"Revenge Plot"

Stephanie Wrobel is an international and USA Today bestselling author. Her debut, Darling Rose Gold, has sold rights in twenty-one countries and was short-listed for the Edgar® Award for Best First Novel.

Wrobel applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Revenge Plot, and shared the following:

Revenge Plot tells the story of an aspiring writer so desperate to get his manuscript read that he shows up on the doorstep of literary agent Claudia Conley on Christmas Day, refusing to leave until she agrees to give him a second chance.

Page 69 covers the reason Claudia is spending Christmas alone in the first place:

Liam grew to adore Meadowlake. That was what mattered most.

Then, a few months ago, his attitude toward Claudia shifted again. The differences were subtle at first. He asked pointed questions about her intentions for his future. He implied that his sister had ulterior motives regarding his finances. Claudia chalked up this surliness to poor sleep or a change in medication, to the disease itself. Then Liam became aggressive, backing Claudia into corners, slamming his apartment door in her face. Once he yanked her by the wrist so hard that he bruised her skin to the color of a rotting banana. During her most recent visit, Liam told Claudia that he no longer wanted her to join him for Christmas. She didn't take him seriously, thought he was trying to hurt her during a heated moment. Over the next few days, however, he didn't relent. Still, Claudia held out hope that she might convince him—until last week, when Debra, the facility manager, called to tell her that Liam had asked Debra to serve as their liaison from now on. He did not want to see Claudia on Christmas Day. Liam insisted that Claudia had designs to send him to a mental institution, where he'd be strapped to a bed most of the time. She wanted to steal him away from his friends.

"Paranoia is common around here," Debra said. "Give him space. Maybe you can spend the holiday together next year."

At surface level, page 69 seems much tamer than the rest of the book, which is about a hostage situation in an Airbnb treehouse. Symbolically, though, this page is quite representative of the larger story and its themes. Ulterior motives regarding finances, men behaving threateningly, and paranoia are all key ingredients in Revenge Plot. And though the book's inciting incident is aspiring writer Arnie intentionally crashing his car into a tree outside Claudia's rental, their wintry meeting couldn't have happened this way if not for Liam uninviting his sister from their holiday celebration.

Visit Stephanie Wrobel's website.

The Page 69 Test: Darling Rose Gold.

My Book, The Movie: Darling Rose Gold.

Q&A with Stephanie Wrobel.

The Page 69 Test: The Hitchcock Hotel.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cursed Diamond"

Anna Rasche is an author, gemologist, and historian who has previously worked in the jewelry collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her debut novel, The Stone Witch of Florence, was an October 2024 Indie Next pick, and was recommended by the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Book Riot and many others. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, CrimeReads, and elsewhere.

Rasche applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Cursed Diamond, and reported the following:

Ahh, page 69 is a good one. Our protagonist, Jennie, is pondering the meaning of two mysterious objects–an empty jewelry box and a 100-year-old ticket stub–that she just found inside an abandoned jeweler’s workshop in New York’s Diamond District. She'd gained access to the workshop in order to search for answers after the sudden death of a friend, and a sense of foreboding tells her she may be on the right track. Lost in her thoughts as she leaves the dusty old room, Jennie runs head on into a slick gentleman in front of the building's elevator …

Browsers will get a nice idea of half of the book from page 69. The Cursed Diamond is a dual timeline, and this scene takes place in 2010. There is a whole other Gilded Age timeline to explore! That being said, this page plunges readers right into a central mystery of the story and provides a fine introduction to our bewildered yet determined heroine.

Visit Anna Rasche's website.

Q&A with Anna Rasche.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Other Side of Starting Over"

Mara Williams drafted her first novel in third grade on a spiral notebook—a love story about a golden retriever and the stray dog who admired her from beyond the picket fence. Now she writes about strong, messy women finding their way in the world. Williams is the author of The Truth Is in the Detours and The Epicenter of Forever. When not writing or reading, she can be found enjoying California’s beaches, redwoods, and trails with her husband, three kids, and disobedient dog.

Williams applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Other Side of Starting Over, with the following results:

The scene features our protagonist, Beatrice Bell, and her late husband’s teenage doppelganger. When she spots the kid emerging from a hardware store in her hometown, Beatrice thinks she’s seeing a ghost. But after confirming he’s real and she’s not losing it, she’s determined to figure out who he is.

