murder. I would say this excerpt passed the Page 69 Test!

Visit Hannah Dennison's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Murder at Honeychurch Hall.

My Book, The Movie: Murder at Honeychurch Hall.

Writers Read: Hannah Dennison.

My Book, The Movie: Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Seriously Wicked"

Tina Connolly is the author of the Ironskin trilogy from Tor Books, and the Seriously Wicked series, from Tor Teen. Ironskin, her first fantasy novel, was a Nebula finalist.

Connolly applied the Page 69 Test to her new book, Seriously Wicked, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Jenah suddenly stopped. “Ooh, isn’t that him? What on earth happened?”

A tall, weary boy was slodging through the crowds milling around the front door.

It was the weirdest thing, but when I looked at him the first time, it looked as though his hair was completely black.

But it must’ve been the way the shadows and backpacks moved, because when he looked up and saw us, he was his normal blond boy-band self, except very very tired-looking.

His face cleared at the sight of me. “Cam,” he said, and then stopped. He blinked and swayed on his feet, like he was too tired to think of words after that. His jeans were muddy and his T-shirt sleeve was torn. He was carrying a cardboard box, also muddy, with little bits of stalks and grass stuck into the mud. A leggy lump on the top looked like a squished water bug.

“What happened to you?” I said.

For answer, he lifted the flap of the box about a half-inch. I peered in, and through the light from the airholes punched in the top, I saw a hoppy mass. For a moment I thought they were frogs, but then I saw that the little green blobs had wings. Sparkly green wings that winked in and out of sight like lighting bug bellies.

Pixies.

“Wow,” I said. “One hundred?”

“One hundred,” said Devon.

“One hundred. . .?” said Jenah.

“Frogs,” I lied. “One hundred frogs.”

In Seriously Wicked, sweet boy-band boy Devon gets taken over by a demon. Our heroine Cam has to try to get the demon out of Devon before he's stuck there. Page 69 is kind of fun because it shows everything Cam has to deal with while she's trying to stop the demon from taking over Devon, and the witch from taking over the world.

One of the demon’s tasks is to get a hundred pixies for the witch, so poor Devon is marched around town all night long collecting pixies. Pixies look like frogs, except they have magical wings that most people can't see. Poor Cam is also busy trying to hide that she lives with a wicked witch from everyone. Which means hiding from her best friend that the cute new boy is standing there holding a box of a hundred pixie-frogs. It's a tough job, but if anyone can do it, it's Cam....

Visit Tina Connolly's website, blog, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: Seriously Wicked.

Writers Read: Tina Connolly.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Pirate's Alley"

Suzanne Johnson is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series from Tor Books: Royal Street, River Road, Elysian Fields, and the newly released Pirate's Alley.

Johnson applied the Page 69 Test to Pirate's Alley and reported the following:

From page 69:

Jean struggled, but Etienne only pressed harder on his windpipe. “You might not die forever, Jean, but this will hurt like hell while you’re healing.”

Damn it, Jean was about to get himself killed again.

I clutched the staff more tightly and rolled to my knees, pointing it at Etienne and willing it to fire. A heavy rope of red flame shot from its tip and ignited the grass to Etienne’s right. He jerked his head up but didn’t release his hold on Jean’s throat.

Jean’s breath had turned to a definite wheeze and he’d quit struggling. I had to save him this time.

I shifted the aim of the staff to the left. That had been a warning shot. Even I couldn’t miss from here.

“Move. Away.”

In a lot of ways, page 69 is a pretty good representation of Pirate's Alley. DJ and her companion, the undead pirate Jean Lafitte, are facing off against a regent of the realm of Vampyre and the Wizards’ First Elder—both of whom are on the run from the authorities. Jean, who is human except for the immortality thing, doesn’t have the strength to hold out long against vampire Etienne, and he’s in trouble. DJ is determined to save Jean even though she knows he’s immortal and she isn’t.

And she holds her own. In Pirate's Alley, DJ is very much growing into her powers as a wizard-elven hybrid with a lot of magic at her disposal. She shows in this scene that she is willing to do whatever she has to in order to protect her friends—it’s a trait that becomes a major theme in the book.

Since the scene ends with her confronting the powerful vampire, I hope it would entice a reader to turn the page!

Learn more about the book and author at Suzanne Johnson's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Suzanne Johnson & Tank and Shane.

