"Walk A Crooked Line"

Susan McBride is the USA Today bestselling author of the Debutante Dropout Mysteries and the River Road Mysteries.

The debut of her Jo Larsen series, Walk Into Silence, was a #1 Kindle bestseller in the US and the UK, and #3 in Australia.

McBride applied the Page 69 Test to her new book, Walk A Crooked Line, the second Jo Larsen novel, and reported the following:

The set-up, as we reach page 69, is that Jo Larsen and her partner Hank Phelps are investigating the suicide of a 15-year-old girl named Kelly Amster. Kelly apparently took a dive from the old water tower in tiny Plainfield, Texas, just a few weeks after the new school year started. Though they have not recovered Kelly’s phone, the detectives have been given Kelly’s school-issued laptop, which they’re hoping will yield some clues as to why the girl committed suicide. Only, the laptop is beyond dead. The department has recently hired the captain’s niece, Bridget, who’s interning while she pursues an advanced degree in digital forensics. Jo is hoping Bridget can help them out.

“I’ll see what I can do to get it running,” Bridget said and took the laptop from her. “It could have a corrupted memory or bootloader, or maybe it’s a virus.” She glanced at the Post-it note stuck to the lid, checking both sides of it. “Looks like I’ve got everything I need. I’ll let you know when I get in.”

When, not if. Jo liked her already.

“May the Force be with you,” she said.

Bridget smiled. “Thanks.”

Well, heck, she had a Death Star pencil holder, and she was wearing a T-shirt with Yoda and the phrase, Do or Do Not…There Is No Try.

Bridget pulled her headphones back on, and Jo left her to do her magic.

She had other fish to fry.

I love this snippet, because the brief levity is like taking a breath in a novel that touches on some very serious topics: namely, suicide, bullying, and abuse in various forms. I don’t think I could write anything without spots of humor, because it’s how I deal with dark stuff in my own life. And Jo Larsen definitely has a lot of darkness (and demons) to deal with as she turns over some nasty rocks to figure out what—or who—pushed Kelly Amster to her death.

Learn more about the book and author at Susan McBride's website.

My Book, The Movie: Walk a Crooked Line.

Writers Read: Susan McBride.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Supervillain and Me"

Danielle Banas, a Pittsburgh native, earned a degree in communication from Robert Morris University. After years spent dreaming up characters instead of paying attention in class, Banas joined the storytelling platform Wattpad, where her work has received millions of views online. When she isn’t writing, she can be found loudly singing show tunes, spouting off Walt Disney World trivia, and snuggling with her puppy.

Banas applied the Page 69 Test to ​The Supervillain and Me, her debut novel, and reported the following:

From page 69:

When I was a kid, my dad decided it would be a good idea to sign me up for a summer soccer camp. Sports, he said, would help me get stronger. They would enhance my fragile human body and protect me from danger. As the crime rates in Morriston skyrocketed, so did my dad’s determination. Soccer was followed by boxing, which was followed by fencing. (I put my foot down pretty firm on that one.) I failed to see how sweating all day would help me fight evil, so I quit athletics and allowed my interests to gravitate toward performing instead. This switch was not beneficial to my safety, as I discovered later that evening. Because I hated sports, I had zero muscles to protect myself against the supervillain who came knocking just after midnight.

But I did have a steak knife.

“Holy shit!” Iron Phantom ducked as the knife whizzed over his right shoulder, the tip embedding in the wall. “And again with the throwing.”

“I have more than one tonight.” I pulled the second knife out of my pocket as I stood my ground on the opposite side of my bed. I didn’t plan on throwing knife number two, but if he tried anything funny, then it just might slip....

Iron Phantom yanked the blade out of the wall, a bit of plaster breaking away with it. Dammit. Now we were even.

So first off, I really love this little knife throwing scene! It’s something that wasn’t added until a later draft, and I’m not sure how I managed to go on without it for so long. It’s representative of probably the first 50% of the book. My protagonist, Abby, spends a large chunk of time being very distrustful of the new supervillain in town, Iron Phantom. And she certainly has a good reason to be wary – even though he tries to convince her that he isn’t evil, he still burned down a building. Not only that, but he keeps showing up out of nowhere, begging her to help him uncover a growing mystery in their city. As a character, I really like Iron Phantom. He’s brave and smart and super snarky, but if he showed up unannounced at my house I would probably throw a knife at him too. He means well (most of the time) but he’s kind of creepy.

