"Drop Dead Famous"

Jennifer Pearson is a former teacher and author who lives in the northeast of England with two energetic boys and her somewhat energetic husband. She’s the author of several middle grade novels, writing as Jenny Pearson, and has been short-listed for the Costa Children’s Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and was the winner of the Lollies (Laugh Out Loud Book Awards). When she’s not writing, Pearson can either be found doing something sporty or binge-watching true crime documentaries while eating astounding quantities of cheese.

Pearson applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Drop Dead Famous, and reported the following:

In Drop Dead Famous, global superstar Blair Baker rises above the stage for the opening number of her hometown concert. The cheers quickly transform into screams when the crowd realises Blair has been shot. On page 69, we find her sister, Stevie scrolling through video footage from the concert, searching for clues as to who the killer could be.

She brought her eyes to the screen. Finger steady this time, she hit Play. And she focused on the details. The faces in the crowd. The people on the stage—behind the stage. Security and merchandise vendors. She zoomed in on every shot, trying to look past heads that were blocking her view. She relived it all. Frame by frame. Blair’s entrance. The missed cues. Bex Lyons running onto the stage. The screams. The panic. The announcement. That para medic. Again and again, angle after angle. But there was nothing she hadn’t seen herself in the flesh. Doubt crept in. Then anger. What was she hoping to find? Some guy tiptoeing out with a gun in his hand and an I Murdered Blair Baker T-shirt? But she kept scrolling. And scrolling. Reel after reel replaying her sister’s murder. Her desperation growing, her mind slipping—letting go of the details, leaving a path for her pain. Blair was dead. Her sister was dead. It tore through her—carved her open. She dropped her eyes from the screen. Sobs racked her body, shook her from the inside out. She gave in to it—cried violently and uncontrollably.

The Page 69 Test works because it shows that the book deals with grief and mystery and portrays Stevie’s desperate need to find answers about her sister’s death as she obsessively replays the footage and spirals into an emotional breakdown. So, it does a solid job of showing the novel’s darker side and the main character’s motivation.

However, Drop Dead Famous is not a relentlessly depressing book, and this passage doesn’t have much of the humour that appears elsewhere. Maybe this is because it only shows one character. We don’t meet Colby Green (and her cowboy boots), who is the Blair Baker superfan who helps Stevie investigate and much to Steie’s surprise becomes her best friend.

So, while the page effectively represents the emotional intensity and mystery of the book, it does not capture its full range of themes and character dynamics.

Visit Jenny Pearson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Drop Dead Famous.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fair Chase"

Travis Mulhauser was born and raised in Northern Michigan. His novel, The Trouble Up North, was one of NPR's Books We Love in 2025, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, was an Amazon Editor's Choice Pick, and an Apple Audio Must Listen selection. His novel, Sweetgirl was long-listed for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, was a Michigan Notable Book Award winner, an Indie Next Pick, and was named one of Ploughshares Best Books of the New Year.

Mulhauser is the author of Greetings from Cutler County: A Novella and Stories, and received his MFA in Fiction from UNC-Greensboro. He is also a proud graduate of North Central Michigan College and Central Michigan University. He lives currently in Durham, North Carolina with his wife, two children, and dog.

Mulhauser applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Fair Chase, and shared the following:

Fair Chase passes the Page 69 Test!

Page 69 is the opening of a chapter in which most of the novel’s main characters are present, and discussing the wolf that is the centerpiece of the story.

A gray wolf, an endangered species, has arrived in northern Michigan for the first time in over a century, and the Sawbrook family has assigned itself to protect the animal from a scared community.

Cutler County faces a construction stoppage and real economoic hardship if the federal laws designed to protect endangered species are engaged, and nobody, including the politicians and state government agencies, want that to happen. The Sawbrooks view protecting the wolf as both the right thing to do, the best way to stop the development projects that continue to threaten their property and way of life. Even if it means taking on some poachers.

