"The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl"

Bart Yates is the Alex Award-winning author of novels including Leave Myself Behind, The Brothers Bishop, and The Third Hill North of Town, written as Noah Bly. He is also a musician, and plays clarinet, saxophone, and bass guitar. He lives in Iowa City, IA.

Yates applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl, and reported the following:

Page 69 of my book starts off with part of a scene that takes place in 1950, in a movie theater in Des Moines. The three main characters in the novel--Isaac Dahl (the narrator), Agnes (Isaac's twin sister), and Bo (Isaac's best friend)--are seated together in the same row of the theater, along with other Dahl family members, watching Walt Disney's Cinderella and squabbling amongst themselves instead of paying attention to the movie.

For somebody wanting to get an idea of what my book is about, page 69 is a great place to start. It features most of Isaac's family, and captures the playful spirit and complexity of their relationships. They're all smart, witty people who love each other deeply but also get on each other's nerves all the time---especially when it comes to the platonic love triangle of Isaac, Agnes, and Bo.

Visit Bart Yates's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The House on Cold Creek Lane"

Liz Alterman is the author of The Perfect Neighborhood, He'll Be Waiting, and Sad Sacked. Her work appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney's, and other outlets. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three sons where she spends most days microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms. When Alterman isn't writing, she's reading.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The House on Cold Creek Lane, and reported the following:

Page 69 in The House on Cold Creek Lane is written from Corey Sutton’s point of view. After suffering a devastating loss, this character moves to Florida to live with her mother in her retirement village condo. Corey takes a job at a garden center as a distraction. In this scene, the reader gets a glimpse into Corey’s state of mind and her inability to move on from the past that haunts her.

From page 69:

Rex was young, maybe twenty-five. He knew I wasn’t much for conversation. I kept my head down. Did the work. Being quiet made me mysterious, more interesting than I actually was.

We were clocking out around the same time the afternoon he saved me from that customer.

‘If you ever want to talk more about funguses, maybe we could get a drink sometime?’ His smile – that’s what got me. How long had it been since anyone had shown me kindness that wasn’t fueled by pity or twisted curiosity? Something stirred at the base of my body, a long-dead engine turning over, rumbling to life.

‘How about now?’ That stupid cactus clock ticked like a bomb as I stared at my boots and waited for his answer. What if he said, ‘Now? Really? We smell like manure,’ and I’d have to laugh it off or come back with some crack like, ‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realize you thought you were The Bachelor.’

What he’d said was, ‘I’ve got the perfect spot.’

Did I know what I was doing? That one drink would spill into four? That I wasn’t strong enough to resist the combination of his eyes and the water at sunset? That his calloused hand grazing mine to reach for the bar bill would be the same one that led me back to an apartment where we had hungry, urgent sex, once in the shower and then on the couch, its leather squeaking and sticking to our damp skin.

After, we laid there. His heart pumping so close to mine dragged me backward to Kenny, to the early days. I stared at the ceiling fan spinning to nowhere and felt the nothingness rush in, spreading through me like a disease.

‘That was . . .’ Rex let out a long whistle.

‘A mistake,’ I said at the same time he moaned, ‘Fantastic.’

‘Ouch.’ He laughed. ‘Is it ’cause I live with my parents? They’re on a cruise and I’m getting my own place, I swear.’

I shook my head. Hell, I lived with my mother in a retirement village. I wasn’t judging him. I couldn’t let it happen again because to feel good, normal, only to remember what my life had become, was too much. When we’d been pressed together, our bodies bumping hard and fast as pinball flippers, it swallowed me. Everything fell away. When it was over, guilt slammed me with the force of a hurricane. That’s when I vowed not to let anyone in again. To forget, even for a second, was a betrayal. I’d already failed Frankie enough.

At the risk of being non-committal, it’s hard to say if page 69 is truly representative of the novel because most of the story has an undercurrent of foreboding that the reader may not sense here.

Corey and the other main character, Laurel West (not discussed here), grapple with how the losses they’ve endured color and impact their judgement as they attempt to move forward with their lives.

