"Xom-B"

Jeremy Robinson is the bestselling author of more than forty novels including Island 731, SecondWorld, the Jack Sigler thriller series, and Project Nemesis, the highest selling original (non-licensed) kaiju novel of all time. Robinson is also known as the #1 Amazon.com horror writer, Jeremy Bishop, author of The Sentinel and the controversial novel, Torment. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.

Robinson applied the Page 69 Test to Xom-B, his new novel, and reported the following:

In my new sci-fi thriller, Xom-B, the character of Freeman is a genius with an uncommon mixture of memory, intelligence, creativity and compassion. He lives in a worldwide utopia, but his people once lived as slaves to another race referred to simply as “Master.” A revolution led to freedom from the Masters, but now the world is threatened by a virus, spread through bites, sweeping through the population. The infected are propelled to violence. Freeman searches for a cure, but instead he finds the source—the Masters, intent on reclaiming the world.

I think Xom-B passes the Page 69 test, but only just. It begins a new chapter and shows us some of the world building that goes on in the earlier part of the novel:

As we near our destination, the buildings appear to grow, and not just the color-framed black spears of the Uppers, but the brick buildings of the neighborhood through which we’re running. Based on the language I’ve heard Jimbo employ to describe the Uppers and his desire to reside there, I believe height is somehow attached to status, which might explain why Jimbo’s mood is permanently set to sour. Perhaps it’s the ability to look down on others that insinuates a higher station? I say insinuates because I live in a very simple dwelling, far from the city with just two stories, yet my worth to the Council is quite high. I don’t know why, only that they look at me with admiration and pride that suggests equal status with them, if not elevated. And I’m willing to bet that the Council makes their homes in the tallest buildings of the Uppers.

The scene also shows Freeman’s (the narrator) innocence and hints at the mystery of Freeman’s importance.

Page 69 also shows something of the journey aspect to the book:

“How much further?” I ask, my voice coming out warbled as each step jounces Jimbo on my back.

“One point three miles,” Luscious replies with uncommon precision. She must note my surprise because she adds, “I walk this route every day.”

I’m about to say something encouraging—we’re almost there, just another minute, we’re going to make it, something like that—but a very nearby scream turns me around.

And finally, Page 69 gives some hints at the menace, tension and pace of the story, but I won’t include an excerpt of that here, because it contains spoilers.

Learn more about the book and author at Jeremy Robinson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The One Safe Place"

Tania Unsworth is a British writer living in Boston. She is the author of two books for adults published in the UK. The One Safe Place is her first book for children.

Unsworth applied the Page 69 Test to The One Safe Place and reported the following:

I feel a bit of a cheat because The One Safe Place was published in both the UK and the US at almost the same time and page 69 falls in a slightly different place in each edition. But I’m going to go with UK page 69 because it marks a sinister turn of events in the story. Devin and Kit, homeless children in a climate-change devastated near future have found their way to The Gabriel H Penn Home for Childhood. On first inspection, the Home seems like paradise, with food in plenty and entertainments around every corner. But as they are being shown around by a kid called Luke, it begins to dawn on Devin that all is not as it seems.

“A narrow path wound between low trees. Their trunks were curled and knotted like clumps of writhing snakes. “Where does this go to?”

Luke hesitated. His twitching face was suddenly quite still. “We don’t need to got down there,” he said quickly. “I’ve got to take you to the recreation hall.” And he nudged them away down another path.”

Although the recreation hall looks like fun, Devin can’t help noticing that none of the other kids are actually playing with any of the toys. They’re just standing around listlessly. Then he notices something else.

“As they turned to leave, Devin halted suddenly. He had the strangest sensation of being watched. He looked around but the room was empty. There was a window set up high on the far wall. It didn’t face the outside and he could see nothing through it, only the briefest impression of a shadow behind the glass. The shadow moved and was gone.”

Turn the page, and you discover that Devin is right. The watchers are the Visitors, very old, very rich and weirdly fascinated by the children. It’s the first big indication that the Home is far from paradise and that terrible things lie in store for every child that passes through its gates…

Visit Tania Unsworth's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Three Souls"

Janie Chang is a Canadian novelist who draws upon family history for her writing. She grew up listening to stories about ancestors who encountered dragons, ghosts, and immortals and about family life in a small Chinese town in the years before the Second World War. Born in Taiwan, Chang has lived in the Philippines, Iran, Thailand, and New Zealand. She now lives in beautiful Vancouver, Canada with her husband and Mischa, a rescue cat who thinks the staff could be doing a better job.