He nods, and I can’t help but evaluate every gesture for a glimpse of Jake, the downward tip of his chin, the stubborn set of his jaw, and the way he darts his gaze to the side. Even his hair falls the same way. Do I even need more proof?

But I could be filling in the gaps of my memories with grief, and fear, and speculation. It’s been twenty years since Jake was his age. And months since I held him, weeks of imagining his voice, his touch, the sounds of his footsteps. I’m not sure I can trust myself not to conjure him from the sheer force of my despair.

The scene is a moderately good representation of the book. River’s identity is a question that plagues Beatrice throughout the novel and is pivotal to the plot. River’s existence tests her memories of her late husband, her ability to trust, and even her own reality. It’s clear in this passage that Beatrice is struggling with the questions she can’t ask her late husband. However, Beatrice’s challenges and trials don’t begin and end with the mystery of River. The Other Side of Starting Over follows Beatrice as she rebuilds her life, her family’s business, and her teenage twins’ sense of safety—all while desperately trying not to fall for the infuriating antique dealer who thought he was in line to run her family’s store. But Page 69 provides great insight into Beatrice’s state of mind as she juggles these competing goals—and a few secrets of her own.

Visit Mara Williams's website.

Q&A with Mara Williams.

The Page 69 Test: The Truth Is in the Detours.

My Book, The Movie: The Truth Is in the Detours.

Writers Read: Mara Williams (August 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Epicenter of Forever.

Writers Read: Mara Williams (February 2026).

The Page 69 Test: The Epicenter of Forever.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Love Operation"

Before Melissa Collings started writing women’s fiction and romantic comedies, she worked as a surgical physician associate in Nashville, where one of her favorite procedures was reconstructing a lower-lumbar tattoo after a back surgery. Her stories, like her, are always a mix: light and dark, laughter and tears, outlandish and grounded, beautiful and ugly, glitter and charcoal smears. Her interests are way too varied; her imagination never fails to get her into trouble; and she lives by her life philosophy: nothing is impossible, and everything is better with glitter—except surgical wounds.

Collings applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Love Operation, and shared the following:

From page 69 of the paperback edition:

I resist the very real urge to bang my head against the wall. Instead, I summon patience from a well I’m pretty sure is dry. “I have nothing against chiropractors,” I say. “But you are a sneeze away from being paralyzed. A chiropractor cannot fix this.”

He hesitates, still unsure. “What if I just—”

“No.” I don’t yell, but I do walk out. I send my surgery scheduler in behind me, like backup.

The next patient, a grandma in leather spandex leggings and a cherry-red tank top, looks like she’s on her way to audition for an ’80s rock revival band. She waves me off as soon as I try to hand her over to Dahlia, since she’s a med refill only.

“Sugar, just refill my meds,” she says. “And add some Valium. My grandsons are fraying my last nerve.”

Right before lunch, I want to scream—or dissolve. But then I walk into the next exam room, and everything stills.

A woman in her thirties sits with her hands clenched tightly in her lap. She’s two weeks post-op from a microdiscectomy. A single mom. She needs clearance to go back to work—early.

She knows the rules. No bending. No lifting. No twisting.

But she works in a warehouse. That is the job.

She’s not supposed to, but she’s going to. Because she has to.

Her voice trembles. “I . . . I already had to borrow rent money from my sister this month. I can’t ask again. I need to go back.” Tears gloss her eyes, but they don’t fall. She’s too tired. Or maybe too proud.

I stare at her chart, but I’m not really seeing it because I get it. My chest aches with something hot and helpless. This woman did everything right—followed instructions, showed up, healed. And it’s still not enough. The system wants more.

I want to scream again, but this time it’s not about me.

It’s for her.

I exhale through my nose, slow and sharp. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say, already writing. “I’m giving you a note for light duty—no

So, does the Page 69 Test work for The Love Operation?

Yes and no.

If you want to know who Dr. Cordelia Wren is, I actually love this page as an introduction to her. She’s impatient, funny, fierce, and very good at her job. But underneath all of that is someone who cares deeply about her patients. She can be frustrated with the world one minute and furious on someone else’s behalf the next.