The page also provides an opportunity for Lucy, a park ranger, to helpfully explain that the wolf is an alpha, not because it asserts thoughtless dominance, but because it’s a leader who would be trusted to make decisions on the pack’s behalf because of its intelligence, toughness, and empathy.

Visit Travis Mulhauser's website.

Q&A with Travis Mulhauser.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Quarter Queen"

Kayla Hardy is a mythology expert and multi-hyphenate author and screenwriter of Louisiana Creole descent. She earned her PhD in creative writing and African American literature from SUNY Binghamton University. Hardy is an adjunct professor at SUNY Binghamton University and is an accomplished scholar of Black folklore, mythology, and Voodoo.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Quarter Queen, her first novel, with the following results:

Page 69 of The Quarter Queen takes place right after Marie has saved Ree from a snatcher attack, showing just how far she will go to save her daughter from any threat, even if it includes breaking rules she helps keep in place:

“Not another word.”

“Oh, I think one more will do just fine. It’s your turn to explain yourself—why did you meet with Silas? What is your relationship to the Grand Wizard of the Brotherhood?” Ree was going to be fair about it. She was going to offer her the chance to come clean, to do away with all of her secrets and plots.

A flash of glittering anger in Marie’s eyes. But still she said nothing.

“Silence still makes you a liar, Marie. But since you are so quiet, perhaps I should tell you that I overheard you with Father Antoine, discussing the Harbinger and the Inquisition. And . . .” She hesitated, then said the name anyway: “Jon.”

“Enough!” her mother commanded, vibrant anger radiating from her. The fire flared, smoke filling their small parlor, backlighting her mother in the hearth’s orange-gold light, her face twisted first with sorrow, then with fury.

No, it was not Ree’s mother staring at her. It was the Quarter Queen, her bone-white eyes, the tignon upon her head coming undone, transfiguring itself into her golden fleur-de-lis crown, her long curls floating about her cheeks like seaweed swaying in black water.

“I am your queen,” she spat. “It’s high time you acknowledged that.”

“You are my mother! It’s high time you acknowledged that.”

And there it was. The real trouble between them.

When her mother spoke again, her voice had grown unusually soft, carrying an unmistakable bitter note. “The ways in which I have failed you as a mother are but small sacrifices to the ways in which I have succeeded as Queen of the Quarter. One day you will understand, when you have taken my place.”

As it happens, page 69 of The Quarter Queen is a spookily accurate example of illustrating the emotional dynamic between Marie and her daughter, Ree. They are arguing after Marie has just saved Ree’s life, and thereby showing Marie just how far her mother will go to keep her safe, even to a suffocating degree. But Marie is also a woman of contradictions as Ree rightfully points out—secretive as hell, formidable, and unwilling to bend to anyone’s will but her own. Still shaken from her near encounter with having her freedom ripped away by snatchers (not unlike bounty hunters employed in the real life Antebellum south who retrieved runaway slaves and freedman alike) Ree can’t help but reckon with her own privilege and just how much Marie’s secrecy has contributed to the comforts of her life. It must be a daunting task to be a subject in the fearsome’s Quarter Queen’s court and it must a different beast altogether to be her daughter and sole heir. Ree wrestles within the impossibility of inheriting a legacy she doesn’t even want, let alone one she fears she has no hope of successfully living up to. For Ree she must accept that to live within Marie Laveau’s shadow is to stifle one’s own light.

While The Quarter Queen is a historical novel (an alternate history to be exact), it is also a proper fantasy set within a magically reimagined New Orleans where witches, demons, gods, and spirits walk about freely. I like to think of it as a heightened version of the real New Orleans where the speculative elements are amplified to terrifying degrees. In this world, the city’s magical population known as Les Magiques can be enslaved or freed whose magical prowess is very much a sought-after commodity within the system of slavery. Every character in this novel, including Marie Laveau, are seeking to maintain their fragile sense of freedom and magic within a world hellbent on taking it. It is very much akin to the morally gray world dynamics of books like The Witcher or Game of Thrones.