The Page 69 Test: Elysian Fields.

Writers Read: Suzanne Johnson.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mapmaker’s Children"

Sarah McCoy is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of The Baker’s Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee; the novella “The Branch of Hazel” in Grand Central; The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico; and The Mapmaker’s Children (Crown, 2015).

Her work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post and other publications. McCoy has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She calls Virginia home but presently lives with her husband, an Army physician, and their dog, Gilly, in El Paso, Texas.

McCoy applied the Page 69 Test to The Mapmaker’s Children and reported the following:

From page 69:

Green: life is here. Sarah walked the garden rows. In addition to blueberries, she saw orange squash, red beetroot, green sorrel and kale...

A horse neighed suddenly. Sarah dropped to her knees in the garden shadows.

Freddy and a man walked toward the barn, leading a speckled mare by the reins.

“Much obliged to you Mr. Fisher,” said Freddy.

Mr. Fisher’s face glinted indigo under the night light. “Glad to help, Mr. Hill.”

Siby’s pa. Sarah was touched by the way Freddy addressed him, respectfully and with obvious affection. Her father’s vision before her: white and black men, walking side by side as equals.

“We thought it best to have two horses pulling the wagon,” Freddy explained. “In case we need to move at a quicker pace. A lot of strangers in town. Amazing how people don’t give the time of day to a man doing a good work, but everybody shows up to see him suffer.” Freddy shook his head and whipped the horse’s reins across his palm. “Mankind. We’re a savage bunch. Sometimes I wonder if Gypsy and Tilda look on us with pity.”

Mr. Fisher sighed loud enough for Sarah to hear from her crouch. “I wonder the same. Mr. George be a man of forgiveness, mercy, and tolerance. I know he preaches them things to the white folk in New Charlestown, but do other towns hear them parts of the Gospel? Sho’ don’t seem like it.” He ran his hand over the horse’s haunches. “My pa, long time ’go, told me God gave animals a different kind of vision from us peoples. They ain’t got as many colors in their head, so they ain’t confused as easily. They sees straight through the rainbow. When I was a young’un, I used to wish I could see for a minute like theys do.” The horse nuzzled his shoulder. “A rainbow be pretty, but if a man try to take hold of it, he learns fast it ain’t nothing but mist in hand.” He patted the horse’s jowl and pushed it back forward. “Speaking of, I hope this fog rolls off for good tonight, otherwise passengers be late.”

Oo, I love what I found when I performed The Page 69 Test on The Mapmaker’s Children. This is a scene wherein Sarah Brown is spying on her host Freddy Brown while he is engaged in secretive Underground Railroad discussion with Mr. Fisher, a freed black man who works for the Hill family in 1859 West Virginia. The page is an atmospheric snapshot of some of the book’s major themes.

Learn more about the book and author at Sarah McCoy’s website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico.

The Page 69 Test: The Baker's Daughter.

Coffee with a Canine: Sarah McCoy and Gilbert.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Daylight Marriage"

Heidi Pitlor grew up in Concord, Massachusetts. She got her B.A. from McGill University in Montreal and moved out to Colorado, where in Denver and Boulder she worked as a nanny, receptionist, freelance writer, bus girl, rape crisis counselor and counselor to homeless and runaway teenagers. She moved back to Massachusetts to earn her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College and worked as a temp at Houghton Mifflin Company. Soon after, she was hired as an editorial assistant in the company's trade division. She eventually became an editor and later a senior editor at Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). She wrote fiction early in the mornings before work and published her first novel, The Birthdays, in 2006. She has been the series editor of The Best American Short Stories since 2007. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Ploughshares, The Huffington Post, and Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers.

Pitlor applied the Page 69 Test to The Daylight Marriage, her second novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 gives the reader a good sense of the mounting tension within The Daylight Marriage. In this novel, a husband and wife get into a painful argument, and the next morning, she disappears. On page 69 the husband, Lovell, is talking to his wife Hannah's friend to see what the woman might know about Hannah’s disappearance. Sophie, the friend, ends up knowing more than he thought she would. The reader is on the same footing as Lovell—surprised by what Sophie knows. This page is almost all dialogue-- and dialogue is important in the book. Quite a lot is revealed or hidden in dialogue throughout.

Visit Heidi Pitlor's website.

--Marshal Zeringue