Chang applied the Page 69 Test to Three Souls, her first novel, and reported the following:

Three Souls is a historical novel set in 1930s civil war China, narrated by the ghost of a young woman named Song Leiyin. She is accompanied by her three souls – yin, yang, and hun, and together they review her life to learn why she is still trapped on this earth and what she must do to atone for her sins. As her memories unfold, Leiyin sees the idealistic girl she was, the act of rebellion that changed her life, the betrayals she experienced, and her own betrayal of the man she loved.

The story is inspired by the story of my paternal grandmother, who was highly intelligent and well-educated for a woman of that era. She wanted to train as a teacher, but her father refused her a career. Her attempt to run away from home failed and the punishment for this rebellion sealed her fate.

On page 69 is a conversation between the ghost and her souls. Leiyin has tried various ways to get the attention of Hanchin, a charismatic (but Communist) poet. They’ve just watched a memory where she finds that Hanchin has answered her letter to the left-wing magazine where he works.

“Our first question is from a young reader named Song who has concerns about proposals for simplifying our written language. Staff writer Yen Hanchin replies...”

It was a secret correspondence, carried out in plain sight. What else could it mean except that he cared for me? He understood my situation and had shown the utmost delicacy by acknowledging my letter through his magazine.

* * *

“In our family,” I tell my souls, “there is a tale of a many-times-great-grandfather who fell in love with his bride before he had even seen her.

“As required by tradition, he never met the bride chosen for him until their wedding day. But they exchanged letters, for that was encouraged. They wrote to each other, composing verses so exquisite that when they finally met, they were already deeply in love.”

“Correspondence is a time-honoured and entirely proper way for young people to get to know each other”, my yang soul declares. “It allows a contemplation of each other’s qualities far more meaningful than the distractions of dancing and films”.

“How wonderful”, my yin soul says. “To be in love with your husband before the wedding. And through poetry”. There is a sweet, musky scent in the winter air, amber and roses, and her face is rapt. “How happy they must have been”.

I shake my head. “Only for a while. The bride died in childbirth and her husband published their poems in a book dedicated to her memory. Father had a copy. I read them, but I was too young to truly understand”.

“But you were enthralled by the notion of falling in love through letters”, my hun soul suggests.

The scene illustrates how Leiyin’s youthful optimism and near-arrogant confidence regards every incident as evidence that life will follow her plans. It also highlights the constraints of traditional courtship, when bride and groom in arranged marriages never met before the wedding.

Leiyin, who is pursuing Hanchin in the modern fashion, still falls back on convention however, when she compares his reply via newspaper column to a correspondence between lovers. Social and personal behaviours in China were shifting, and Leyin’s emotions were a muddle of modern ideals tugging against her traditional upbringing.

Learn more about the book and author at Janie Chang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shroud of Evil"

Pauline Rowson is the author of the DI Andy Horton Series and of two stand-alone thrillers.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Shroud of Evil, the eleventh in the Horton series, and reported the following:

From page 69:

‘That’s the tricky one. Actual time of death is probably as I said some time late Friday afternoon, early Saturday morning, but it could be earlier than that. The rate of internal haemorrhaging can depend on the age of the person and if there were any pre-existing medical problems. Very young and very old people would be at greater risk of dying quickly and as your victim was at neither end of the age spectrum and he was in very good health, it would have taken him longer to die. He could have been shot up to eighteen or twenty hours before he actually died.’

And that put it back to late Thursday night or the early hours of Friday morning, matching more closely with the last sighting of Kenton by Eunice Swallows at the office.

They postponed talking shop as the taxi driver made for the Hovercraft terminal at Ryde. Horton let his mind roam across the facts of the case that he’d gathered so far but his thoughts kept getting hijacked by the proximity of the woman beside him and the way his body had reacted when she had come so close to him. He’d always found her attractive but not in a sexual way, or so he’d thought. The strength and method of his reaction had surprised him though. Perhaps it was his need for female company and not specifically Gaye Clayton that had made him respond so strongly. Had she been teasing him or had there really been something that had passed between them? If so she showed no signs of it as she sat beside him on the Hovercraft. He wondered what she was thinking.