Visit Kayla Hardy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Unforgettable Mailman"

With a background in magazine publishing, April Howells has built a career in global communications and employer branding. Raised in southern Ontario, she now resides on the west coast of Canada with her husband and a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog named Chief.

Howells applied the Page 69 Test to The Unforgettable Mailman, her debut novel, and reported the following:

On page 69 of The Unforgettable Mailman, readers find Henry having a phone conversation with his friend about the security guard who’s determined to find him. It hints at the urgency of his mission and the postal forces that stand in his way.

“Didn’t think the big guy had it in him.”

Stan chuckled, and Henry’s chin lifted ever so slightly. “Me neither,” Stan said. “Though if I were you, I wouldn’t hang around too long to figure out what else he’s capable of.”

Henry stared at the overflowing bags as he wished Stan a good night. If he wanted to finish what he started, he’d need to move quickly.

The page also includes one of my favourite letters from the novel, from a woman who has spilled spaghetti sauce on her friend’s wedding dress and is desperate for help to remove the stain.

I’d say page 69 is a great example of what readers can expect from the story. Each time Henry delivers a letter to its rightful owner, the following chapter shows what it says. I loved writing the epistles, imagining what people would write to one another in 1966. Some letters are uplifting, some are mundane, some are heartbreaking. They’re a nostalgic reminder of how important human connection is.

In The Unforgettable Mailman, the Page 69 Test is a success!

Visit April Howells's website.

Q&A with April Howells.

My Book, The Movie: The Unforgettable Mailman.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Soldier's House"

Helen Benedict, a British-American professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of nine novels, six books of nonfiction, and a play.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Soldier's House, and shared the following:

The story in The Soldier's House is told in three alternating voices: that of Naema, an Iraqi widow and refugee; that of Jimmy, an American Iraq War veteran, and that of a third person narrator. Page 69 is in Jimmy's voice, and takes place in a grungy small town bar, where he's having drinks with his younger brothers, Pat and Rory, whom he more or less raised himself. The page doesn't touch on the main dynamic of the novel -- the tension between Naema and Jimmy -- but it does get across the tensions between Jimmy and his brothers, who don't really understand either his experiences in war, or why he's taken his Iraq interpreter's family into their family home.

Rory, Jimmy's youngest brother, has just learned the Naema's son has lost a leg.

“Wow, poor kid,” Rory says. “How old is he again?” Rory has a soft spot for kids.

“Five. Six next month.”

“Bet he gets bullied like hell at school. How’d he lose it? Was he born like that, or what?”

“They were in a war, powderhead,” Pat tells him.

“Fuck, you’re in a bad mood, Pat. Why don’t you chill the hell out?”

“It was a VBED,” I answer, ignoring them both.

“Speak English, for crap’s sake,” Rory snaps.

“Means a bomb in a car. We think the fuckwads who did it—”

“Jimmy, you don’t have to—” Pat begins.

I hold up my hand. “No, Rory should hear this.”

“Don’t want to. Hate your gory war stories. Just tell me about the kid.”

"I am."

I do think this page touches on a central aspect of Jimmy's personality, because he is a good man whose efforts to do right never seem to go the way he wants. He wants to rescue his interpreter's wife, only to find out she resents being rescued by her enemy. He wants to do right by his brothers, who only grow angry at him for acting like their dad. He wants a happy marriage with his wife, who inexplicably runs away. This gets to the essence of the novel: the question of whether forgiveness, whether between enemies or even within families, is ever possible in the wake of an unjust war.

Visit Helen Benedict's website.

My Book, The Movie: Sand Queen.

The Page 69 Test: Sand Queen.

The Page 69 Test: Wolf Season.

Q&A with Helen Benedict.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Deed.

My Book, The Movie: The Soldier's House.