It shows the woman in the lab coat, which is an enormous part of who Cord is.

What it doesn’t show is everything happening outside that exam room: her complicated family, her equally complicated love life, her pursuit of Chief of Surgery, or the experimental memory study that sends her digging through her romantic past.

So page 69 probably wouldn’t tell a browser what they’re getting into, but it would tell them exactly who they’re getting into it with. And I kind of love that.

Visit Melissa R. Collings's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Spiral"

Rosanne Limoncelli is a writer and filmmaker living in Brooklyn. Her short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Suspense Magazine, and Noir Nation, and her short films have been screened in festivals around the world. Limoncelli also writes plays, screenplays, poetry, games, mysteries, and science fiction and has taught writing and filmmaking for more than three decades at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

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

From page 69:

The other students were a bit surprised at my performance, but I had an advantage. For them, the task was to use their imagination to guess what it might be like. For me, it was to wrangle a hurricane of emotions I was trying to forget. My chest still felt stormy. I was as surprised as they were. I was used to spending most of my energy suppressing ugly memories. During the exercise, something took over, outside of my power. So much for control.

I was the first to walk out of the room after Ron, but he made a quick exit, so I lost my chance to ask him what he knew about Jessica even if I could’ve worked up the courage. A blond, bubbly type that I slightly recognized came out of another classroom and stopped a few feet in front of me. She stared, her face turned white, then she wavered and felt for the wall to steady herself.

“What?” I stared back at her and put my hands on my hips.

“Oh. Oh! I thought you were someone else for a minute.” She let out a relieved laugh. “I thought I was seeing a ghost.”

She passed me and disappeared into the ladies’ room. I was already wrecked from that exercise. I didn’t need more drama. It wasn’t the first time someone had mistaken me for Jessica. But this time was different.

Marissa came out of the classroom, pulled me over near the empty coatrack, and lowered her voice.

“Are you okay?” She gave my arm a gentle squeeze. She knew a few details of my past.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” My heart was still dancing faster than normal, but I played it cool. “Just acting, you know.” Janette and Larry stopped next to us.

“Some scene, Nina,” Skinny Larry said. “I’d like to do an improv with you sometime.” He winked and gave me a kind of hungry look. Jerk. But then, anyone that skinny must always be hungry.

On opening The Spiral to page 69, readers will find themselves in the interior thoughts of the main character who has just come out of an acting class, which might not immediately be clear, but I do think they would feel that Nina is in an anxious situation, getting the tone of the book. By the end of the page, it is clearer that the characters just came out of class which gives a glimpse of her life. After the class she runs into a classmate that doesn’t really know her, and this classmate confuses her with a dead woman. Empathy from her friend Marissa is comforting, but Nina then is made more tense by Skinny Larry’s lewd comment, something she is confronted with often, but will never get used to.

The Spiral is a psychological noir thriller. The reader is inside Nina’s head, as paranoid and insecure as it is, because of her past and the crime ridden dangerous world around her. Nina may be fighting against a fatalistic world in this story, a difficult struggle, but it is also a battle that shows her strength of will. I think the page hints at all of this, albeit subtly.

Visit Rosanne Limoncelli's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Queens of Crime.

Q&A with Rosanne Limoncelli.

Writers Read: Rosanne Limoncelli (July 2026).

My Book, The Movie: The Spiral.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Rally"

Carla Vass holds a degree in English literature and economics from Barnard College, Columbia University. She began her career at Goldman Sachs before joining Uber in 2013. At Uber, she helped build the rideshare business in New York City and was part of the founding UberEATS team. In 2018, Vass was recruited by Waymo, Google's self-driving car division, to develop their delivery business, and then went on to found Civi in 2020, a tech startup focused on safety in Latin America. Born in New York City, Vass and her husband now live in Miami, Florida. When not writing or reading, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, traveling, cooking, and horseback riding.

Vass applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Rally, with the following results:

Page 69 is the opening of Chapter 11. The Rally crew is aboard a catamaran, and the scene is already in full swing:

A full crew serves appetizers and a delicious, crisp rosé, and predictably, it doesn't take long before we're all half-drunk. From my perch in a deck chair, I hold out my glass for a refill from a passing waiter. Once again, I feel light and carefree. I might have to consider full-time wealthy alcoholism, because right now, it's really doing the trick.