Visit Danielle Banas's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Danielle Banas & Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: The Supervillain and Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Lido"

Libby Page graduated from The London College of Fashion with a BA in fashion journalism before going on to work as a journalist at The Guardian. After writing, her second passion is outdoor swimming. She lives in London, where she enjoys finding new swimming spots and pockets of community within the city.

Page applied the Page 69 Test to The Lido, her first novel, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“So how are you finding it?” says Rosemary. “Have you gotten used to the cold yet?”

“It’s strange, I know, but I quite like the cold,” says Kate. “It wakes me up.”

“Why do you think I come in the mornings?”

They both laugh.

“I think I’m starting to understand it,” says Kate, looking around her. Her heart beats fast but she feels calm. “Why you love it here so much, I mean,” she says.

“There’s nowhere like it,” Rosemary replies, leaning back a little farther until her toes poke out of the surface of the water.

Kate watches her, this old woman in her navy swimsuit who has swum here all her life. She imagines what it might feel like to see your city changing around you like that and to lose the place that feels like home. As she thinks it she is reminded of her conversation with Erin, and how she had listened to her sister tell her things weren’t perfect, and she herself had said nothing – done nothing.

“You really want to save it, don’t you?” Kate saves after a moment.

“Oh, I do.”

“Maybe I can help you.”

As soon as she says it she realizes that, without knowing exactly how or why, this is something she needs to do. She needs to help Rosemary Peterson save her lido.

Rosemary looks at her for a moment, the wary expression that Kate had noticed the first time they met returning for a moment. But then she smiles.

“Okay then,” says Rosemary.

“Okay then,” says Kate.”

My novel, The Lido, is about the unlikely friendship between 86-year old widow Rosemary, and 26-year old journalist Kate as they come together to try and save their local outdoor swimming pool (or ‘lido’). It is about the importance of community and fighting for the places we love.

Page 69 is actually a very significant page in the book as it is the moment when Kate agrees to help Rosemary, and the campaign to try and save the lido is born.

When Kate and Rosemary first meet, Kate is a very anxious, lonely reporter who has been assigned the story of the potential lido closure by the newspaper where she works. Rosemary is a loyal swimmer who has frequented the lido her whole life. It’s where many of her memories, particularly of her beloved husband George, played out, and has a huge role in her life. Kate is not a swimmer – in fact she isn’t much of a ‘do-er’ at all because of the panic attacks that control much of her life. But when she interviews Rosemary for the newspaper, the older woman encourages her to get into the water herself.

Kate slowly comes to experience the invigorating benefits of cold water swimming, and of spending time at the lido. In this scene, Rosemary and Kate have spotted each other one morning in the shallow end of the pool. Kate suddenly realises that perhaps just writing about the closure of the lido isn’t enough – maybe there is more she can do. So starts an important journey for both Kate, Rosemary, and the lido.

Visit Libby Page's website.

Writers Read: Libby Page.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Upper Hand"

Johnny Shaw is the author of the award-winning Jimmy Veeder Fiasco series, including the books Dove Season, Plaster City, and Imperial Valley, as well as the stand-alone novels Floodgate and Big Maria. He has won the Spotted Owl and Anthony Awards and was the Grand Marshal of the 69th Annual Carrot Festival Parade.

Shaw applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Upper Hand, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Your stuff is right here,” Stephanie said, setting it on the sink counter

“Thanks,” the coffee woman said.

“I should be thanking you, I had no interest in getting hit with a dick. Even if it probably wouldn’t have hurt, now that I think about it.”

The coffee woman looked at herself in the mirror. “I’m covered in coffee.” She took off her shirt and put it under the water in the sink Stephanie found herself staring at the woman’s nude torso. She was young, pretty, and in shape. She was also covered in ink. A dragon, some quotes there were too far away to read, a dollar sign, a dozen more.

When the woman turned and smiled, Stephanie looked down at the cover of the binder on the counter. The title read, “San Diego-Poway Highway Proposal, Routes, Maps, Proposed Land Buys.”

The woman wrung out her shirt, put it on, and looked in the mirror. “Great. A wet T-shirt contest.”

Stephanie took off her jacket. “Try this. It should work until you can get something else.”

“Thanks.” The woman smiled, took the jacket, and put it on. “Are you doing the symposium, too?”

“I am.”

“Perfect. That puts us on the same schedule. I have gym clothes in my car. I can return your jacket.” She buttoned the front of the jacket and reached for the binder and her stuff. “Thanks for grabbing my stuff. I’d be in hot water if I lost it. Top secret.” She smiled and winked.

