"Conviction"

Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop was born and raised in New York City. She earned her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.F.A. in fiction from the UC Irvine, where she was the recipient of the Schaeffer Writing Fellowship. She is the author of the novels Fireworks, December, The Why of Things, and The Mercy Seat. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and daughter and is Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing at Endicott College.

Winthrop applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Conviction, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Conviction:

2012, New York City

Maggie and Josh stand at the edge of the South Pool, an acre square in size, resting their hands on names engraved into the bronze parapet that separates them from a wide rim of water, which, though it looks still and placid, is yet cascading over its inner edge and falling into a square basin thirty feet below, where the surface of the pool is dimpled with motion. In the center of this basin is another, smaller square that they cannot see the bottom of, a void into which the water finally disappears.

They stand and watch for some time, the soothing plash of water drowning out the sounds of everything else: taxis, car horns, the din of early construction. It is not yet seven o’clock, and so they are some of the only ones here. Stark morning light cuts diagonally across the far wall of the pool, a bright triangle against the shadows, glinting in the tumbling water. Maggie glances at her father; he is intently watching the water fall—or maybe he isn’t watching, but simply staring into it, lost in thoughts she knows he’d never share. He has never talked about his time volunteering at Ground Zero, and he hasn’t been to New York City since. Maggie was surprised this morning that he wanted to come down here, surprised that he asked her to come along. It was the first thing she had planned to do anyway, because it was here that she fell in love with New York.

If a book browser were to open Conviction to page 69, they would not get a great sense of the book as a whole, but they would be introduced to a setting (the 9/11 Memorial) which is symbolic of the origins of multiple of the novel’s storylines. The events of 9/11 have repercussions that affect nearly all of the characters in the novel, in ways that range from the personal to the global, the immediate to the eventual, the concrete to the abstract. 9/11 sets one character on a dramatic spiritual journey; it sets another on a road to poor health; it casts undue suspicion over an entire community of faith; it leads to a war which paves ground in the middle east for the rise of terror.

Visit Elizabeth H. Winthrop's website.

My Book, The Movie: Conviction.

Writers Read: Elizabeth H. Winthrop.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cloak and Dagger Club"

Jackie McMahon writes murder mysteries with history, twists, and perhaps a romance (or two). She currently resides in Florida with her two cats, and in her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and sharing obscure historical facts she has recently learned.

McMahon applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Cloak and Dagger Club, the first in a new historical mystery series, with the following results:

From page 69:

“His eyes?” she repeated, looking over her shoulder at Frank. “What’s wrong with his eyes?”

Frank observed Horace, who continued to drunkenly mumble. “Horace has some eye problems. He had surgery a while back, but his eyes still get very dry. He has a medication for it, I think.”

“Perhaps we should summon a physician,” Lucy said, but either the group didn’t hear her suggestion, or they ignored it.

“His medicine!” The countess stood straighter and snapped her fingers at her insight. “Yes, someone ought to get his medicine—”

“No!” Horace struggled to sit upright. “No, I’m fine. Dizzy for a moment—that’s all, Elisabeth—”

He rubbed his eyes with clenched fists, while the others stared speechless. First Albert, now Elisabeth. Based on the group’s facial expressions, Lucy suspected they didn’t know who these names referred to, either.

Page 69 drops readers of The Cloak and Dagger Club directly into the action. The crime writing club’s latest meeting has taken a disastrous turn. Horace Hazelmoor, the tyrannical club president, is seemingly drunk and babbling senselessly. All this happens on our main character, Lucy’s, first day at the club, which certainly makes for an interesting welcome.

This page gives readers a glimpse of drama and intrigue that fans of the murder mystery love. Is there any sense in what Horace is saying? Why is he calling people by the wrong names? And what is truly going on with him?

It’s not a spoiler to say that Horace isn’t simply drunk. Soon, he’ll be dead. A victim of murder.