Writers Read: Helen Benedict.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Concert Black"

Michael O’Donnell is the author of the bestselling novel Above the Fire and the new novel Concert Black. In 2023, Apple Books named him a debut writer to watch. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and many other publications. A longtime member of the National Book Critics Circle, he practiced law in government and the private sector for over twenty years after clerking for a federal judge. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and his law degree from Boston College. O’Donnell lives with his family in the Chicago area.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Concert Black with the following results:

Page 69 of Concert Black has only six lines—it ends a chapter—but it is a perfect fit for the Page 69 Test. The protagonist, Cecil Woodbridge, is just concluding a meeting with his attorney, Rene Hutchins. They are plotting strategy as Woodbridge tries to frustrate the author who wishes to write his biography. He has proved cagey with his attorney about why he doesn’t want it written, and a few pages earlier she finally gets him to say, “Half a century ago I did something rash and unseemly…. I took advantage of an opportunity. In a way that would not reflect well on my character, were it to come out now.”

On page 69, their meeting wraps up. Woodbridge has dictated their course of action, and Hutchins promises to carry out his instructions. But she makes one final attempt to understand the stakes of stopping the book. What will happen, she asks him, if his secret comes out? “I’ll be ruined,” he replies.

In a sense, this exchange is the fulcrum of the book. The reader has spent the first 68 pages wondering why Cecil Woodbridge fights off his biographer. After all, most celebrities would view having their biography written as entry into a sort of club: it makes them newsworthy and raises their profile. And the reader spends the remaining 182 pages learning what the secret is, why it matters—and whether Woodbridge can succeed in keeping it hidden.

Visit Michael O'Donnell's website.

Q&A with Michael O'Donnell.

The Page 69 Test: Above the Fire.

Writers Read: Michael O'Donnell (December 2023).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder, Local Style"

Originally from Southern California, Leslie Karst moved north to attend UC Santa Cruz (home of the Fighting Banana Slugs), and after graduation, parlayed her degree in English literature into employment waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock and roll band. Exciting though this life was, she eventually decided she was ready for a “real” job, and ended up at Stanford Law School.

For the next twenty years Karst worked as the research and appellate attorney for Santa Cruz’s largest civil law firm. During this time, she discovered a passion for food and cooking, and so once more returned to school—this time to earn a degree in Culinary Arts.

Now retired from the law, Karst spends her time cooking, singing alto in the local community chorus, gardening, cycling, and of course writing. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai'i.

Karst applied the Page 69 Test to Murder, Local Style, the third Orchid Isle mystery, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Murder, Local Style, Valerie Corbin has just gotten home from her job as bartender at the Speckled Gecko in Hilo, Hawai‘i, and is chatting with her nephew Sean, who’s still up and having a beer while he watches late-night TV. They discuss the murder investigation that Valerie’s been conducting, as well as the next-door-neighbor, with whom Valerie and her wife have been having a conflict over their dogs.

Browsers opening the book to this page would get a fairly good idea of its breezy tone and style, as well as the personalities of the two characters in the scene. The page consists mostly of dialogue, so the reader will get to see how my protagonist interacts with others and how she feels about the investigation that she’s gotten herself sucked into. The page doesn’t, however, give much of a taste of the book’s locale, as the scene takes place indoors late at night. And because the sense of place is an enormous part of the story’s appeal, the test doesn’t seem to work too well on this book.

But the main problem with the Page 69 Test for Murder, Local Style is that it is a murder mystery, and thus if you read the book out of order, you can fall prey to spoilers. Which is the case here, for page 69 gives away key information that the reader shouldn’t know without having followed Valerie and her investigation from the very beginning of the story. (Page 68, on the other hand, contains no spoilers, so the test would work for some crime fiction. But I’d beware of using it willy nilly for this genre.)

Visit Leslie Karst’s website.

Coffee with a Canine: Leslie Karst & Ziggy.

My Book, The Movie: The Fragrance of Death.

Q&A with Leslie Karst.

The Page 69 Test: Waters of Destruction.

My Book, The Movie: Waters of Destruction.

Writers Read: Leslie Karst (April 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Faces of the Dead"

Chris Nickson is the author of eleven Tom Harper mysteries, eight highly acclaimed novels in the Richard Nottingham series, and seven Simon Westow mysteries. He is also a well-known music journalist. He lives in his beloved Leeds.