Stephanie handed the woman the notebook that she definitely wanted to read. There had been talk about that highway expansion for years. That kind of inside information was potentially the $1 million find that could her out of her current $300,000 racket.

“I’m Patricia,” Stephanie said. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

“Gretchen. Nice to meet you, too.”

The Upper Hand is a story about an extended family of confidence tricksters and thieves That family includes Gretchen. In this scene, Gretchen is in the process of drawing Stephanie into a confidence game designed for her. Stephanie, herself, is a con woman (hence the fake name) that had dated Gretchen’s brother and conned him. It’s your basic sister getting payback for her brother by seducing ex-girlfriend type of scenario. I know that sounds convoluted, but it’s that kind of story. And this is just the beginning. It gets more bananas as it goes.

It’s funny to read how a scene plays out of context of the rest of the story, but I actually like how this holds together on its own. It is the introduction of an important character and the last page of the chapter, so there’s a sense of momentum to it, even if it’s mostly dialogue.

What I like about this moment is that it’s one of the few chapters that’s not in the point of view of one of the three main characters: siblings Axel, Kurt, and Gretchen. It’s an opportunity to see the con from the outside, from the mark’s point of view. In the chapters that follow we see the inner mechanism from the inside point of view.

Visit Johnny Shaw's website.

The Page 69 Test: Plaster City.

The Page 69 Test: Imperial Valley.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wrong in All the Right Ways"

Tiffany Brownlee was born in San Diego, California, and, as with many authors, her love for reading and writing began at an early age. Because her father was in the Navy, she and her family moved around far more often than she would have liked (she went to five elementary schools–not kidding!), but despite the many moves, her love of education, books, and writing remained.

Her family’s final move brought her to New Orleans, Louisiana, where she went on to study for and earn her B.S. in Psychology at Xavier University of Louisiana. Immediately after graduation, Brownlee began work as a Teacher’s Assistant while also pursuing a teaching certification from The University of Holy Cross. Juggling both school and work as a full-time teacher’s assistant was a little hectic for her, but she still managed to squeeze in some time to read and work on a YA novel idea that she’d thought up while rereading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (one of her favorite classics). That idea eventually became Wrong in All the Right Ways, her newly released debut novel.

Brownlee currently works as a middle school English teacher in New Orleans.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Wrong in All the Right Ways and reported the following:

Page 69 of Wrong in All the Right Ways is a scene in which Emma tries to distract herself from her growing feelings for Dylan by trying out for their school’s dance team. While this page is not a complete representation of the entire novel, it does introduce us to Emma’s go-to coping mechanism: dance. As the Dylan drama escalates, Emma realizes that dance is the perfect distraction from her romantic woes. She leans on this activity and her network of dance friends to help her through every issues throughout the novel.

Dance also gives Emma the chance to become such good friends with Karmin Ortega, the captain of the dance team. Karmin brings a ton of sass and humor to Wrong in All the Right Ways, and I know that readers are going to fall in love with her character and the tight-knit relationship Emma builds with her.

Visit Tiffany Brownlee's website.

My Book, The Movie: Wrong in All the Right Ways.

Writers Read: Tiffany Brownlee.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Furnace"

Prentis Rollins has over twenty-five years of experience working as a writer and artist in the comics industry.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his debut full-length graphic novel, The Furnace, and reported the following:

There are three narratives unfolding simultaneously in The Furnace; page 69 [inset below left; click to enlarge] cuts to the heart of one of them. In that narrative, told in flashback, we learn the history of the US ‘Gard Program’—a scheme, launched in 2027, to release dangerous prisoners back into society, the catch being that each would be followed by a floating drone that renders the convict invisible, inaudible, and totally unable to interact with other people. Page 69 shows us the shutting down of several ‘supermax’ prisons and the relocating of the prisoners they housed to GARD facilities.

The second narrative, also told in flashback, is the story of young physics grad student Walton Honderich, the growth of his relationship with the brilliant but unstable physicist Marc Lepore, and how the two of them were jointly implicated in the development of the GARD Program in 2023. Lepore, an alcoholic and repressed homosexual, recruits Honderich to assist him in developing GARD software; when Honderich refuses Lepore’s advances their relationship sours, but it’s too late—Honderich has provided the crucial help that will enable the GARD program to commence.