This page isn’t characteristic of the novel’s tense and suspenseful tone but it does illustrate Corey’s sadness and how she punishes herself for what happened to her daughter, Frankie. She believes that if she experiences pleasure or allows herself to forget her child even for a moment, she’s betraying her.

This page also shows Corey’s sarcastic, snarky nature. Her refusal to create positive change or accept the help she’s offered propels the storyline, and in that way, it does pass the Page 69 Test. Maternal guilt and pressure are other themes I explore within the novel, and I think readers get a taste of that here.

Additionally, on this page, readers learn that Corey makes impulsive decisions when she asks Rex, ‘How about now?’ She doesn’t necessarily consider the consequences of her actions or how they affect others. As that reckless and restless side takes hold, it ultimately leads to the book’s dramatic conclusion.

I may have just talked (or written) myself into a “Yes, it does pass the Page 69 Test!”

Visit Liz Alterman's website.

Q&A with Liz Alterman.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Neighborhood.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Neighborhood.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Farewell to Arfs"

Spencer Quinn is the pen name of Peter Abrahams, the Edgar-award winning author of many novels, including the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery series, Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, The Right Side, and Oblivion, as well as the New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for younger readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana―and Dottie, a loyal and energetic member of the four-pawed nation within.

Quinn applied the Page 69 Test to A Farewell to Arfs, the newest Chet and Bernie mystery, and reported the following:

Here is page 69 of A Farewell to Arfs. Chet and Bernie are approaching a house where a buzzard has just landed on the roof. Chet is not a fan of buzzards. Bernie has just asked him if something’s wrong.

Not a thing. I put a stop to any barking that may or may not have been going on. We hopped out of the car, me actually hopping, and hopping big time. A shadeless house but maybe not shadeless forever: little trees were growing here and there in the yard. I was considering laying a mark on at least one of them when two kids came stumbling around from the back of the house. These were skinny kids, kind of tallish, perhaps the kind called teenagers. But I hardly noticed any of that. What caught my attention was what they wore on their faces, strange goggles that weren’t at all like little windows, were in fact like little walls surrounding the top part of their heads. They were bobbing and ducking and dodging, throwing a punch or two and shouting, “nice try!” and “whoops!”

Bernie laughed. “VR, Chet,” he said, which made no sense, and then he raised his voice and said, “Guys? Hey, guys!”

No response from the kids, who kept on doing whatever it was they were doing. Had I ever seen anything like this? Why, yes! Escaped hostages! I got ready for who knows what to emerge from behind the house, but before that could happen Bernie stepped forward and touched one of the kids on the shoulder.

The kid jumped right off the ground. Then he whipped off the gizmo. “Huh?” he said. “What the hell?” He got a good look at us and backed away. Meanwhile the other kid also took off his gizmo, also backed away. The first kid had a faint, fuzzy sort of mustache and a rat tail. The second kid had pimples but no mustache and no rat tail.

“It’s all right,” Bernie said. “I’m Bernie and this is Chet. Didn’t mean to interrupt. We’re looking for Billy Parsons.”

“He’s not home,” said the pimply kid.

“Is he your dad?” Bernie said.

“Sort of,” said the pimply kid. “Like stepdad.”

“What’s your name?”

“Felix,” said the kid.

Will you get a good idea of the whole work from this sample? Yes! But here’s the truth. A Farewell to Arfs is the fifteenth novel in the Chet and Bernie series (which can be read in any order, by the way). Plus there are a number of short stories. Back of the envelope calculation, call it 5000 pages total. But the point is you could have picked any one of the 5000 and it would have been a good representational choice. Why? Because every single word comes from the mind of Chet. He is the sole narrator. A dog, yes, but not a talking dog. He’s as canine as I can make him, and therefore an unreliable narrator in some ways and super-reliable in others. When I discovered that—by accident—I thought oh, boy, think of the possibilities, and I’ve been thinking of them ever since.

And as a bonus on this page 69 you get to see Chet and Bernie working a missing persons case (or what appears to be one), which is their specialty. It even includes some thematic material because virtual reality and AI specifically are important factors in the story. Hard to imagine how that could be in a dog-narrated novel? Nevertheless! Also we have an indication of some troubling family dynamics in the offing. Chet is great with kids, although you have to turn the page to see some of that.