So, does the Page 69 Test work?

Remarkably well. A browser opening The Rally to page 69 would get a real taste of the book: the deadpan voice, the absurd luxury, and the particular thrill of watching very rich people misbehave. The rest of the page only helps. By the bottom of it there's a hot tub, champagne, and topless dancing to a Hôtel Costes mix, all of it narrated with the same wry detachment.

What the page can't show is the engine under all that chrome. Charlie, the narrator, has just been ousted from the tech company she spent four years building, and the Rally is her impulsive escape. The hedonism on this page is real, but so is the fallout chasing her. Still, if a reader enjoys the world on page 69, glamorous, a little unhinged, and very fun to visit, they'll like the book. I'd call the test passed.

Visit Carla Vass's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Liberal Arts"

David McGlynn is the author of the novel Everything We Could Do, the story collection The End of the Straight and Narrow, and the memoirs A Door in the Ocean and One Day You’ll Thank Me. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The American Scholar, and has been reviewed on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air. He teaches at Lawrence University and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

McGlynn applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Liberal Arts, and shared the following:

Most of page 69 is occupied by a single paragraph from the October chapter:

The summer before he left for college, Danny went through his parents’ files, found the name of the adoption agency, and filed a request for his birth parents to release their contact information. He listed the college as his mailing address, certain the process would take months, but when he opened his mailbox in the campus center in September, the affidavit was there. Names, phone numbers, email. He found them on Facebook in five minutes. His birth mom and dad were both from Wauwatosa, as was he. They lived five miles from his house and were married to each other. They had two other kids, a boy and a girl, Danny’s full siblings. His mom managed an office for a chiropractor and his dad worked for Briggs and Stratton, the same brand of engine on the lawn mower in his garage at home. It didn’t mean anything, or shouldn’t have, but it did. He’d always assumed his parents had disappeared after his birth, his mom taking the bus to the hospital to give birth, then, afterward, into oblivion. His dad going out of state for college, or into the army, or to a fishing boat in Alaska. Instead an entire family remained intact.

The chapter's title is "The Next Sidney Crosby." The central character is named Danny and he's a junior at the college where the novel takes place. He's surprised to learn that a romantic encounter his first year of college not only led to a child, but that the child is no longer in the mother's custody. Before the toddler can go to foster care, a social worker informs Danny that he has the right to confirm his paternity and take custody of his son. Danny is, unsurprisingly, totally shocked. But there's a twist: Danny was himself adopted, by parents who lived in the same town near Milwaukee as his birth parents. So his debate about whether or not to assume responsibility for his own son is colored by his own history.

The passage is a great snapshot of the novel as a whole because it showcases a central feature present in each character. Every person in the novel -- every last one of them -- has a secret history, a past they either guard or feel uncertain about. Despite all the ways that small liberal-arts colleges are seen as bastions of privilege, they remain microcosms of complex human beings who come from not only the region surrounding the college, but from around the globe. The "bubble" of the liberal-arts college is, in fact, a junction point for the entire world -- full of diverse experiences, backgrounds, ambitions, and impossible expectations. Danny's story of looking for his birth parents is an encapsulation of that very phenomenon.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn (September 2025).

Q&A with David McGlynn.

The Page 69 Test: Everything We Could Do.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Your Boyfriend Needs an Exorcist"

Justine Pucella Winans (they/she) is a critically acclaimed and award-winning author of queer fiction. They have written a variety of funny and/or scary books across age ranges, including a Stonewall Honor title, a Lammy Award Finalist, an Indies Introduce pick, and a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, alongside multiple starred reviews. When not writing, she can be found taking too many photos of her cats, training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, actively avoiding real life scary situations, and working on their true goal of becoming a Pokémon trainer.

Winans applied the Page 69 Test to their new novel, Your Boyfriend Needs an Exorcist, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Your Boyfriend Needs an Exorcist follows 15-year-old Schuyler Thompson, a ghost possessing the body of 17-year-old Enzo Altamura, in school for the first time since her before her death--quite some time before.

Really, I'm completely overwhelmed. It's total sensory overload. The school is almost exactly the same as I remember it in some ways, like the general layout, shitty lighting, lack of windows in the hallway, and noise levels, but there's also so much that's different.