Of course, readers will have to read the preceding 68 pages to fully understand the members of the Cloak and Dagger Club and their dynamics. At the same time, you can see small glimmers of each character’s personality through this small snippet. How someone reacts in a crisis can tell you a lot about them. Lucy is a caring person who feels the urge to help, even though she’s just met Horace. Her love interest, Frank—a natural leader, even if he doesn’t always see it in himself—keeps a calm head and takes charge.

And one of the seven people in the room may know more than they’re letting on.

Who did it, however? You’ll just have to read the rest to find out!

Visit Jackie McMahon's website.

Writers Read: Jackie McMahon.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cloudthief"

Nathaniel Rich is the author of Cloudthief (2026) and three previous novels, all New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selections: King Zeno (2018); Odds Against Tomorrow (2013); and The Mayor's Tongue (2008). His short fiction has won the Emily Clark Balch Prize and been a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has also written two works of nonfiction: Second Nature (2021), which includes the story that serves as the basis for the film Dark Waters; and Losing Earth (2019), a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Losing Earth is being adapted into a film directed by Tom McCarthy.

Rich is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a frequent contributor to The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books. A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Tulane University and lives in New Orleans.

Rich applied the Page 69 Test to Cloudthief and shared the following:

Page 69 of Cloudthief introduces the Cloud—one of the most pernicious metaphors of contemporary life.

The scene takes place on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River, overlooking the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor. Tim is a disillusioned climate journalist who realizes his professional training can be repurposed for a more lucrative line of work: theft. Virginia is a hermetic con artist who until recently has resided in a mini-storage unit in midtown Manhattan. Together they have hatched a scheme to steal the world’s most valuable commodity: information. They plan to stage a heist of the world’s largest information treasury, a massive data center in eastern Oklahoma. It’s the winter of 2014:

Few had heard of data centers then. Those who had tended to look away, as from the sun, even though its energy was the source of our existence. The main reason for this collective blind spot was linguistic in nature. For the term most commonly applied to the enormous trove of data that powered society was childish, deceitful, and inane. We called it “the Cloud.”

The great lie of modern technology is that “information wants to be free”: that information is ethereal, vaporous, floating in the atmosphere. Information is not invisble, however. It lives on screenless computers called servers, stacked in giant warehouses called data centers. The companies that own data centers (Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft) are in no rush to explain this fundamental fact to an incurious public. They would prefer we consider their technological wonders a modern form of magic: intangible, omnipresent, invincible.

Tim and Virginia realize that this sleight-of-hand can be exploited. Because few people understand the full value of the information stored in data centers, data centers tend not to concern themselves too greatly with security measures. Tim and Virginia realize that if they can steal just a few servers from a data center, they will gain access to secrets—secrets from which they can generate outlandish profits.

So in the case of Cloudthief, page 69 is representative of the rest of the novel, in that it articulates one of the story’s central themes, and sets in motion the rest of the plot. For it’s on page 69 that Tim and Virginia begin to grasp the full scale of what they’re up against, and how rich they can get—so long as they don’t blow it.

Visit Nathaniel Rich's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sisterhood Above All"

Kathleen Barber is the author of Truth Be Told, which was adapted by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine as a series on AppleTV+, Follow Me, and Both Things Are True. A certified book coach and former attorney, she lives in Washington, DC, with her family.

Amayah Shaienne is a lifestyle content creator and student at the University of Alabama who quickly grew a following during Bama Rush. To date, she has garnered a following of nearly 200K across TikTok and Instagram and has her audience obsessed with all parts of her college life. She is excited to continue bringing her loyal followers along as she attends key college moments such as sorority rush, football games, and more.

Barber applied the Page 69 Test to their new novel, Sisterhood Above All, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Sisterhood Above All, Madison, the president of Gamma Gamma Alpha sorority and campus Regina George figure, arrives at the Dungeon (a dilapidated house where ex-members of a fraternity that was kicked off campus live) to visit Christian, the trust-fund-baby-cum-drug-dealer who is in love with her but definitely not her boyfriend. At first blush, this scene might not have much to do with the central story: the book is about sorority rush, after all, with themes of sisterhood and female ambition and the deep-seated desire to belong.