Visit Spencer Quinn's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Audrey (September 2011).

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Pearl (August 2012).

The Page 69 Test: The Dog Who Knew Too Much.

The Page 69 Test: Paw and Order.

The Page 69 Test: Scents and Sensibility.

The Page 69 Test: Bow Wow.

The Page 69 Test: Heart of Barkness.

Q&A with Spencer Quinn.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Daughter of Fire"

Sofia Robleda is a Mexican author. She spent her childhood and adolescence in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. She completed her degrees in psychology at the University of Queensland, in Australia. She currently lives in the UK with her husband and son, and splits her time writing, raising her son, and working as a psychologist, supporting people with brain injuries and neurological conditions.

Robleda applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Daughter of Fire, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Normally, Father loved a banquet, just for the opportunity to publicly humiliate his enemies en masse. If left to his devices, he would’ve thrown a somber affair, a pitiful feast, to remind everyone present what he thought they deserved. But they’d gotten ahead of him that year. They’d written to the emperor to complain of last year’s meager portions, and said it was an insult to His Majesty’s honor.

Father had been ordered to provide. There was no argument to be had, and so the garden was sumptuously decorated. Since the weather was so pleasant, the tables were out in the open air, ornamented with the palace’s gold-embroidered cloth and silver dining set. The fountain in the middle of the main courtyard was draped in fruits and flowers. A harpist, brought in from Chiapas, plucked an airy tune as we made our way in, trailed by our many guests, who exclaimed as they took in the delights of the garden. Impeccably dressed servants in their blue livery rushed forward with wine served in Venetian glassware.

Father had done his duty, but by the look on his face, he’d rather have swallowed poison than bring so much joy to people he so disliked. People who constantly opposed him, who threatened him and the New Laws, every single day. His mood blackened as his two worst rivals, Bishop Marroquín and Captain Lobo, the lord treasurer, approached him together with broad, satisfied smiles. They gave me a small nod, which I hesitantly returned.

“Don Alonso, what a pleasant change from last year’s gathering,” said Captain Lobo, a grizzly, middle-aged conquistador who was as wolfish as his name. He had a scar across his left cheek and light hazel eyes that could’ve been mistaken for yellow. “Could this be a sign that times are changing for the better, perhaps?”

The feast was one of Lobo’s triumphs over Father, who forced a smile. “The emperor may want you to sup in splendor for the night. But his New Laws remain the same.”

“Come now, another two families left us in the last month. Good, honorable families, gone back to Spain,” said Bishop Marroquín, who was tall and slim, with a small white goatee and balding head. “I implored them to stay, but I had nothing to say against their protestations.”

Aghhhh, I’m super annoyed because if this test had been about page 68, then it would’ve passed with flying colors! All my main characters are mentioned on page 68, as well as Catalina’s aim and the mess she’s gotten herself into, all the barriers which are preventing her from achieving her goal of re-writing the Popol Vuh. There’s even a little excerpt where she recites a line from it! Plus, a bit about the beautiful scenery with the Guatemalan volcanoes in the background… sigh! But of course, this is about page 69.

Whilst page 69 really doesn’t do the book justice, this page does provide quite a good overview of the political and contextual backdrop for the novel from the viewpoint of the bickering Spanish settlers, two of which were real historical figures. It highlights their silly little intrigues and power plays, and some of the pressures Catalina’s father faces in trying to uphold the New Laws, which were meant to prevent the abuse of Indigenous people. It also shows the wealth which they’ve accumulated in the short time since their arrival.

I would hope the page would still draw readers in, particularly those who love historical novels set in the 16 th century, but are hoping for a fresh perspective.

Visit Sofia Robleda's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Echoes of Memory"

Sara Driscoll is the pen name of Jen J. Danna, author of the FBI K-9s, the NYPD Negotiators, and the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her latest standalone thriller, Echoes of Memory, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Anyone else?” There were affirmative murmurs from several people around the circle. “I have a medical suggestion for him, but I’d like to hear your strategies first. What worked for you?” He turned to Peter, who leaned forward in his chair, his hands balled on his knees. “Peter, you have a suggestion?”