They didn’t speak during the ten-minute crossing. The noise of the Hovercraft made it difficult for them to converse anyway and impossible to talk about the case as they’d have to raise their voices and the other passengers would hear them. Through the windows of the Hovercraft he caught the glimpse of the security lights of Fort Monckton as they sped past. His suspicion that Lord Eames was connected with MI5 made him again wonder if Jennifer had been meeting him there. Had she got too close to the truth about something he was connected with; something that was too dangerous to be revealed? And perhaps that was why Jasper Kenton was dead – because he, like Jennifer, had got too close to the truth about something highly damaging to His Lordship. But what? And why leave evidence on your own doorstep? No, if it was connected with Eames he’d have got rid of the body. There would have been no trail.

The first I heard of the page 69 test was when a member of the public approached me in a bookshop where I was doing a book signing and said she always applied it when deciding which crime novel to purchase. She didn’t buy one of my novels so I’d obviously failed to reach her exacting standards, whatever they were. I thrust it from my mind, only to be reminded of it recently when asked to contribute to this blog. So I browsed the Internet to find out who was responsible for this particular form of literary torture. The answer was the writer Marshall McLuhan championed more recently by John Sutherland in How to Read a Novel: A User’s Guide. Do we really need instructions on how to read a novel?

Anyway, as requested, I turned to Page 69 in the latest DI Andy Horton (no. 11), Shroud of Evil and duly applied the test. This is the scene between DI Andy Horton, my rugged and flawed detective, and the pathologist, the petite, auburn haired and feisty Dr Gaye Clayton when she is informing Horton that the victim was killed with a … no, hang on, that will spoil it for those who want to read the novel (if I’ve passed the test).

Horton is re-examining the time of death of Jasper Kenton, a private investigator, whose body has turned up on a beach belonging to Lord Richard Eames on the Isle of Wight wrapped in an old sail cloth, used as a shroud. Horton, estranged from his wife, is also examining his feelings for the pathologist, whom he’d never considered before as a possible lover. But he has more pressing concerns than that on his mind. He’s withheld vital information that could help crack the case because it is connected with the disappearance of his mother, Jennifer, just over thirty years ago, when he was ten. He fears that it is only a matter of time before his part in hindering a major investigation is exposed and that when it is it is certain to end his career.

For more information about Pauline Rowson and her books, visit her website, Twitter perch, and the DI Andy Horton Marine Mystery Facebook page.

Writers Read: Pauline Rowson.

My Book, The Movie: Shroud of Evil.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Monday, Monday"

Elizabeth Crook's novels include The Night Journal, winner of a Spur Award from Western Writers of America and a WILLA Literary Award from Women Writing the West. She has written for magazines and periodicals including Texas Monthly and the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. She lives in Austin with her family.

Crook applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Monday, Monday, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Monday, Monday the story is moving along at a clip. My character Shelly Maddox, who in the opening chapter was wounded by Charles Whitman in his 1966 shooting rampage from the Tower at the University of Texas, has fallen deeply in love with Wyatt Calvert, the graduate student who helped to rescue her from the searing heat of the south mall plaza as she lay bleeding to death that day. Wyatt is married, but the bond formed between the two of them while he held her and tried to stop the bleeding is extraordinary, and they have finally, against their judgment and better instincts, all these months later, given into a love affair.

By page 68, Shelly, home in Lockhart for the summer, has begun to fear she is pregnant with Wyatt’s child. Wearing a wedding ring she inherited from a great-aunt and pretending to be married, she drives to Austin to the Planned Parenthood on Sabine Street, where she is examined by the doctor. In the opening lines on page 69 she is speaking with the doctor:

“But do you think I’m pregnant?” She tried to sound happy about it.

He didn’t appear to be fooled. “Let’s wait and see,” he told her.

She walks back to the campus, unsure what to do next. She wants to go to the art building and see if Wyatt is there, but she can’t think of what she would tell him. She believes his life will be ruined if her fears are true.