However, this scene actually tells us a lot about the book—and especially about Madison, who is one of three narrators. It doesn’t introduce the reader to the idea of Madison and Christian together, but it’s the first full scene that shows their interactions. The reader sees how Madison treats people she thinks are beneath her (“God, you’re such a loser,” she says to him, and “I don’t take orders, especially from dirtbags like you.”)—and also highlights the difference between what Madison thinks she wants (popularity, admiration, power) and what she really wants (Christian, someone who doesn’t put up her antics).

This scene is also important for fully understanding the conclusion … but I can’t tell you why without spoiling the ending, so my lips are zipped!

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

Q&A with Kathleen Barber.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Sisterhood Above All.

--Marshal Zeringue

"How We See the Gray"

Rachel León is a writer, editor, and social worker, who has worked in child welfare for nearly two decades. She serves as Managing Director for Chicago Review of Books, and is the author of the novel, How We See the Gray.

León applied the Page 69 Test to How We See the Gray with the following results:

Page 69 is all from the perspective of a foster parent named Denise on the day the first kid she fostered is being returned to her dad. Most of the page is Denise’s reflections on fostering—how the deal is loving these kids like your own, meanwhile knowing you could lose them. She notes a heart is a muscle and fostering flexes it. “No strength training like loving despite the risk of getting hurt.”

The Page 69 Test isn’t ideal for my book, but I also can’t say it doesn’t work completely. The Greek chorus of social workers that narrates the novel (the “we” of the story) is pretty central to how the story is told, which a browser wouldn’t get from this single page. Also, of the nine point of view characters, Denise isn’t one of the most dynamic, so definitely isn’t the character I’d want a reader to meet first.

That said, it’s also clear from page 69 that the novel deals with foster care, as well as what can feel like contradictions—the “gray,” if you will. Denise is wrestling with some complicated emotions that highlight how complex being in the child welfare system can be. Because in the end, the novel is more about how we should all learn to see the gray than it is about foster care. What does it mean to see the gray?, you might be wondering. Well, to me, it’s understanding that we can only know so much about another person (and yet as a society, we’re so prone to judge). How We See the Gray is about how we’re all complicated and messy, so we should show each other grace and kindness.

Visit Rachel León's website.

Q&A with Rachel León.

Writers Read: Rachel León.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Man Overboard!"

Kathleen Rooney is the nationally bestselling author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, as well as Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and From Dust to Stardust. She has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from Poetry magazine and the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award from the Chicago Review of Books. Rooney’s criticism can be found in The New York Times, The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Brooklyn Rail, Chicago magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and beyond. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University.

Rooney applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Man Overboard!, and shared the following:

My book is about a guy who has fallen (or jumped?) from a cruise ship into the Gulf of Mexico, and each chapter is one hour he has to spend in the ocean hoping to be rescued. Page 69 falls in the middle of Chapter 9, or 7:00 am, meaning he’s been in the water for over seven hours. The first full paragraph reads: “Like me, Ankush has several visible abs and a locker room swagger and loves getting paid to work out while others do the same.”

The second is: “Unlike me, Ankush started from a way worse place. Omaha and New Delhi are, shall we say, different. He was one of six kids and his dad died when he was thirteen, meaning he had to spend every non-school hour earning money for the family. As a waiter in fancier and fancier restaurants, he came to cater to rich tourists nervous about getting sick from the water. By age eighteen, he was a full-blown alcoholic, a common malady in the service industry. ‘I got off shift at eleven and went out drinking every night to unwind,’ he told me when we were becoming friends at the University of Iowa and I noticed he only ever ordered a vodka soda with lime, hold the vodka, at the bars.”