I don't have textbooks, I have e-textbooks on an assigned tablet that is indeed in my backpack. I'm not used to reading on a screen, and it takes me too long to figure out how to turn down the brightness setting so I can skim the last chapter my math book is open to.

Damn, I barely remember anything I learned when I was alive. Even if I did, I'm not sure it's the same math I had been learning. It feels different, almost entirely new. Can math change? I died at the end of sophomore year and Enzo is a senior, so this is too advanced for me, regardless. I almost wish Vinny hadn't been lying about helping me with schoolwork. I'll definitely need it.

"You need to copy answers?" one of the dudes next to me asks.

"Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks..." I trail off awkwardly. I don't know the names of any of Enzo's friends. It's not like they ever came over to Wren's place, and none of the contacts in his phone had pictures attached. "Bro."

"No problem, bro."

Well, at least that worked.

While I don't think page 69 gives a complete sense of the book as a whole, I think it gives an excellent sense of the voice and character, and the humor (and maybe unfortunate nature) of our protagonist's situation. Through this glimpse into Schuyler's story, we get a sense that she is a fish-out-of-water in a lot of ways. We can gather that she has died, has been dead for sometime, and is somehow thrust back into high school life in someone else's body, through this small struggle to stay afloat in her math class. I think this does set up the basic concept of the book, showing that while it is in a Young Adult contemporary setting, there is at least something supernatural going on!

The parts that can't be gleaned from page 69 alone are some of the book's dark, horror elements. There is a lot of comedy in this book, and I think this page gives a glimpse of that potential, but without saying any spoilers, things definitely take a turn into bloody, body horror territory. For better or worse, this page alone may not prepare readers for the gore and difficult subjects that arise through Schuyler's accidental possession of Enzo. (I did write an author's note at the beginning of the book for that reason!)

However, as a reader, sometimes I find that the character voice is what matters most when it comes to giving a book a chance. Maybe this school-set page doesn't get into the scariest parts of the book, or even the silliest parts of the book, but I do think (and hope) it does a great job of introducing readers to Schuyler, and the general conflict she faces due to the premise. It sets up the story to be a kind of supernatural Freaky Friday, which isn't totally off base! There is definitely more depth to Schuyler and her struggles throughout the book, but this is a great little glimpse into the general concept and characterization. I find it to be a successful Page 69 Test and hope readers feel the same way!

Visit Justine Pucella Winans's website.

Q&A with Justine Pucella Winans.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beneath the Edelweiss"

Elizabeth Noel has called many places home, including the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. She holds an MEd from the University of Exeter and an MLitt from the University of Saint Andrews and has taught at various universities in the UAE. Long-listed for both the Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose Competition and the Anthology Short Story Competition, Noel has published various short works. She lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two daughters, on the land of the Gayemagal people within the Eora Nation.

As a child, Noel made regular visits to see her Austrian grandmother, or Omi, who encouraged her to chew on fennel seeds, sip herbal teas, and rub strange-smelling creams onto her skin. The city of Vienna, Melk Abbey, and the mountains and glass-topped lakes of Carinthia captured her heart. Her new novel, Beneath the Edelweiss, is the result of years of questioning what happened to her grandparents and great-grandparents, piecing together a narrative of Carinthia’s complex and tragic past.

Noel applied the Page 69 Test to Beneath the Edelweiss with the following results:

From page 69:

Oma is setting Mitzi up for failure, disappointment, probably humiliation. Maud knows even if Oma doesn’t that Mitzi will never be a mountain herbalist. Too many people think she is cursed even if she does have a pretty face. Maud sighs. She has to stop calling her a troll. And of course, if Mitzi doesn’t become an herbalist and learn to trade, the farm will end up in too much debt. Maud looks at Devello and Katarina. Can bees and cheese save them all?

Oma and Katarina walk toward the house. Maud swings herself over the horse and down to the ground. “My legs are going numb from sitting up there.”

Devello tries to kiss her, but she pushes him away. “Not in front of them.”

“Old women talking. They’ll occupy each other for hours.” He rearranges his trousers. Pulling at what lies beneath. “Bring the horse to the field with me. We’ll slip into the barn.”