Halfway down the page, there’s this:

Later, when she was back in Lockhart, the wait became terrible. She felt nauseated and feverish and tried to tell herself this was only due to her emotions. But every passing day confirmed her anxieties. She worked on the books at the hardware store and went home exhausted to fall on the sofa and watch TV with her parents, fearing that the ease and contentment of everyone around her was only based on their ignorance of a secret she wouldn’t be able to keep for long. Already she felt like a moral outcast.

By the end of the page, she has returned to see the doctor. The story continues like this:

He told her to take a seat and looked at her curiously. He was a balding man with a nice manner. “You don’t have to answer this, but I have a suspicion that you’re not married.”

“The test came back positive?” She knew by the look on his face.

“Yes, my dear. It did.”

He asked if she wanted to talk. She sat in the chair and looked at him and tried to manage her thoughts. But everything had gone sideways. She tried to stand up and the room became dim.

“Sit for a minute,” he told her. “Take some deep breaths.”

She stayed for nearly an hour, and cried, and admitted she wasn’t married, and that she didn’t know what to do…..

This is a turning point in the book. Shelly is twenty-two years old, physically disfigured from her wounds, deeply in love with a married man who already has a child, and confronted with the terrifying question of what to do now.

Visit Elizabeth Crook's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Paris Apartment"

Michelle Gable graduated from The College of William & Mary. When not dreaming up fiction on the sly, she currently resides in Cardiff by the Sea, California, with her husband and two daughters.

Gable applied the Page 69 Test to The Paris Apartment, her first novel, and reported the following:

In the early pages of A Paris Apartment, Sotheby’s furniture expert April Vogt has decamped to Paris, ostensibly to sort through a treasure-stocked apartment previously locked for seventy years. But her job is merely an excuse. April is all-too-happy to escape New York and the personal problems she thinks she can leave stateside.

Page 69 is the start of a new chapter, literally and figuratively. April wakes up in a foreign city, groggy and spent but already enraptured by Paris and the gilded past she’s begun to uncover. She fell asleep reading the personal journals of Belle Epoque courtesan Marthe de Florian, these diaries the most priceless of the riches found in the apartment. The page is a perfect glimpse into April’s current state as well as the world she is starting to slip into:

When the sun exploded across her face, she sprang to sitting. She was disoriented, her head full of cancan dancers and elephants. She half-expected to see a fleshy, sweaty man snoring beside her. It took April several minutes to remember her name and what country she was in. She'd blame the jet lag, but it was really more the fault of a good French burgundy, plus a healthy dose of Marthe.

Having woken from dreams of elephants and cancan dancers, April looks in the mirror to see “haggard-beast hair, purple-tinged teeth, and crumpled clothes she first put on two days ago on some other continent.” Externally and internally she’s bedraggled, but she’s starting to see a glimmer of something special on the horizon.

Plus, April is in a city which previously provided her solace and, ultimately, love. She’s been away for many years but Paris feels like home.

“Home.” It was a curious word for a place she’d only entered a few hours ago. Still, it was more home to her than the apartment in Manhattan, the one with her name on the deed.

A reader picking up the book and turning to page 69 would instantly sense April sits on a border, a divide between two worlds. Her current problems are evident and it’s clear she will soon be swept away by Marthe’s story and the city of Paris itself.

Visit Michelle Gable's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hidden"

Catherine McKenzie is an internationally bestselling author of four novels, most recently Hidden. She is a full-time attorney and regular contributor to The Huffington Post.

McKenzie applied the Page 69 Test to Hidden and reported the following:

From page 69:

Friday at eleven is three days from now. And then what? “If you’ll follow me into our display room, you can choose the casket you desire.”

I don’t have to scream this time for Beth to grab my hand and hold it tight. Karen bows her head, waiting patiently for me to collect myself.

She must be used to this. Has she become immune to grief? Does she slough it off like I do the petty slights of three- and four-year olds?

Several minutes pass before I come back to myself. I can hear the soft tinkle of the Bach, feel my fingers mechanically playing the chords against my knee, and Beth’s warm hand covering mine.

“We can do this another time,” Beth says. “Or I can —”

“No, I should do this. I should be the one.”

I rise unsteadily. We cross the wide hall to a set of large wooden doors with glass panels, which are covered by opaque curtains, hiding whatever lies beyond.

Karen opens one of the doors and stands aside. Beth’s clutching my hand so tightly she’s almost cutting off my circulation. I want to make a break for it and run, but that would mean having to come back here.