The third narrative is the crucial present of the story. It’s 2052: Honderich is a middle-aged, alcoholic physics professor living in London with his wife and six year-old daughter. Having returned to the US for a conference, Honderich is forced to finally confront the enormity of the human tragedy the GARD Program entailed—the nearly wholesale die-off of the prisoners subjected to this untested form of psychological isolation. Struggling through his guilt and feelings of thwarted ambition, he explains to his daughter (in a sanitized form) what the GARD Program was and how he was involved in it. And in the end, his daughter inadvertently reveals to him the one remaining route along which he can rise above and be the man he’d once felt so sure he’d be.

The Furnace is a science fiction story about the hideous uses to which technology can be put—page 69 captures that well. But more importantly, it’s about guilt, acceptance, letting go, and the many forms human greatness can assume—that’s what I mainly hope its readers will remember.

Visit Prentis Rollins's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Furnace.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Emperor of Shoes"

Born in Boston, Spencer Wise is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Texas at Austin and worked in the editorial departments at Sports Illustrated and Time Out New York. His work has appeared in Narrative magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Florida Review, and New Ohio Review. He is the winner of the 2017 Gulf Coast Prize in nonfiction. Wise teaches at Florida State University and lives in Tallahassee.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his debut novel, The Emperor of Shoes, and reported the following:

Yes! Page 69 couldn’t be more representative of the book. I love this page. Might be one of my favorite pages in the whole darn book. This is the scene where our narrator, Alex, first confronts his father about what he suspects are unethical business practices going on at their shoe factory. The father plays dumb. Alex has to use all the business acumen his father taught him to cajole the truth out of him. So there’s a great cat-and-mouse game here between two manipulative, cagey men, both of whom are hiding something from the other. It also resonates with Alex’s fear that he’s merely his father’s pawn. Alex calls himself a Golem, which is a monster from Jewish folklore created out of clay and brought to life by the breath of its master. On this page, Alex says, “I was staring straight ahead, but I could feel Dad side-eyeing me. I knew he was thinking: I created you. Like how the old rabbis would mold a mystical golem to follow orders—I honestly think that’s how Dad saw fatherhood. And now he was worried that his divine creation was beginning to turn against him.” This page perfectly captures the clash between the father and son as well as the ethical of quandary of how global capitalism, in this case, shoe manufacturing, can be run ethically.

Visit Spencer Wise's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"City of Islands"

Kali Wallace studied geology and earned a PhD in geophysics before she realized she enjoyed inventing imaginary worlds more than she liked researching the real one. She is the author of the young adult novels Shallow Graves and The Memory Trees.

Wallace applied the Page 69 Test to her new middle grade fantasy novel, City of Islands, and reported the following:

From page 69:

For two years the master of the Winter Blade had been the man Mara hated most in the world. The man who killed Bindy.

Mara's chest ached as though she had dove too deep, too fast.

On page 69 of City of Islands, twelve-year-old Mara has been asked by her employer to perform a dangerous task: to sneak into a magical island fortress and spy on its master.

What her employer doesn't know is that same man is a special enemy of Mara's. He's the one who murdered her beloved guardian, leaving Mara alone in a world that does not treat orphaned children kindly.

If Mara could get into the Winter Blade, she might be able to find the spell books as proof of what the Muck had done. Nobody had wanted to listen to a bone-mage's little servant girl, but they would listen to the Lady of the Tides.

"Think before you agree, child," said Professor Kosta. "It could be very dangerous."

"But it could also be very rewarding," the Lady added. "For both of us."

City of Islands begins with Mara working for a wealthy woman and dreaming of a brighter future. But at this point, on this very page, her work becomes a personal mission. Suddenly, Mara is given a chance to not only earn a reward for herself, but to reveal the truth of what happened to her guardian. The danger does not concern her. She has a chance to expose a murderer, and she takes it.

As for whether it works out like that… Well, let's just say that there are quite a few twists and turns in store for Mara ahead. But the decision she makes on this page sets the course for the rest of the book, and once she's made it, she never looks back.

Visit Kali Wallace's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Memory Trees.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wild Dead"

Carrie Vaughn is the New York Time bestselling author of more than twenty novels and over eighty short stories.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Wild Dead, and reported the following:

The Wild Dead is a post-apocalyptic murder mystery, the sequel to my Philip K. Dick Award-Winning novel Bannerless that came out last year. Page 69 of The Wild Dead is an odd one, in that it’s only a quarter of a page of text, right at the end of a chapter. In it, what little there is of it, my main character, Investigator Enid, and her partner Teeg are having to stop their investigation for the night, and continue the next day to hunt for the killer of a young woman whose body washed up on the. On the one hand it’s mostly movement, logistics that move the story from one scene to the next. At the same time, I do think it’s representative – this is a murder mystery, even against the backdrop of the unfamiliar post-apocalyptic setting, and this is one of those classic murder mystery scenes in which the detective is explaining her thoughts, listing out clues, giving her take on the setting. I think this is one of the attractions of the murder mystery genre, both written and on TV, particularly series in which we follow the same investigator from one case to the next, and we get to see the world through her perspective.