“There isn’t time. They’ll come looking for us. And it isn’t winter anymore. We have farmhands.”

“The old beehives then? I’d lay you down right now if I could.”

“Devello!” Maud says, and Katarina and Oma look back.

He waves a hand at the women, and they carry on up the sloping field.

“They’re too busy getting acquainted to care what we do anymore.”

Maud sees the longing in his eyes and is amused by it. “Alright, but I want you to tell me about the Gypsy, the one who died in the war.”

Browsers opening the book to page 69 would meet Maud who is not the main protagonist of the book. However, she is talking about the heroine, Mitzi, and her concerns for her future and the future of their farm which is threatened by foreclosure. I think readers get a good sense of tone, a glimpse of the landscape and some of the superstitions that drift like low cloud among the alpine culture. As it is the end of a chapter, it is also a shorter page than normal, but it might be enough for a quick sale at a bookstore!

The person Maud wants to know more about is a man who fought in the first world war with Devello. He was a Sinti Roma who saw light around the head of anyone who was about to die. Maud is curious because she is considering sneaking out and speaking to a Sinti woman who she met in the woodland moments earlier. The woman offered to tell Maud’s fortune in exchange for payment. As Maud is pregnant and fears beyond all else dying in childbirth, she desires to know if the woman can see the light of death around her head like the soldier in the war. The woman does not have this gift, but she has others, and through the woman, Maud discovers far more than she bargains for.

Visit Elizabeth Noel's website.

Q&A with Elizabeth Noel.

Writers Read: Elizabeth Noel.

--Marshal Zeringue

"In This Life or Another"

Melissa Payne is the bestselling author of seven novels, including The Wild Road Home and In This Life or Another. After an early career raising money for nonprofit organizations, Payne began dreaming about becoming a published author and wrote her first novel. Her stories feature small mountain towns with characters searching for redemption, love, and second chances. They have been three-time Colorado Book Award finalists and three-time Colorado Authors League winners for mainstream fiction. Payne lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and three children, a friendly mutt, a very loud cat, and the occasional bear.

Payne applied the Page 69 Test to In This Life or Another and shared the following:

From page 69:

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your father told me what you said.”

His shoulders bow like someone dropped a million-pound weight on him.

“I didn’t mean it.”

Her voice is softer when she says, “Of course you didn’t.” He turns to face her. “But Dad—”

“Has his own path. One day, you might understand him better. But for now, sweetheart, be you and follow your heart. If Gus wanted anything, it’s that.”

Rusty has the sudden urge to hug his mother. He approaches her, arms out, a lump in his throat, but his arms pass through the air, and he’s in the Salt Lick, hugging himself.

At first read, I thought this was a failed test. It’s short, hardly says anything at all and misses huge moments of the story that would be a better window into the book. However, sometimes the smallest moments pack the most powerful punch and upon a second read, I realized that this small interaction between a young Rusty and his mother is a glimpse not only of the guilt and frustration he carries with him regarding his father but also of lost moments with his mother, like a hug that doesn’t happen.

This flashback is one of the signposts that shapes Rusty’s story. In In This Life or Another, Rusty is stuck in a liminal realm between life and death where he has the chance to experience a different version of his life and review the life he’s lived. When Rusty was only two, his older brother died saving him from a deadly house fire that ended up taking his life. And on the eve of his sixtieth birthday, Rusty believes he hasn’t lived up to his father’s expectations or his brother’s sacrifice. He’s struggling to find meaning and purpose and wonders what his life might have looked like if he’d make different choices. It’s in this liminal space where Rusty, with the help of his spirit guide and pet turtle, Ike, examines his past and a life that never existed to answer the question at the heart of his journey: has he lived a meaningful life?

Despite its length, page 69 of In This Life or Another teases the reader with its themes and storyline without hitting anyone over the head with it and for that I think it passes the test with flying colors.

Visit Melissa Payne's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Melissa Payne & Max.

My Book, The Movie: The Secrets of Lost Stones.

The Page 69 Test: The Secrets of Lost Stones.

Q&A with Melissa Payne.

The Page 69 Test: The Night of Many Endings.