Karen flicks a switch and we walk into the showroom. I blink under the bright lights. The large, octagonal room has an assortment of caskets arranged a tasteful distance apart, each illuminated by a bright spot.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Karen says. “Let me know when you’ve made your selection.” She closes the door behind her with a discreet click.

I walk toward a casket on the left, and Beth goes right. The large room is full of options. How am I supposed to make a choice? What criteria are even appropriate?

“Can you believe the price of these things?” Beth says after a few minutes, fingering a tag that hangs from the handle of a shiny casket made of rosewood.

“Shh! She’ll hear you.”

“She knows they’re overpriced. Why do you think she left the room?”

Excerpted from Hidden with permission of Lake Union/New Harvest. ©2013 by Catherine McKenzie. All rights reserved.

So, is page 69 of Hidden representative of the rest of the book? I’d have to say “yes” (I have to say that, right?). Page 69 is an excerpt from the scene where Claire - a recent widow - and Beth - her sister - go to pick out her husband’s casket. This is the last thing that Claire wants to be doing, but Beth is right to push her. This scene is emblematic of their relationship - Beth, the brash and confident one, taking care of Claire. There’s also some dark humour in the scene and we get some insights into Claire’s husband, Jeff, too. What would Jeff want for his funeral? Well, to find that out, you’ll have to read past page 69. Which is reason in and of itself to say that yes: this page would want to make the reader continue on. (But again, I feel like that for all of my pages…)

Visit Catherine McKenzie's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Panthers Play for Keeps"

Clea Simon is the award-winning author of three feline-centric mystery series, the Theda Krakow mysteries, Dulcie Schwartz feline mysteries, and Pru Marlowe pet noirs, the last two of which are ongoing. (She is also the author of three nonfiction books, including The Feline Mystique: On the Mysteries Connection Between Women and Cats [St. Martin's]). Simon's latest books are Grey Howl, the eighth Dulcie mystery (for Severn House), and Panthers Play for Keeps, the fourth Pru Marlowe, which was just released by Poisoned Pen Press.

Simon applied the Page 69 Test to Panthers Play for Keeps and reported the following:

Page 69 in Panthers Play for Keeps opens a chapter with a rare contemplative moment for my heroine Pru Marlowe. She is just back from a walk in the woods with Spot, the guide dog she is training. In the forest, Spot has stopped Pru from walking into a wall of brush, a thicket that seems to be hiding a wild beast… possibly the panther of the title. But what Pru can’t understand are the thoughts that Spot has shared with her.

Shared with her? Yes, Pru is not only an animal behaviorist, she’s a bit of an animal psychic. And while most animals don’t exactly talk to her – although her cat, Wallis, has been known to give her attitude – she can pick up on what they are sensing. Spot, good dog, was intent on the predator in the bush. He was working to pick up on what was out there, and what it’s intentions were. But what Pru got from him – one word – is making her wonder:

“Scared.” What had Spot meant by that? I thought back to the vision he had shared with me. The implication was that the beast – whatever it was – inside the bush had been afraid of us. Or, more likely, him. And in a way I could see that. Most wild animals really do prefer to avoid humans and domestic dogs. We’re just too much trouble, and they have enough good sense to know it.

Visit Clea Simon's website.

Writers Read: Clea Simon.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mothers of the Disappeared"

Russel D McLean is the author of several novels featuring Dundonian PI J McNee. Born in Fife, McLean studied Philosophy at the University of Dundee before falling into bad company and entering the booktrade. He has been a reviewer, a freelance reader, a roving chair, a bookseller and an ezine editor.

McLean applied the Page 69 Test to his latest novel, Mothers of the Disappeared, and reported the following:

“Fuck you, Dr Freud.”

That’s a hell of a way to start page 69, but at least we start with the idea that this isn’t a cosy kind of novel.

The page finds our protagonist – PI J McNee – discovering that actions have consequences. He is potentially responsible for the suicide of a man serving a life sentence for the murder of a young boy, and this is the page where Detective Wemyss chews him out.

Much of the page takes place in a greasy spoon café in Kirkcaldy. There’s a lot of meeting in cafes in the books, and I think that’s just because I want to be eating bacon rolls along with the characters. It's interesting, I think, that “despite the bad news, Wemyss’ appetite was unaffected” while McNee can barely eat and finds his coffee “sour-tasting.” Coffee is McNee’s lifeblood, and I’m not sure that much has stopped him demolishing a cup before.