Learn more about the author and her work at Carrie Vaughn's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Contagion"

Erin Bowman grew up in rural Connecticut, where she spent most of her childhood penning tales. She studied web design (and minored in Creative Writing because she couldn’t stay away from stories) at the Rochester Institute of Technology. After several years working in advertising and designing websites for various brands, she moved from Boston to New Hampshire, where she now lives with her family and writes full-time.

When not writing, Bowman can often be found hiking, geeking out over good typography, and obsessing over all things Harry Potter. She drinks a lot of coffee, buys far too many books, and is not terribly skilled at writing about herself in the third person.

Bowman is the author of the Taken trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, and the newly released Contagion.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Contagion and reported the following:

Page 69 [at right; click to enlarge] is completely representative of Contagion. The hotheaded captain. The ominous setting. And shy, reserved Thea coming out of her shell. She spends the majority of the book fighting for people to take her seriously and she follows her intuition constantly (which keeps her alive through some pretty hair-raising moments that follow this scene).

Visit Erin Bowman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Scream All Night"

Derek Milman has worked as a playwright, screenwriter, film school teacher, DJ, and underground humor magazine publisher. A classically trained actor, he has performed on stages across the country and appeared in numerous TV shows, commercials, and films.

Milman applied the Page 69 Test to his newly released first novel, Scream All Night, and reported the following:

Yes, page 69 totally representative of Scream All Night. Dario has been called home for his father's live funeral (Lucien Heyward, terminally ill, chooses to be buried alive on the Moldavia grounds as a tribute to the heroine of his first film--The Curse of the Mummy's Tongue) and that night Dario re-connects both with his estranged brother, and Hayley--a girl at the castle he always loved--who he had to leave behind when he got legally emancipated from his family and moved into a group home. But they were children then. Now, they're both grown up. On page 69, they meet after midnight in the Moldavia castle, on the set of a fake graveyard, with fake wraiths crawling out of fake graves. Dario reflects on the fact that Hayley, for a variety of factors, belonged in his family more than he ever did. As they share their first kiss as the people they are now, Dario remembers the physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his director father, who was bullying Dario into giving him the perfectly monstrous performance as main child zombie Alastair, in what would become one of Moldavia's biggest cult hits--Zombie Children of the Harvest Sun.

Visit Derek Milman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Scream All Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Into the Darkness"

Sibel Hodge is the author of the number-one bestsellers Look Behind You, Untouchable and Duplicity. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK, USA, Australia, France, Canada and Germany.

Hodge applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Into the Darkness, and reported the following:

From page 69:

‘Toni…um…she asked for my help to show her how to get on the dark web because I know about computers. I’m studying computer science,’ Laura added for my benefit. ‘She thought we should do it together. But I didn’t want to go into the darkness. That’s what I called it. Those same words. That’s what Toni must’ve meant when she wrote that in her notebook. She must’ve done it without me. She must’ve started looking around down there.’

Corinne clenched her hands together in her lap. ‘I’ve never even heard about this dark web. If it exists with all this heinous stuff on it, why haven’t the police shut it down?’ Corinne asked incredulously. ‘How is it possible it even exists?’

‘Because the sites are really hard to find,’ Laura said. ‘The dark web is made up of encrypted networks that have been hidden. It’s super secure and anonymous. If you use proper OPSEC, it’s really hard, if not impossible, for the police to find what’s out there or who’s using it because IP addresses or location of devices on a network and servers are obscured.’

This is the point where ex-SAS operative Mitchell has firm confirmation that his missing goddaughter, Toni, was searching on the dark web and that it's connected to her disappearance. He realises his worst fear then. That Toni has been taken by a dark criminal enterprise intent on committing the most heinous crimes, and he's in a race against time to track her down and bring her back alive. This is both representative of the rest of the novel and not at the same time. It's a lull in the fast pace of Mitchell's investigation as he questions Toni's best friend for the first time. But an indication of the darkness that Toni has been caught up in.

Visit Sibel Hodge's website.

My Book, The Movie: Untouchable.

My Book, The Movie: Into the Darkness.

--Marshal Zeringue