This is a pretty accurate representation of the whole novel. Because my dude, Kick Kilpatrick, a 33-year-old former college swimmer, is stuck in one place—the sea!—he has to spend a lot of time inside his head, reflecting upon his past. One of his big concerns is his relationships with other men and how best to be a good man—and just overall good person—himself. He goes on to talk about how Ankush, his bestie, “reads self-help and Sun Tzu” and “watches a lot of warrior-poet stuff on YouTube and tries to get me to watch it too.” Kick wants a way to make meaning in his life but is highly skeptical of what we might refer to as the manosphere. He sees the comfort and confidence it can bring to other people, but finds it phony and shallow himself.

As you learn elsewhere in the novel, Kick has secretly taken up the hobby of clowning (he’s taking classes at Omaha Circus Arts) as a possible alternative to toxic masculinity, and is a witty narrator with good comic timing, so a lot of the plot revolves around him thinking about how he wants to change if he ever gets out of what his hated enemy: the sea. I want the book to read almost like a thriller where each chapter is very short and you really don’t know what’s going to happen to him—is he going to survive or not? You’ve got to read to find out.

Visit Kathleen Rooney's website.

The Page 99 Test: Live Nude Girl.

The Page 99 Test: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs.

My Book, The Movie: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs.

My Book, The Movie: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

The Page 69 Test: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.

My Book, The Movie: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (July 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Where Are the Snows.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2022).

The Page 69 Test: From Dust to Stardust.

My Book, The Movie: From Dust to Stardust.

Q&A with Kathleen Rooney.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2023).

--Marshal Zeringue

"River Deep"

Bryan Gruley is the Edgar-nominated author of seven novels and one award-winning work of nonfiction. A lifelong journalist, he shared in The Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks. A longtime Chicago resident, he now lives in northern lower Michigan with his wife, Pamela.

Gruley applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, River Deep, and reported the following:

On page 69 of River Deep, Bitterfrost Detective Garth Klimmek finds himself sprawled on a concrete walkway with a bloodied, possibly broken nose and pain radiating through a hip scheduled soon for full replacement.

He’s outside a Catholic Church where Catriona Dulaney is emerging from the funeral for her twin infant sons, Liam and Logan, whom Catriona is accused of drowning in Bitterfrost’s Jako River. The moral and legal trial Catriona is about to endure circumscribe the heart of River Deep.

This scene outside St. Henry’s Catholic Church is important because it establishes the dramatic fracture in Bitterfrost between townspeople wishing the worst on a woman they see as a murderer, and other locals who believe Catriona is merely the latest Dulaney to be persecuted by Bitterfrost’s wealthy elite, personified in the book’s other protagonist, the attorney Devyn Payne.

The division puzzles and frustrates Detective Klimmek, who has lived in this town for many years and believes he has witnessed a profoundly sad shift in how the residents get along--or don’t. He will return again and again to this thought, which in some ways mirrors the division that has rippled through the United States over the past decade.

The disturbance on page 69 also sets the scene for the emergence of an enigmatic new character, the one-eyed ex-cop Hooper. Hooper first appeared in my debut novel, Starvation Lake, as a teenage hockey player. Now’s he’s a bereaved itinerant who stumbles upon the death of the twin boys and will have a profound effect on later events in River Deep. It was a delight to write him again.

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

Q&A with Bryan Gruley.

My Book, The Movie: Bitterfrost.

My Book, The Movie: River Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ash Land"

Matt Harry has been writing since he was 10 years old. He learned to make movies at the University of Southern California, which was the closest he could get to attending Hogwarts in the real world. He has worked as an editor, screenwriter, director, producer, college professor, and pizza delivery technician. Harry has published six novels, written two immersive plays, and sold a TV pilot. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons, all of whom (thankfully) like to read.

Harry applied the Page 69 Test to his newest novel, Ash Land, with the following results:

From page 69:

When the Ash appeared, masks were the first line of defense. The machines were thought to be an aerosolized threat: don’t breathe them in, and you’ll be fine. People were encouraged to stay indoors and self-quarantine, but it wasn’t required. Scientists didn’t know in those first days that the Ash could linger on clothes and cars and buildings for weeks, even years at a time. That the xenobots could lie dormant until they detected a protein-rich organism nearby. That they could worm their way through tiny openings no bigger than a pinhole.