Nickson's new novel, The Faces Of The Dead, is the second title in his WWII historical thriller series featuring Sergeant Cathy Marsden – a female police officer working for the Special Investigation Branch – who investigates the death of a local gangster in WWII Leeds.

Nickson applied the Page 69 Test to The Faces Of The Dead and shared the following:

Page 69 of The Faces of The Dead sees Cathy Marsden finally catch up to the woman who's been following her, a servicewoman named Alexandra Cordell, the sister of Nina Cordell. She'd died in a car crash that set off the investigation - and the scramble for power between gangleaders. Does it give any insight into the book? On its own, no. But it does show a few things, that Cordell has training in tailing people, that's there's more to her than meets the eye, and that plenty of people in Leeds know Cathy - who also has ability at flushing a tail. It's one small strand, nothing more.

‘I didn’t understand why the Special Investigation Branch would be looking into my sister. That made me cautious. I wanted to know more before I approached you.’

‘It didn’t take you long to discover who I am and which unit I’m with.’

Cordell shrugged. ‘You’re better known around here than you realise, Sergeant. And you twigged I was there quickly enough.’

Cathy offered an ambiguous smile. ‘You’re not the only one with training.’

Cordell hadn’t given a good answer to her question, but she’d let that go for now. ‘For the record, SIB isn’t interested in her. The curiosity was mine; it seemed like it might be a way into everything.’

She cocked her head. ‘Was it?’

‘Not really. It looks as if she was an innocent victim, nothing more. Plenty of things have happened since then, none of them to do with your sister.’

But this is a tale where the small strands build one upon another until the special Investigation Branch know exactly who's behind the killings and the thefts. After that, they have the job of finding him and catching him, something that's going to end in a real showdown. But there's plenty of slogging before that, using Cathy's knowledge of Leeds, along with her other skills. Alexandra Cordell is part of it, but only a small one.

After hunting escaped spies in No Precious Truth, I wanted Cathy and the SIB squad to have a story that was more local and criminal, but still very fraught and worth the title of a thriller, with plenty of heart-stopping moments. Did I succeed? You'll have to be the judge of that.

Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Q&A with Chris Nickson.

The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.

My Book, The Movie: Molten City.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (August 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Rusted Souls.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Them Without Pain.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2024).

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2025).

The Page 69 Test: No Precious Truth.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Maybe Tomorrow I'll Know"

Alex Ritany is a nonbinary Canadian artist, musician, and author of Dead Girls Don't Say Sorry, I Wish You Wouldn't, and Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know.

They applied the Page 69 Test to Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know with the following results:

From page 69:

If I die in this time loop, is it just over? Or do I reset? My stomach turns at the thought, and I can’t bring myself to finish the rest of the sandwich, so I bring it with me, and it sits on the passenger seat like it’s made of ham and judgment instead of ham and provolone.

The dashboard clock is useless, and Valerie’s dead phone isn’t any more help, so I have no idea what time it is, but it’s been dark for hours when my eyelids start to droop.

I’ve been changing the radio station all day, chasing frequencies, and now I turn the volume up, trying to stay awake, and when it gets truly unbearable, I stop in the middle of the night for gas and I buy a coffee.

“Long day?” the girl at the counter asks when I order a large. She has frizzy blue hair and pretty graphic eyeliner.

By the clock on the wall, it’s ten to midnight.

I give her a wry little smile. “You have no idea.”

“Where are you headed?”

At that, I pause. “I don’t actually know.”

“Ooh. An adventure.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I muse, and decide that I like the sound of that. An adventure is the nicest way to frame this existential nightmare.

“Be safe,” she calls when I’m on the way out, and I go still with my hand on the door.

Emotion rises, threatening to cut off my air supply. Before I leave, I tell her, “Thank you. I will.”

The mountains drag on forever. I steadily make my way through the coffee, watching the road signs flash by, bright in the headlights, vanishing into darkness.