“Oh yeah.” Peter scooped a hank of blond hair out of his eyes. “This is me for sure. Do you like games?”

Luis looked confounded at the quick change in topic. “Games?”

“Yeah, games. Video games in particular.”

Luis actually flushed. “I have a fishing simulator I like. And the PGA Tour game.”

“Nice! So, gamify the tasks.”

“Gamify?”

“That’s what I do. I give myself rewards for tasks as motivation. My easiest one is coffee. I love coffee. But I don’t get my next cup until this or that gets done. Just don’t stack the deck too high against yourself, at least at first. And pick what works for you.”

“That’s kind of what I do,” Doris said. “But my reward is a break. I set a timer. Started at one minute, now I do five minutes. Work for that time period at whatever you’re doing. For me, it’s dishes or laundry. Timer goes off and I can take a break. Then do it again. It’s more manageable for me when it happens in short chunks. And some days, when the timer goes off, I’ve not quite finished the job, so I keep going until it’s done. That’s just a bonus.”

“Maybe I couldn’t do my whole job that way, but I could use it to complete some of it.” Some of the strain etched into Luis’s face eased. “Thanks!”

Quinn Fleming suffers from post-traumatic amnesia, the result of a traumatic brain injury sustained during a brutal attack on a downtown San Diego street. As part of her recovery, she attends a group therapy session to find ways to meet the challenges she now faces.

Page 69 of Echoes of Memory takes place during one of these sessions, and while Quinn is silent in the background, it’s a good representation of one of the underlying concepts of the book—a traumatic brain injury sufferer’s journey toward healing.

In the scene, members of the group discuss ways to manage some of the challenges suffered by those recovering from traumatic brain injury. After effects from such an injury can include headaches, mood swings, anxiety, and depression. In this case, the group is tackling two other common residual effects—a lack of motivation and the inability to focus on tasks. When a group member describes how he struggles to get both work and home tasks completed, the idea of gamification is introduced—if he does x number of minutes on a task, he can give himself a reward for his efforts and focus.

All the research around memory and traumatic brain injury coping strategies in Echoes of Memory are based on real-world practical methods. This kind of injury is as unique as the individual who suffers from it. It can be caused by physical trauma—an attack or taking a hit to the head during a football or hockey game—or from brain cancer surgery or stroke. The extent of the injury and its effects heavily depend on the brain center involved in the injury. But one thing is extremely clear: the community around traumatic brain injury is strong, vibrant, and giving. Those who have gone through the trenches themselves know the personal hell of the journey, and do what they can to lighten the load of those just beginning their recovery.

Which is good, because after witnessing a murder she knows she’ll only remember for an hour at most, Quinn Fleming will need all the help she can get…

Visit Sara Driscoll's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lone Wolf.

The Page 69 Test: Storm Rising.

The Page 69 Test: No Man's Land.

The Page 69 Test: Leave No Trace.

The Page 69 Test: That Others May Live.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Things Don’t Break On Their Own"

Sarah Easter Collins is a writer and artist. A mother to a wonderful son, she has worked extensively in the field of education, teaching art in the UK, Botswana, Thailand, and Malawi. Collins now lives on Exmoor with her husband and dogs, where she loves running and wild swimming. She is a graduate of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course.

Collins applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, Things Don’t Break On Their Own, and reported the following:

I love this idea! It turns out that page 69 in Things Don’t Break On Their Own is in fact very slightly different for the UK and the US editions, and personally I think that test works better when applied to the UK edition, so for this exercise, I’m going to work with that.

So here’s what it says on page 69 of the UK edition of Things Don’t Break On Their Own:

I picked up her desk chair and lifted it inside her wardrobe. Then I stood on it and, on tiptoe, felt along the top of the inside frame where there was a tiny gap between the wood and the plaster of the wall, the space she used to stash the notes she lifted from my father’s wallet, rolled up into tight little tubes. Nothing.