But then the news out of Europe began to show masked people collapsing in the streets. They pulled off their face coverings, coughing up a fine black cloud that spiraled through air, landed on more unsuspecting victims, and burrowed into their bodies through their ears, their tear ducts, a paper cut—any opening that was exposed to air.

And so the federal government realized that we needed to seal ourselves inside. Dwellings were coated in protective polymers. Doors were outfitted with air locks. Outside vents were replaced by N99 filters. As much livestock as possible was moved indoors. The human world was sent to its room.

The only safe way to venture out, we were told, was to wear a sealed hazmat suit with its own air supply. The suit should also have a temperature regulator, a wireless microphone, and built-in waste storage (so people wouldn’t have to pee in their pants). It should be made of durable but light material, and ideally cost around a few hundred dollars to produce. Finally, the suit needed to have some kind of display that showed how much air a user had left, whether there were any leaks, and so on. Unfortunately, such high-end personal protective equipment wasn’t readily available at the nearest Walmart."

I’d never heard of the Page 69 Test before now. Of course, I immediately had to go check all six of my novels to see how they held up. Some were interesting and a couple didn’t quite work, but I’m happy to say that Ash Land’s sixty-ninth page is very representative of the overall novel.

The story is set in a dystopian Los Angeles, two years after a plague of flesh-eating microbots has spread across the globe, forcing everyone to stay inside. Since the only way people can go out is to wear sealed hazmat suits, I knew I would need a “getting ready” scene. And because the book is science-fiction, Ash Land’s protective equipment has slightly advanced features — a tablet computer attached to the wrist, sealant detectors, advanced oxygen tanks.

This page is also a great sample because it showcases the darkly humorous tone for which I was aiming. Yes, Ash Land is set in a dystopia, but one thing I noticed during the COVID pandemic was that people still managed to make jokes. In fact, comedy became an important haven for many of us. I wanted my main character to have that same sense of gallows humor. I also didn’t want to write a ceaselessly dour story with no glimmer of hope. Even though it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, I wanted Ash Land to be fun. Plus, I wanted to hint that there’s hope for humanity to find its way out of an admittedly terrible situation.

Finally, I love that this page shows how adaptable people are. I was amazed by how creative everyone became during the lockdown — creating scavenger hunts for their neigbors, renovating their homes, becoming top-notch bakers. Even in the most dire situations, we’re able to find hope and enjoyment. This page manages to convey all of that, but I hope you’ll check out the rest of the novel!

Visit Matt Harry's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Driftwood Bones"

Peter Colt is the author of Cold Island in the Detective Tommy Kelly series and the Andy Roark Mysteries. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1973 and is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island. Colt spent twenty-four years in the army reserve, with deployments to Kosovo in 2000 and Iraq in 2003 and 2008. He is currently a police officer in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lives with his family and two perpetually feuding cats. Colt’s hobbies include cooking, camping, and kayaking.

Colt applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Driftwood Bones, the second title featuring Detective Tommy Kelly, and shared the following:

Page 69 of The Driftwood Bones, takes place in the middle of a conversation between State Police Detective Tommy Kelly and Nantucket Police Detective Jo Harris. They are discussing the case involving a woman's corpse that has been found floating in an oyster farm. The woman is young, and has no ID on her and nothing to indicate who she is. Kelly and Harris are speculating as to her origin and identity. They are also laying out their plan for the investigation. The reader has a front row seat to a conversation between two detectives as they plot their next moves.

This page gives the reader a good idea of the novel. It shows the realistic steps that police will take in an investigation. They also describe the challenges that detectives face in reality as opposed to the media. The back and forth between the two characters is always a staple of the Kelly/Harris novels. It gives excellent insight into their relationship which is central to the series. It also describes or begins to describe some of the societal challenges of a place like Nantucket Island where there are vast disparities in wealth.The detectives have differing opinions about their community. The detectives will have many discussions regarding the gulf in living standards, and income between the "haves" and the "have nots" on the island. While the book is meant purely to be entertainment and not social commentary, the discussion serves to illustrate how the two main characters feel about their community.