Interestingly, I think this is a great example of the Page 69 Test, even though this girl is not a recurring character and this scene takes place on a journey that does not last longer than this one chapter. This interaction encapsulates the bittersweet feeling that is a thread through much of Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know, and actually manages to frame the overall story with a few facts: we’re in a time loop, this character is alone on a journey of existential dread, feeling uncertain and pressing through exhaustion and anxiety, and is buoyed only by the kindness of strangers (and gas station coffee). It frames the protagonist as resilient, but to me this feels like a resilience demanded by circumstance. They are resilient because there is no alternative. They are on an adventure, just not one they would choose. This brief moment also represents an important facet of queerness to me in that moment of recognition between two people who will never meet again. Whether shared identity is even consciously recognized or not, there is a call and response we’ve all participated in: I see you; be safe. For Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know, the Page 69 test succeeds with flying colours.

Visit Alex Ritany's website.

Q&A with Alex Ritany.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Dead Can't Make a Living"

Ed Lin is a journalist by training and an all-around stand-up kinda guy. He’s the author of the Taipei Night Market series: Ghost Month, Incensed, 99 Ways to Die, and Death Doesn’t Forget as well as five other novels. Lin, who is of Chinese and Taiwanese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. He lives in New York with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.

Lin applied the Page 69 Test to The Dead Can't Make a Living, the fifth title in the Taipei Night Market series, and reported the following:

Page 69 in The Dead Can't Make a Living is shocking, and truly lives up to the book's title. The heart of the book is solving the murder of a migrant worker, an Overseas Filipino Worker. Narrator and protagonist Jing-nan finds the body of Juan Ramos, an OFW, in the Shilin Night Market. Juan's family comes to the night market to thank Jing-nan for contacting the authorities so quickly, and they ask to see where Jing-nan found Juan.

Juan's mother Rosario, brother Paolo, and sister Eliza are somber, but soon they can't contain their anger at how they are being treated. Juan's company, a food factory, offered the family compensation of six months' salary—less than $6,000 now—and said they were lucky to get that since it wasn't proven Juan died on the premises of the factory. Representatives of the Taiwanese government, meanwhile, encouraged Juan's family to leave with his body as soon as possible. Taiwan and the Philippines (both in fiction and in life) recently had a fishing dispute, and Taiwan is anxious not to have another flashpoint with its neighbor.

What happens is what always happens to Jing-nan. He wants to help people in need, and thinks it won't be too much trouble for him. Of course he's wrong on that point, and before long he ends up biting far more than he can chew. Jing-nan finds himself working undercover in the food factory looking for Paolo, who has disappeared there while trying to find answers about Juan. Cut off from everyone he knows and trusts, Jing-nan is exposed to the same systemic exploitation experienced many of Taiwan's migrant workers. The only man who can help him is his roommate—a man the factory bosses want Jing-nan to help them put in prison for trying to organize.

What's really different about The Dead Can't Make a Living, the fifth book in the Taipei Night Market series, is that Jing-nan has a hand in making awful, ultraprocessed "foods" rather than his amazing night-market concoctions. What hasn't changed is that he continues to be confronted by life's absurdities, and tries to endure it all with a sense of humor.

Visit Ed Lin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Snakes Can't Run.

The Page 69 Test: One Red Bastard.

My Book, The Movie: Ghost Month.

Writers Read: Ed Lin (October 2016).

Q&A with Ed Lin.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sing Down the Moon"

Robert Gwaltney is the author of Sing Down the Moon (2026) and The Cicada Tree (2022), works of Southern literary fiction that explore inheritance, identity, and the fragile boundary between the living and the dead. Rooted in the landscapes and histories of the American South, his writing blends the gothic tradition with elements of magical realism to illuminate the forces that shape who we become.