My Book, The Movie: The Night of Many Endings.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sutra Americana"

Monona Wali is an award-winning novelist, short story writer and filmmaker. Her debut novel, My Blue Skin Lover, won the 2015 Independent Book Publishers Gold Award for Multicultural Fiction. Many of her stories and essays have been published in literary journals including Air/Light, Folio Literary Journal, Juked, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Santa Monica Review. One received Special Mention in the 2025 Pushcart Prize Anthology.

Wali applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Sutra Americana, and reported the following:

Page 69 lands the reader early in “Frieda’s Kiss” — chapter seven of the book. In it, Anu, the youngest of three daughters is being deposited at college by her parents, both academics themselves. This is in the mid-seventies. She asks for money to help her cover her expenses. She knows both her sisters received a check for $500 when they started their freshman year. She gets $250. She supposes the rest will come second semester. As she watches her parents drive off, she is hit with unexpected homesickness: “her throat ached and her heart actually hurt. That surprised her—the actual physical pain in her chest.” She confronts being alone for the first time in her life:

There were a couple lengthy days spent trying to make friends. Anu sat under one of the sycamore trees on the college green and filled her cheap notebook with free verse. She had started writing poetry in high school. Black crows, massacred villages, burnt terrain, napalmed souls. She had read “The Bell Jar” and felt that Sylvia Plath understood a woman’s struggle. She watched bare-chested boys flick Frisbees back and forth and wondered if she could fall in love with one of them. She wanted to kiss a boy badly; she had not done that yet.

At bottom of the page, Anu meets the woman who will change her life. “It was on the first day of Intro to Poetry class that she met Frieda Deakins, who wasted no time admiring the hand-knit scarf Anu was wearing. “I love those colors! Are you from India?” she asked. Thus begins Anu journey to self-discovery.

A reader opening the book to page 69 would get a good taste of the family dynamics that are so central to this book. This is a polyphonic novel that spans five decades, and Anu is just one of five central characters who have a voice in this book, so a reader would get a peek into at least one of the main characters as a young woman on the cusp of discovering important things about herself. Most importantly, the reader would get a sense of the style and voice of the novel.

Page 69 is definitely a microcosm of the whole novel — almost every page digs into the dynamics of this immigrant family as they negotiate their identities in the American landscape. While the family is very bonded, each chapter reveals the threads that threaten to unravel that bond – for example – why does Anu get $250 less than her sisters? What uncomfortable truths will come her way as soon as she steps foot outside the shelter of her family? What is she to do with her Indian identity when she has worked so hard to assimilate into American life? As we move from family member to family member, we are carried deeply into the ways they love and hurt each other and ultimately face a choice to stay bonded or move apart.

Visit Monona Wali's website.

Q&A with Monona Wali.

--Marshal Zeringue

"House Haunters"

KC Jones is a screenwriter-turned-novelist currently living in western Washington. When not writing, he can be found watching movies, playing video and board games, or enjoying nature—whenever it isn’t raining.

He graduated from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas with a degree in film production. His first published novel, Black Tide, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a first novel.

Jones applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, House Haunters, with the following results:

"This time Grace screams."

Page 69 opens Chapter 8, which takes place inside an empty, purportedly haunted house just moments after something has fallen to the floor upstairs, sending a shudder through the dark space and, to her dismay, startling a scream out of Grace. She’s there filming one of Frank's investigations as a screen test to satisfy the whims of her best friend, who believes this home-inspector-turned-ghost-hunter could be the subject of a hit reality TV show. As initially skeptical and disinterested as Grace is, she can’t help being drawn in by Frank’s deadpan professionalism toward “possessions, poltergeists, and other latent defects,” and the odd noises in the house are beginning to get to her, as much as she tries to tell herself it’s all just her imagination. Which brings us to this page.

I'd say that yes, page 69 is a pretty good example of what a reader will find throughout the book. A little spooky, a little funny; Grace is ever trying to reconcile her stubborn disbelief in the supernatural with what her senses and the house itself seem to be telling her, while Frank remains frustratingly stoic, marching fearlessly toward the things going bump in the night while Fish Stick, his sidekick corgi, trundles along reluctantly at his side. It's a perfect, bite-sized preview of things to come.

Visit KC Jones's website.

The Page 69 Test: White Line Fever.

Q&A with KC Jones.

Writers Read: KC Jones.

--Marshal Zeringue