I went back to her desk and looked through the jumble of things she’d left on the top of her chest of drawers – the hair ties and clips meant to tame her unruly hair, beads, a peacock feather. A china cat. A felt mouse. She was so messy. There wasn’t an order to any of it. I opened her pink jewellery box, a relic from childhood, and jumped as a small pink plastic ballet dancer sprang up and shuddered into life, turning on its stand to tinny music. Amazing the thing still works, I thought. I listened to the tune, feeling rushed backwards through time as an image filled my mind: my mother one day pretending to be that doll, turning jerkily on the spot with a strange, fixed smile on her face, while Laika and I danced around her, giggling like mad. It was funny, because, as children, we honestly believed our mother was the clumsiest person on earth. She always told us she couldn’t walk through a doorway without accidentally banging into it. Bruises bloomed like flowers on her arms. Silly me, she’d say, when we pulled up the long sleeves she always wore, when we traced their outlines with small fingertips, when we tried to kiss them better.

I snapped the lid shut.

Almost immediately I opened it again. There was something bright in there, something I’d not noticed before: a discarded thing in a child’s jewellery box, just one trinket among many others, easily overlooked.

With slow fingers I lifted out the object and held it up: a tiny silver dolphin, curled into a dive, shaped like a crescent moon. I stretched out the little silver chain. It was broken. The ballerina kept turning.

I’m going to say that for Things Don’t Break On their Own, the Page 69 Test works! What would a reader learn from reading page 69? This: that a young girl, Laika, is missing and that her sister does not know what happened, but that she has been driven by both loss and suspicion to be going through her sister’s bedroom, looking for clues. She describes her missing sister as untidy and unordered, perhaps suggesting that she herself is not. We learn that Laika had messy hair which, as later becomes apparent, is something that has some significance. We also learn that the missing sister was not undisposed to a little light theft (an astute reader might ask why.) There are also two big reveals. The first of these is that their mother has evidently been a victim of domestic violence, and that she protected her daughters from the full knowledge/horror of this when they were small children, by pretending to be clumsy. The second is the discovery of a broken necklace with a tiny silver dolphin, which is also highly significant. So to conclude, everything contained on page 69 is highly relevant to the whole book, and not just to the story but to its underlying themes. Even the tiny ballerina in the music box is thematically relevant, a woman trapped and turning on the spot.

I must admit I’m completely fascinated by this snapshot, and how well it has worked, and I know I will definitely find myself turning to a book’s page 69 in the future, just to see what it contains.

Visit Sarah Easter Collins's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Come Shell or High Water"

Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore; may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.

MacRae lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she recently retired from connecting children with books at the public library.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, Come Shell or High Water, and reported the following:

Page 69 in Come Shell or High Water is part of a getting-to-know-you type conversation between two characters. Here’s the page:

“The shell is older. I was a merchant by vocation and a conchologist by avocation.”

“A shell scientist? That’s similar to my profession. I specialize in freshwater mussels. But not just the shells. The animals that create them, too.” Wait, did I believe this conversation? What were the odds of a conchologist ghost appearing to a malacologist concussion victim?

“Fancy that connection,” he said. “I trust your experience with shells is happier than mine. I lost my life in my pursuit.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” he said with a somber half bow. “I died pursuing this magnificent helmet shell.” He reached into the case—through the glass—and stroked the shell. “The situation gives new meaning to the word attached, for I now seem to be attached to the shell.”

“Do you mind if I ask how old you were?”

“Thirty-seven. I was the younger of three brothers who left our father’s home in Rhuddlan to seek our fortunes.”

In defense of the insensitive question I asked him next, I had never heard anyone, in real life, say We left our father’s home to seek our fortunes. “To seek your fortunes? Like the three little pigs?”

His face went from confused to annoyed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t meant to be an insult, either. It was a reference to a children’s story that might not be as old as you are. Not in its current form, anyway. It’s a fun story. Exciting. It has a wolf.”

“Apology accepted. I like a good literary reference, myself.”

“Did Allen Withrow know about you . . . being here?”

“Oh, yes. Allen and I were great friends. Friends of a philosophical nature, that is, meaning that we enjoyed each other’s company, but often disagreed.”

I’d put my hands in my pockets, and the doorknob was dig- (the last line continues on page 70)

Applying the Page 69 Test, readers will guess they might be in for a ghost story. But the reader also learns that the second person suffered a concussion and isn’t sure the ghost exists. Readers learn several things about the two characters from their exchanges—they have (or had) similar professions, they like literary references, they’re polite. From those observations, and if the ghost is real, the reader might guess this isn’t a horror novel. The two talk about a third person, Allen Withrow, in the past tense. Nothing in their conversation suggests there’s been a crime or murder, though, so unless readers know they picked up a mystery, page 69 alone won’t clue them in.

The second person in the conversation is Maureen Nash. Over the past twenty-four hours, she’s had a bit of a rough time and she doesn’t remember all of it. She knows she arrived on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, at the end of a hurricane. That the park ranger who gave her a lift to the island warned her not to tell anyone about the favor. That she went to the beach . . . and from there her memories are muddled or missing. Except she knows she tripped over a dead body in the woods, somehow ended up unconscious on the floor of the shell shop in Ocracoke Village, and she heard someone with a beautiful tenor singing about drunken sailors. And now, on page 69, she’s met the owner of that tenor, and her life is about to get a little more muddled. Page 69 does catch the flavor of Come Shell or High Water. I also hope it piques a reader’s interest enough to make them want to flip back to page 1 and read all the way through.

Visit Molly MacRae's website.

My Book, The Movie: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Scones and Scoundrels.

My Book, The Movie: Scones and Scoundrels.

The Page 69 Test: Crewel and Unusual.

The Page 69 Test: Heather and Homicide.

Q&A with Molly MacRae.

Writers Read: Molly MacRae.

--Marshal Zeringue

"All This and More"

Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, New York, and Mexico City.

Her second novel, The Cartographers, became a national bestseller, was named a Best Book of 2022 by The Washington Post, and received a 2020 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her debut, The Book of M, won the 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction, and was chosen as a best book of the year by Amazon, Elle, Refinery29, and The Verge, as well as a best book of the summer by the Today show and NPR’s On Point.

Shepherd applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, All This and More, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“You’re looking very starry-eyed.” Jo chuckles as she appears and hands her a glass of bubbly. “The victory’s finally hitting you?”

Marsh finally stops staring at the cake and toasts her as nonchalantly as she can manage. “Used up all my steely veneer in court,” she says.

Jo takes an appreciative sip. “I’ll say. I’ve never seen a jury come back so fast in my life. I hadn’t even finished my lunch when we heard they were filing back in, and I had to stuff my face and run. I was still chewing a bite of sandwich as I slid into one of the pews!”

Marsh bursts out laughing as Jo mimes how she tried to hide her mouth as she huddled in the last row of the courtroom earlier that afternoon.

“I can’t imagine what Judge Chopra would have thought if he’d seen me, but I wasn’t going to miss the verdict for anything,” Jo finishes, still chuckling. “I’m so proud of you, Marsh.”

“We all are,” a familiar voice says, and Marsh turns to see Dylan standing behind her.

What’s Dylan doing at Mendoza-Montalvo and Hall? She gasps.

Her left thumb darts furtively forward to stroke her ring finger, to confirm there’s no ring there. How could there be? In this episode, because Marsh put her career first over everything else, her path would have followed Jo’s much more closely than it followed her original life. She and Dylan would have divorced just after Harper was born, and she would have gone on to finish law school and become a lawyer, like she’d always wanted.

Already, her head’s starting to spin a little keeping track of the details. When she and Dylan split up in each reality, how old Harper is, if there was ever a Ren. Marsh is glad that Talia has the Show Bible to make sense of it all.

“Our woman of the hour,” Victor Mendoza-Montalvo declares, then a friendly thump lands on Marsh’s shoulder as he joins their little circle. “Ah, a visitor?” Victor asks, seeing Dylan.

Marsh freezes for a moment, unsure of how to introduce him, because she still doesn’t know who Dylan is to her in this reality, but Dylan is already shaking Victor’s hand.

“I’m Dylan, Marsh’s ex,” he says casually, as if he’s completely comfortable with it.

“Oh, yes,” Victor replies, as if he faintly recollects this information—Marsh’s suspicion that she and Dylan have been divorced a long time must be correct, then. “The two of you have a daughter, right?”

The Page 69 Test works beautifully for All This and More. On this page, our main character Marsh has just jumped back in time to a moment in her past, so she can make a different choice and alter the course of her future life. She’s early in her quest to fix her mistakes, and is still marveling at the sheer miraculousness of this incredible power she’s been granted—is she really here, with the amazing career she’s always wanted, living the perfect life she’s always dreamed of? Can she make it stick for good?

But there are also the first hints of something more sinister going on just under her nose. Why, despite Marsh’s best efforts, do each of her decisions seem like they’re being manipulated by someone or something else? Why is it that every time her situation improves, her estranged husband Dylan’s fate worsens in some way? And why, out of everyone else involved, is he the only one who’s able to tell that the reality they’re all in might not be the original one?

Visit Peng Shepherd's website.

Writers Read: Peng Shepherd (June 2018).

Q&A with Peng Shepherd.

Writers Read: Peng Shepherd (July 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Darker Mischief"

Derek Milman is the author of Scream All Night and Swipe Right for Murder. A graduate of Yale Drama School, Milman has performed on stages across the country, and appeared in numerous TV shows and films, working with two Academy Award-winning film directors. He lives in Brooklyn.

Milman applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, A Darker Mischief, and reported the following:

Page 69 of A Darker Mischief is the first page of Chapter 8, entitled Black Roses. It's a very good window into the world of the book, its tone, atmosphere, and all its inherent dangers. Browsers would definitely get a good sense of the book from the page. The page places Cal, our MC, in class the following morning after a mysterious and fairly luxe secret society gala, where he really meets and connects to a fellow sophomore transfer student named Luke Kim for the first time. It's the first time the two boys have really actively flirted, and Luke, a troubled street artist, draws his tag on Cal's hand. But it was dark out, so Cal didn't see what it was. In class, sitting across from Luke, Cal examines it and sees it's a dead baby in a womb. This is the first time we actively see Luke getting underneath Cal's skin and piercing his thoughts on a deeper level, parallel to the rush process of the secret society, which is doing the same. As the page progresses we see Cal begin to formulate a dark plan to impress the secret society, The Society of Seven Eyes, or SoSE, since they've urged him to take more risks with his initiation rituals. Being accepted is key to Cal's survival at Essex Academy, since he's a poor kid from a small Mississippi town and has had a hard time fitting into the affluent world of Essex, surrounded by the children of America's elite.

Visit Derek Milman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Scream All Night.

The Page 69 Test: Swipe Right for Murder.

My Book, The Movie: Swipe Right for Murder.

Q&A with Derek Milman.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Curators"

Maggie Nye is the author of The Curators. She is a writer and teacher whose work has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, and the St. Albans Writer in Residence program.

Nye applied the Page 69 Test to The Curators and reported the following:

"Well, if she was going to disobey, she might as well do it right."

That's the last sentence on page 69 of The Curators. On this page, my protagonist, Ana Wulff, has broken off from her group of close-knit friends (the self-named "Felicitous Five") to make good (in her own, meddlesome way) on a dare. Specifically, she is leaving her wealthy, Jewish neighborhood to travel to a poorer, largely Black part of town on the (deeply misguided) suspicion that she will find a “voodoo woman” there to help her pull off a feat of magic.

Sadly, I think if my book were to be judged blind on page 69 alone, the reader would have absolutely no idea what was going on, as the page begins smack in the middle of a remembered (past) conversation with no dialogue tags. Thankfully for you, reader, the whole book is available to you, and you needn't be confused, for there are many pages that precede this one, and many that follow it!

In spite of the Page 69 Test's failure to work super duper accurately. This page (and chapter) marks a significant break in the book. Up until this point, Ana has operated largely inside the collective, as one member of her friend group, but here, we see the beginnings of a fracture. She has struck off along, taking matters into her own hands, and not without some resentment. For example, halfway down the page is the line, "She would make them regret taking her for granted." and on the very next page, she contemplates what her departure from the others means:

There was the word itself, solitude. How very different it was to think herself a solitary adventurer instead of a girl alone. One word imparts “sole” and “only” and “solid,” and the other: “lone,” “lonely,” a frightened girl’s word. Today, she decided, she would not be frightened. (70)

Visit Maggie Nye's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Curators.

Q&A with Maggie Nye.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Over the Edge"

Kathleen Bryant inherited a love of travel from her parents, who bundled her up for her first road trip when she was only six months old. Originally a Midwestern farm girl, she’s spent the past decades thawing out in the West, hiking its deserts and mountains, bouncing along backcountry roads, and sometimes lending a hand at archaeological sites. After writing numerous travel guides and magazine articles about Sedona, Grand Canyon, and the Four Corners, she’s returned to her first love, writing novels. Today, Bryant lives with her musician husband in California, where she continues to seek out new adventures, finding them on hiking trails, at farmers markets, and in the pages of a good book.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Over the Edge, and reported the following:

A reader opening Over the Edge to page 69 would land in the middle of a conversation between two key characters, Jeep guide Del Cooper and Ryan Driscoll, a Forest Service law enforcement officer. The browser test is only partly successful, with hints and misses.

To summarize, on page 69, Del has left work to find Ryan waiting for her outside. They discuss a specific angle of the case, the possibility that Franklin was dealing drugs. She tells Ryan she saw Franklin hand something to the landowner during a heated encounter at a party.

Ryan counters that his main concern is fire danger, especially near homeless encampments on tinder-dry Forest Service land. Franklin, a camper, may have hidden a meth lab somewhere on the forest and may have been selling drugs. Franklin’s companion Jane is in jail, but she’s a flawed witness, as well as a possible suspect.

A reader would need to flip back a few pages to catch up on key plot points: While guiding a tour in a remote canyon, Del found a dead body. Franklin, the victim, was murdered. Two days before her gruesome discovery, Del attended a party celebrating a proposed Forest Service land trade. Once the trade is finalized, the ranch owner and a local developer stand to gain millions.

By page 69, Del has already begun to wonder if Franklin knew something about the trade—knowledge that got him killed. Flipping ahead to page 70, the reader might also pick up on the attraction between Del and Ryan, who was her teenage crush.

But flipping pages back and forth would be cheating, right? Who does that?

Are the clues on page 69 enough to guess the end of the story? Or will readers, like Del, begin to suspect everyone after her witnesses go missing and rumors swirl faster than Sedona’s famed vortexes?

Visit Kathleen Bryant's website.

My Book, The Movie: Over the Edge.

Q&A with Kathleen Bryant.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Man in the Water"

A past President of the Private Eye Writers of America, David Housewright won a prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America and three Minnesota Book Awards for his Rushmore McKenzie and Holland Taylor private eye novels as well as other tales of murder and mayhem in the Midwest.

His new novel is Man in the Water: A McKenzie Novel.

Housewright applied the Page 69 Test to Man in the Water and reported the following::

It turns out that the Page 69 Test works very well in giving the reader an understanding of what my new book is about.

That’s because this is exact part of the book where the protagonist, an unlicensed private investigator named McKenzie, agrees to help Nevaeh, the daughter of Man in the Water – it comes at the end of Chapter Four.

It begins with a warning: “Something else, and this is important – you might not like what I discover. You might learn things you’ll wish you didn’t know. Have you thought of that?”

The page also suggests that Nevaeh’s stepmother and her lawyer might be involved in the death of her father.

“I need you to call the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office. I don’t have the number, but you can probably find it on their website. I want you to call and ask them to send you a complete copy of your father’s autopsy report. I can’t do it myself because I’m not a family member.”

“Bizzy’s lawyer has a copy; I know he does.”

“Let’s not involve either of them for now. We don’t want them getting in the way.”

Nevaeh paused again.

“If my stepmother…” she said.

And it offers a brief insight into the character of McKenzie.

“It’ll be our little secret,” Nevaeh told me.

Secrets, my inner voice said. As if you don’t have enough already.

So, yeah. I’ve taken the Page 69 Test for several other of my novels and the results weren’t that spectacular. But for Man in the Water it works just fine.

Learn more about the book and author at David Housewright's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Kind Word.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Kind Word.

The Page 69 Test: Stealing the Countess.

The Page 69 Test: What the Dead Leave Behind.

The Page 69 Test: First, Kill the Lawyers.

The Page 69 Test: In a Hard Wind.

Q&A with David Housewright.

Writers Read: David Housewright.

--Marshal Zeringue