Gwaltney applied the Page 69 Test to Sing Down the Moon and shared the following:

On page 69 a heated confrontation unfolds as Avery, wracked with guilt, suggests he may be a murderer, while others try to deny or soften the accusation. Blame shifts among the group—especially between Avery and Rebecca—over past harm, including Leontyne’s injury. As tensions peak, Blue Heron offers a symbolic truce, and Rebecca urges unity, warning that survival depends on working together despite their shared guilt and fractured trust.

Page 69 is a fairly good—though not perfect—introduction to Sing Down the Moon.

It drops the reader into the middle of conflict without context, so a browser won’t fully understand the relationships or the history that led to that moment. But in terms of tone, language, and emotional stakes, it’s remarkably true to the book. The lyrical voice, the undercurrent of violence, the blurred lines between guilt and innocence, and the sense that beauty and damage coexist—all of that is present on this page.

So while the Page 69 Test won’t explain the novel, it does represent it. A reader who is intrigued by that page will likely be at home in the world of the book.

Sing Down the Moon is Southern Gothic tale of generational trauma, exploring inheritance, addiction, identity. It’s a story about the legacies we carry, the ghosts we inherit, and the costs of breaking free.

The story is told from the perspective of sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye, who is bound by blood and legacy to Damascus, an ancient fig tree that grows on the Georgia island of Good Hope, a tree that feeds the dead and poisons the living. As her mother disintegrates before her very eyes Leontyne must confront a birthright that will take everything from her as it has her mother—teeth, hair, and bone. Leontyne has already lost parts of herself—a hand, and her memory, in a happening two years prior known as Tribulation Day. When a mysterious stranger arrives on Good Hope, Leontyne’s memories slowly resurface, and with those memories, the discovery of a chilling truth. Rejecting her legacy will shatter the fragile balance between the living and the dead forcing Leontyne to choose: save the island and those she loves, or save herself.

Visit Robert Gwaltney's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Amish Country Homicide"

Susan Furlong grew up in North Dakota where she spent long winters at her local library scouring the shelves for mysteries to read. Now, she lives in Illinois with her husband and children and writes mysteries of all types. She has over a dozen published novels and her work has earned a spot in the New York Times list of top crime fiction books of the year. When not writing, she volunteers at her church and spends time hiking and fishing.

Furlong applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Amish Country Homicide, with the following results:

The Page 69 Test is a fun way to gauge a story. Have you ever tried it? Pick any book and turn to page 69, read a few paragraphs, and see if the story pulls you in.

In my newest release, Amish Country Homicide, I’m thrilled to say that the Page 69 Test provides a surprisingly accurate glimpse into my story. On page 69, readers are dropped right into an exciting moment of rising danger.

In this scene, Alena Walsh’s life has taken a dark turn. She has unknowingly witnessed a crime, and now the killer has tracked her down, placed a bag over her face, and is trying to recover a crucial piece of evidence that he believes will expose his crime:

Fingers dug into the back of her neck. A sudden shove. Her face plunged into the river. Icy water rushed into her ears, her mouth, stung her eyes. She bucked, twisting, thrashing as her lungs screamed for air, her hands painfully struggling against the zip ties.

Her head was yanked up.

She sucked in a desperate breath, wet fabric suctioning to her lips, bile burning her throat. “I … I don’t know what you want…”

“The phone.” He shook her, her head snapping back and forth like rag doll. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know…” she choked, coughed and her stomach heaved, emptying into the bag around her face. She sobbed, tiny mewing noises like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a coyote. “I … I don’t know anything about a phone. I’m telling you the truth. I promise…”

Her head was forced down again, plunged into the water like a baptism of hate.

I love that, somehow, page 69 of Amish Country Homicide, captures the essence of the story: an ordinary woman caught in extraordinary danger, relying on courage and faith to survive.

Visit Susan Furlong's website.

My Book, The Movie: Splintered Silence.

The Page 69 Test: Splintered Silence.

Writers Read: Susan Furlong (December 2018).

Q&A with Susan Furlong.

Writers Read: Susan Furlong (July 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Lethal Wilderness Trap.

--Marshal Zeringue