Visit Peter Colt's website.

My Book, The Movie: Back Bay Blues.

The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.

Q&A with Peter Colt.

The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: Death at Fort Devens.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (June 2022).

My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Judge.

My Book, The Movie: The Judge.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (May 2024).

Writers Read: Peter Colt (March 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Island.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Cold Island.

My Book, The Movie: The Driftwood Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Whose Body in the Library"

Eva Gates, also known as Vicki Delany, is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty-five books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Catskill Summer Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.

Delany is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Delany is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

The latest Lighthouse Library mystery is Whose Body in the Library, the thirteenth title in the series.

Delany applied the Page 69 Test to Whose Body in the Library and reported the following:

From page 69:

Loretta laughed. “Star Trek isn’t one of my Teddy’s areas of expertise, but it is mine. Were you named after the actress?”

“I was.”

“I heartily approve! It’s lovely to meet you. I hope you enjoy it here. I’ve lived in Nags Head my entire life, anything you need to know, I’m happy to help.”

“Everyone’s been so kind,” I said.

“We’ve come in for a reason,” Theodore said. “Apart from meeting Nichelle, of course. We find ourselves in need of your sage advice, Lucy. I insist Mother should go to the police, but she’s reluctant. She doesn’t want to bother them.”

“It isn’t bothering them if you have something they need to know,” Lucy said. “About what?”

“Brian Saunders. Mother knew him.”

That caught my attention. “Did you know him well, Loretta? How long for?”

“Not well, no, and not for long, and that’s why I don’t want to bother the police. We . . . met on one or two occasions, that’s all.”

Lucy lifted her hands. “My days of involving myself in police matters are over. I don’t have any advice, sage or not, to give, except that if Brian Saunders lived in Nags Head, which it seems he did, he would likely know a great many people. Do you know something in particular that might be relevant to his death?”

“No, I do not. And that is my point exactly,” Loretta said triumphantly. “See, Teddy, I told you so.”

Theodore looked as though he was about to argue, but before he could get another word out, the door opened, and a woman came in.

Whose Body in the Library is the thirteenth Lighthouse Library mystery by Eva Gates and it is an almost perfect example of the theory behind the Page 69 Test.

This book is a slight departure from the previous twelve books, as I’ve introduced a new librarian, Nichelle Gilcrest, and given long-time protagonist, Lucy McNeil, a break to take care of her new twin boys. Immediately when this page begins, we have someone commenting on Nichelle’s name. Nichelle says ‘everyone’s been so kind’ indicating that she’s new to the town and the library. Nichelle is presented in the first person POV, presenting her position as the new central character in the series. We also know from this page that the book is set in Nags Head.

Lucy appears in this scene, but as a third person POV character, rather than the first person she has always been before. Lucy clearly states that she is no longer going to be involved in solving mysteries. Thus clearly telling the reader, right here on page 69, what’s new and different about this book.

As well as establishing the new relationships, the mystery itself is hinted at. Who is Brian Saunders, what about his death interests them, and why does Mrs. Kowalski think she needs to talk to the police about him? Also, why does Nichelle care?

Follow Eva Gates on Facebook, and visit Vicki Delany's website.

The Page 69 Test: Death By Beach Read.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Death Knells and Wedding Bells.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2023).

Writers Read: Eva Gates (May 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Stranger in the Library.

The Page 69 Test: Shot Through the Book.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Magician"

Tracy Lynne Oliver is a writer based in Los Angeles. She has been published online at a variety of places such as Medium, Fanzine, and Occulum. She co-authored the graphic novel, The Sacrifice of Darkness, with Roxane Gay. Her story, “This Weekend” was included in Best Microfiction 2019.

Her new book, Magician, is "dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all."