Is it representative of the book? Yes, it moves the plot on, includes a copious amount of banter between characters with two opposing points of view and serves to deepen McNee’s sense of responsibility. It’s a pretty good page.

Visit Russel McLean's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Son.

My Book, The Movie: The Lost Sister.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Afterparty"

Daryl Gregory was the 2009 winner of IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award for his first novel Pandemonium. His second novel, The Devil's Alphabet, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award and was named one of the best books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly. His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and The Year’s Best SF.

Gregory applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Afterparty, and reported the following:

Afterparty is either a crime novel with way too much neuroscience, or a near-future SF novel about an alarming number of criminals. The main character and principal outlaw is Lyda, an ex-neuroscientist and current addict, who is technically insane after she was overdosed with a designer drug she helped create years before. The drug, Numinous, left her with her own permanent hallucination of a deity—the angelic Dr. Gloria.

Dr. G, however, sometimes abandons Lyda when Lyda’s behaving badly—which is frequently. Lyda has skipped out of the neuroatypical ward of a Toronto hospital and gone on the hunt for whoever’s making Numinous again. She’s convinced Ollie, her friend and lover, to escape with her.

But Ollie has her own psychiatric problems. She’s a former intelligence analyst who became addicted to a smart drug called Clarity, which radically increased her powers of pattern recognition, but also made her extremely paranoid. (False positives are a bitch.) But when Ollie’s off the drug, she suffers from crippling agnosia, and can barely separate foreground objects from background. Lyda wants Ollie back on Clarity, because she needs that savant-like analyst to track down Numinous.

But first Ollie needs her tools of the trade, which she’s stashed in a Thai restaurant, and sends Lyda inside.

Excerpt from page 69:

I put up my hands. “Listen, I’m just here as a favor. She sent me to pick up her bag.”

“Oh, she wants her things.” The woman started shouting angrily in another language—I assumed Thai. A girl who could have been anywhere from sixteen to twenty-five came running out of the kitchen, and yelled, “Ma! Ma! Settle down!”

The mother kept shouting. The girl’s eyes darted from her mother’s face to mine, her expression shifting in quantum jumps from confused to concerned to pissed off. Now I had both women to deal with. I said, “If she owes you money—”

The daughter pointed at me. “Stay the fuck there.” No trace of an Asian accent—she sounded like an angry Edmonton Oilers fan. I upped her minimum age to eighteen. She shouted something at her mother in Thai and then marched across the dining room, heading toward the restrooms. The mother glared at me, lips pursed, nostrils flaring. Genuine, high-quality seething.

A minute passed, two. I looked back toward the glass door glazed with condensation, hoping that the blurry shape beyond was Bobby’s car, ready for my getaway. I felt naked without Dr. Gloria at my back.

The kitchen door bumped open, and a man in an electric wheelchair rolled out. The father, evidently, or maybe the grandfather. He slumped in the chair at an odd angle. His right arm was dead in his lap, but his left hand gripped the armrest controller. The chair coasted to a stop, and his eyes drifted up to mine.

Everything clicked then. The wheelchair, the angry mother, the angrier daughter. Maybe if Dr. G had been there I wouldn’t have been so slow to understand.

That’s when Lyda remembers that Ollie wasn’t checked into the hospital voluntarily—and that she may have done something horrible to the old man in her last paranoid rage.

The scene did two things for the book. First, it solved a small plot problem. Lyda and Ollie need that duffel bag, which contains a set of lockpicks and a gun (always good to have in a crime novel). I could have just had them stop by a storage locker, but that seemed boring.

More importantly, the scene fills in a piece of Ollie’s past, and shows the cost of her addiction to Clarity. Lyda wants Ollie back on the drug, but the reader needs to know that putting a gun in the hand of a paranoid intel operative may not be the smartest move.

But what are these two damaged women to do? Neither one of them is fit to outwit drug dealers, outrun a sociopathic cowboy, and solve the mystery of who is making Numinous. Yet they must. And if it was easy for them I wouldn’t have had much of a story to tell.

Visit Daryl Gregory's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Afterparty.