Oliver applied the Page 69 Test to Magician with the following results:

From page 69:

Lesson learned, the Son stopped. Ignored the other’s throb against his inside. Swallowed its demanding. Halted all of it, making a sick inside him, offsetting his balance in how he grew in the world until many years faded the lesson and he began to bring small, again. Still afraid of the Mother, afraid of the other’s eager growing larger than he could contain, afraid if it spilled loose, it would take her from him. The Son kept it a marble inside his palm. It was very long before he became bolder, brought larger. The strength of his age skilled his command, and his new confidence matched with a post-child’s wisdom made the demonstrations less scary and easier confined. All of it still strong with secrecy, for buried underneath the passing of years; the scars of the lesson, ribboned and gouged.

My page 69 lends a small encapsulation of the first part of the novel. In this small paragraph it speaks about the Son swallowing his powers due to the fear of his Mother and how, with time and age, he brings that power forth once again, secretly. All of this tackled in the first quarter of the book. So, page 69 lends a shadowed glimpse at the whole, sort of like seeing the bottom half of a statue.

It also illustrates the way I use language in the book. You can tell by these mere 140 words, this novel will not read the same, sound the same, be processed the same as a standard novel.

Those two elements, together, I believe gives a good glimpse into the overall vibe of the book. A reader could be curious to want to find out….

“What was this lesson that scarred?”

“What is the otherness that he halted small until later, he brought it back?”

“Why the fear of the Mother?”

“What demonstrations did he bring later?”

“Why does this writing style feel weirdgood in my mindbrain? How else will she say things and how much (will) I want to take in that different?”

Visit Tracy Lynne Oliver's website.

Q&A with Tracy Lynne Oliver.

Writers Read: Tracy Lynne Oliver.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Twist in the River"

Stig Abell believes that discovering a crime fiction series to enjoy is one of the great pleasures in life. His first novel, Death Under A Little Sky, introduced Jake Jackson and his attempt to get away from his former life in the beautiful area around Little Sky, followed by Death in a Lonely Place, The Burial Place, and now A Twist in the River. Abell is absolutely delighted that there are more on the way. Away from books, he presents the breakfast show on Times Radio, a station he helped to launch in 2020. Before that he was a regular presenter on Radio 4’s Front Row and was the editor and publisher of the Times Literary Supplement. He lives in London with his wife, three children and two independent-minded cats called Boo and Ninja (his children named them, obviously).

Abell applied the Page 69 Test to A Twist in the River and reported the following:

I love the Page 69 Test. For A Twist in the River, it sort of works, at least from a plot point of view. In the novel, women are going missing from a wild stretch of British countryside and being found – unmarked – in the river. Our hero, Jake Jackson (the former detective, long-haired fugitive from the modern world) is drawn in, as are plenty of journalists and online influencers obsessed with true crime stories.

On page 69, we see Dani, the YouTuber, who wants to make her name by solving the case, and is willing to get close to Jake to help achieve that. Here she is archly flirting with him, in front of Jake’s pregnant fiancée, Livia, who is none too amused by it all (“I feel fat and loathsome, not at all helped at seeing you half-naked being felt up by that pasty Kardashian”).

The page captures the dynamic between Jake and Livia, and the forcefulness of Dani, who accidentally became one of my favourite characters in the novel. Jake and Livia’s relationship is at the heart of the whole series (A Twist in the River exists as a stand-alone murder mystery, but is the fourth Jake Jackson book), and an important part – I hope – of what keeps readers engaged. Who doesn’t love a love story?

The main thing missing from page 69 is a sense of the landscape. The countryside and the river are key characters in the book, and I’ve always relished the tactile feel of lingering descriptions of the bucolic setting that create much of the mood of the story.

So not a bad sample all in all. You can come for the sexual tension, then stay for the mystery and sense of fleeting beauty in an otherwise overcrowded world!

Follow Stig Abell on Instagram and Threads.

Q&A with Stig Abell.

The Page 69 Test: The Burial Place.

Writers Read: Stig Abell.

--Marshal Zeringue