--Marshal Zeringue

"How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love"

Ken Baker is an E! Entertainment Television News Correspondent. He is the author of Fangirl, and his memoir, Man Made: A Memoir of My Body, is the inspiration for the upcoming film The Late Bloomer. He lives (and writes) in Hermosa Beach, California.

Baker applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love, and reported the following:

I think my book passes the Page 69 Test! In fact, readers of How I Got Skinny, Famous and Fell Madly in Love learn quite a lot about the narrator Emery Jackson in just the opening paragraph:

To say that most mornings I am “grumpy” would be an All-Star caliber understatement that could qualify me to play competitively in the NUL [National Understatement League]. In fact, it’s an understatement that ranks right up there with the following understatements:

· Angel really is not very smart.

· Mom overuses Botox and thus has fewer forehead lines than a toddler.

· Dad barely looks at Mom anymore no matter how much she Botoxes.

· I would die without any food for more than three hours.

· Highland High School lunches need larger portions.

· Marvin Harris is an old perv.

By just reading that paragraph, one can see that Emery has quite the point of view on the world around her and doesn’t pull any punches. As the story progresses, she starts applying that critical eye to herself, with insightful results.

Visit Ken Baker's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Ken Baker.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Steal the North"

Heather Brittain Bergstrom has won fiction awards from The Atlantic Monthly, The Chicago Tribune, Narrative Magazine, and others, and a story was named a distinguished and notable story for The Best American Short Stories in 2010. Her short fiction has been published in several literary journals and anthologies. She holds an MFA in creative writing.

Bergstrom applied the Page 69 Test to Steal the North, her debut novel and first published book, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Steal the North happens to be a crucial scene for Kate, the mother of my teenage protagonist. The chapter is narrated in Kate’s voice. She is having an argument here with her boyfriend of four years, Spencer. He loves her deeply, but she has always kept her distance. She is a woman of many secrets, and one of the most shocking is revealed (to Spencer and to readers) on page 69. First, a little background. Kate grew up in eastern Washington in a fundamentalist Baptist church. Her mother died when she and her little sister, Beth, were young girls. Their father was too harsh. When Kate got pregnant as a teenager, she was not only condemned from the pulpit, but shunned by her father, and the farm boy who got her pregnant abandoned her. She and her sister moved out of their father’s house and tried to survive. After the baby—my protagonist, Emmy—was born, Kate got a job waitressing at a truck stop. But eventually Kate realized she had to leave eastern Washington before it destroyed her completely. She boarded a bus bound for California, with baby Emmy on her hip, and never looked back. Beginning a new life in Sacramento, she kept her painful past hidden from everyone, including her daughter and Spencer, the first man to truly love her.

Here are the first sentences from page 69, narrated by Kate:

I try to move away from Spencer. “I don’t need you,” I say. I’ve been struggling to convince myself of that since the day we met.

He grabs my arm. “You need me, Kate. Feminist or not.” Now it’s his turn to laugh. “That’s what scares you. It’s always scared you.”

They argue. She begs him to leave her apartment.

“As soon as you tell me one thing about your childhood. One day. One moment. Let me in, Kate.” I don’t respond. I’m tired and afraid what I might confess. “One detail about Emmy’s dad then,” he says. “At least his name, so I can despise all men with that dickhead’s name.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll let you in a bit. But remember you asked for it.” I hesitate because I am about to tell him everything, not just one thing, and it will probably be the end of us. I should shut the windows for privacy, but the cool breeze from the delta will help me not pass out. I press on my jaw once more to stall and to call forth my courage. I begin. “After Emmy’s dad—name of Jamie Kagen—took my virginity, then knocked me up, he dumped me. I was shunned, condemned as a whore from the church pulpit and by my father at home.” Spencer reaches for me. “Wait.” I put up my hand. I’m sweating despite the breeze on the back of my knees. “After I gave birth to Emmy, I waitressed at a truck stop café, where I also slept around for money.” His face flinches. “With nasty old men in their stinky truck cabs.” I’ve never told anyone other than Beth my secret. “It turns out I was a whore after all.” He closes his eyes. When he opens them, I continue.

Spencer has finally, after four years, cracked Kate. Can she survive the sudden exposure and vulnerability? Can Spencer, who has had a rather cushy life, live with the weight of what he just heard?

Visit Heather Brittain Bergstrom's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue