"Every Lie I Told"

Hilary Davidson was a journalist before she turned to the dark side and started writing crime fiction. Her novels include the award-winning Lily Moore series —The Damage Done, The Next One to Fall, and Evil in All Its Disguises — the bestselling Shadows of New York series — One Small Sacrifice and Don’t Look Down — and the standalone novels Blood Always Tells and Her Last Breath. She is also the author of some fifty short stories. Her fiction has won two Anthony Awards, a Derringer Award, and a host of other accolades. Her novels have been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, and Russian. Toronto born and raised, she moved to New York City in October 2001. She is also the author of eighteen nonfiction books.

Davidson applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Every Lie I Told, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Clicking through old stories about her only steeled my determination. There were glamour shots from her huge corner office at Mortenson Adder, where she was surrounded by fine art and priceless antiques. Vivi herself was the pearl in a gilded shell, a perfectly preserved fifty-something in a peach dress, with flowing blonde hair and a smooth, expressionless face.

I remembered the first time I’d been called to her office. It was a week after I started working at Mortenson Adder.

Oh, you’re the new hire? I’m Vivi. Rhymes with Mimi, she’d said. Have you fucked my husband yet?

The memory made my face hot and red. I was horrified and spluttered out a denial. Vivi’s words were much clearer in my mind.

You know, your body’s an eight but your face is a two. A Cleveland two. Erick definitely prefers a pretty face. Why on earth did he hire you?

The memory recalled by the novel’s narrator, Jackie Swift, is jarring in its bluntness. Vivi Adder is a spoiled socialite who's legendary for her cruelty. This brief interaction with Jackie reveals that beneath Vivi’s wealth and elegance lies something corrosive and predatory.

But the passage doesn’t just hint at Jackie’s past humiliation — it also provides part of her present-day motivation. It’s the psychological groundwork for Jackie’s decision to position Vivi as a suspect in a murder investigation. Jackie knows that her sister, Madi, is guilty of the murder in question, and while Jackie is loyal to her sister, this passage shows that she has her own axe to grind and old scores to settle. She doesn’t want to feed just anyone to the NYPD — she wants it to be her own enemy.

The irony is that Jackie knows full well that Vivi really is guilty of some terrible crimes. However, a draconian nondisclosure agreement and the money she’s been paid to keep quiet mean that Jackie can’t tell the NYPD what she actually does know. Instead, she needs to cast suspicion on Vivi in other ways. So Jackie’s lies about her can be viewed as justice or revenge, or some measure of both, depending on the angle you squint at it.

Jackie’s shameless amorality and willingness to sacrifice anything and (almost) anyone to her ambition lie at the heart of the book, and this passage highlights that perfectly.

Visit the official Hilary Davidson site.

The Page 69 Test: The Damage Done.

The Page 69 Test: Blood Always Tells.

The Page 69 Test: One Small Sacrifice.

Writers Read: Hilary Davidson (July 2019).

The Page 69 Test: Don't Look Down.

The Page 69 Test: Her Last Breath.

Q&A with Hilary Davidson.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Too Deep to Cross"

Kerri Hakoda has worked in and out of Alaska in advertising and marketing, marine transportation, cable television and trade magazine ad sales. She was born and raised in Hawaii, but now calls northwest Washington her home, where she lives with her husband (himself a veteran of the Alaska fishing industry) and writes mystery, historical, and young adult science fiction.

Hakoda applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Too Deep to Cross: A Thriller, and shared the following:

At first, I thought, “No way would page 69 give the reader a good idea of the whole book.” But then, on closer examination, it might be a good test. The top of page 69 is the last section of a flashback, where Beans (the protagonist) comes to an epiphany in his young life. The rest of the page is in present day, and is a conversation between Beans and his sister. It’s a brief summary of events to date, and acts as a contrast to the previous life-changing passage. I think if anything, it might prompt the browser to want to read further.

Visit Kerri Hakoda's website.

Writers Read: Kerri Hakoda.

Q&A with Kerri Hakoda.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sometime This Century"

Samantha Silva is an author and screenwriter based in Idaho. Over her career, she’s sold film projects to Paramount, Universal, and New Line Cinema. Sometime This Century is her third novel, following Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mr. Dickens and His Carol, her debut.

Silva applied the Page 69 Test to Sometime This Century with the following results:

From page 69:

“I’ve been through the whole downstairs,” Annabel told him. “I used blue sticky notes for the Hepplewhites, purple for anything else that might be valuable—for you to decide—and pink for the things that should definitely stay.” She put a hand on her heart. “Sentimental value…”

So begins page 69 of Sometime This Century in which Annabel Blake shows a Mr. Patterson from Sotheby’s around Kidlington House, the "crumbling old country pile” in England she’s tasked with sorting out for her boss. Annabel is explaining her system of sticky notes to indicate what she thinks may have the most value—the Hepplewhite furniture in particular—and should be sold at auction, and what has sentimental value and should stay. They’re both taken by a Hepplewhite settee that probably had a sister once. “Hard to keep sisters together all that time,” Mr. Patterson says. On cue, Annabel’s sister, Cassie, comes in and makes fun of their over-the-top enthusiasm for Hepplewhites, in other words, being such complete nerds.

I was nervous opening to page 69, taking it as a personal challenge. When I teach writing, I often say that at your most successful, the DNA of the whole, however subtle, should be in every scene, on every page. But it is very hard to do. So I was relieved that while the scene appears to be doing rather light-lifting for the set-up of the novel, it actually offers significant clues as to what lies ahead and what the novel’s all about.

The attentive reader turning to this page alone might note several things. That the novel is a comedy. That it’s about two sisters somewhat lost to each other. That it’s probably England in a big old country house. That Annabel loves the Regency period in every detail. That her sister Cassie has mostly contempt for it. That some furniture will be taken away (this could complicate things)! That right now Annabel will leave it Mr. Patterson to decide, but in fact, it could be a novel about what Annabel herself decides: what sentiment matters and what she values most.

Visit Samantha Silva's website.

Q&A with Samantha Silva.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mad Dogs & Englishmen"

Alan Smale writes science fiction and fantasy. His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, "A Clash of Eagles," won the 2010 Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Clash of Eagles and Eagle in Exile are the first books in a trilogy set in the same universe.

Smale applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Mad Dogs & Englishmen, and reported the following:

As luck—or fate—would have it, page 69 of Mad Dogs & Englishmen works magnificently to give readers a good feel for the story. This is especially striking since Mad Dogs is a short novel (like all the other cryptid books in the Systema Paradoxa line), and so page 69 is over halfway through, when the climactic action has already begun. That makes it a little spoilery, but I’d challenge anyone to figure out how the story winds its way from page 1 to page 69 without actually reading the pages in between.

It also marks the beginning of a new chapter. So, as Chapter Twelve begins, my unfortunate protagonist Lindsey Ambler’s already terrible day is getting quite a bit worse as we get reveals of the principal mad dogs in question, both cryptid and human, all within the confined space of a cottage on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales:

The beast was over three feet tall at the shoulder and longer in proportion than a real dog would have been, and it was shaggy, hugely shaggy. But it was not the creature’s coat that drew the eyes first, but those thick, wide claws that now skated across the hardwood floors, leaving deep gouges before the animal braked to a stop. Next it was the great jaws, lined with thick, sharp teeth, in that long snout, and finally the blazing red eyes of the beast, bright with rage. The barghest appeared to fill the room.

Greta looked around at the sudden smashing sound and froze at the sight before her. The piano-wire garotte loosened around Lindsey’s neck and she gasped, sucking air in through a raw throat that still felt constricted. She rocked forward and her hands landed on Greta’s shoulders; had she not done so, she would surely have slid down to the ground.

Men of action, Briggs and Draken reacted far more swiftly, with Atkinson not far behind. Briggs raised his shotgun and fired, and again the crashing noise of the blast slammed into Lindsey’s ears, ratcheting up her sick headache to a new level.

Buckshot raked the barghest’s body, its multiple points of impact evident from the way his fur flew. The creature skidded and howled, its roar of pain almost as loud as the shotgun discharge.

From the floor in front of it, Draken leaned back, swinging the zombie knife, and the serrated blade raked across the barghest’s left foreleg.

Uncanny as the beast was, it was still living flesh and blood. Quite a lot of blood, as it turned out.

Lindsey tried to shove Greta away, but the smaller woman seemed to regain her senses. She raised her knee to pin Lindsey back against the wall and jerked again at the ends of the piano wire.

Phew. OMG. It’s all go, I tell ya.

As page 69 commences we’ve obviously already quite deep into the heat of battle, and stress, and pain, and very loud noises in a very small space, and so there’s a lot to unpack. But up until this point the tale has been very atmospheric, very character-driven, and the tension has ramped up gradually. It’s certainly not this breathless all the way through, thank the feral gods.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen was a labor of love rather than strategy. If I have an author “brand” it’s certainly alternate history rather than alternate zoology. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to tell a thrilling tale set in the north of England where I grew up, with a landscape and people I feel a very strong affinity with, and featuring the type of mythical beast I’ve always been fascinated by, tossing in several handfuls of gritty British crime drama to spice it up. Writing Mad Dogs & Englishmen really felt very natural … which is perhaps a little scary in itself.

Visit Alan Smale's website.

The Page 69 Test: Clash of Eagles.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle in Exile.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle and Empire.

Writers Read: Alan Smale.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Treason of Magic"

Melissa Marr writes fiction for adults, teens, and children. Her books have been translated into 28 languages to date and been bestsellers in the US (NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, etc) as well as various countries overseas. She is best known for the Wicked Lovely series for teens and Bunny Roo I Love You for children. She can be found in a kayak or trail with her wife.

Marr applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, A Treason of Magic, and shared the following:

My page 69 starts a new chapter in A Treason of Magic, so the top half of the page is a quote from folklore, Legends and Romances of Brittany by Lewis Spence [1917]. These epigraphs at each chapter ground the reader in the folklore that the character uses. I last did this in my debut novel, Wicked Lovely, which was originally published in 2007 and was reissued in 2025 (by HarperCollins both times).

After that quote, the start of Chapter 8 in A Treason of Magic captures an aspect of the character’s reality—being the Hunter of monsters means that she will be injured. On this occasion, she has defeated a faery/monster, but has been stabbed. This foreshadows more vicious attacks by the monster murdering travelers in her neighbouring area.

I slip inside the house when the morning is still new with a hush gesture to one of the attendants and tiptoe up the staircase. A shadow inside my room makes me pause, but the woman waiting for me is neither my mother nor sister.

“Clarissa?” I call for her, and like all of Maria’s trained healers, she is ready and waiting. A good Hunter cannot focus on the mission and family, so along with the maids and the like, we travel with a skilled physician. Softly, so as not to risk my voice carrying, I say, “I have need of you.”

“Where?” Clarissa’s gaze sweeps over me from where she waits just inside the doorway of the closet. Next to her is a table with bandages, a lit candle, a basin of water, and assorted cannisters.

This section is not just about the world and about the folklore, but also about another driving force for me in writing this book: injury as inevitability.

I have a chronic illness and heart disease, so medical factors are always something not far from my mind. In fiction, I include medical as a very matter-of-fact aspect of life rather than something to be dramatic over. In A Treason of Magic my protagonist, Gabrielle, lives her life expecting to need medical intervention. It simply is.

This page highlights folklore, setting, and a pragmatic approach to injury/illness. I think it’s reflective of my overall story, albeit also one of the slower pages in the overall story.

Visit Melissa Marr's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"An Artful Dodge"

Karen Odden received her PhD in English from New York University and taught Victorian literature at UW-Milwaukee. She is the author of several crime novels set in 1870s London, including her award-winning USA Today bestselling debut, A Lady in the Smoke. Her work has been nominated for the Lefty, Anthony, Agatha, and Derringer Awards, and appeared in Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

Odden applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, An Artful Dodge, with the following results:

Page 69 falls in chapter 6, and the passage represents a conversation between Kit Jimeson, my 20-year-old heroine thief, and her sister Sarah, age 14, who is a scullery maid at a wealthy household in Mayfair. One night, as Sarah is leaving work, she spots two thugs from her crime-ridden neighborhood of Elephant and Castle and wonders, What are they doing here? The following day, the newspapers report a nearby Mayfair house was burglarized and two servants murdered. On this page, Kit is asking Sarah if there is any chance that the two men saw her. At first, Sarah insists they couldn’t have; then she admits she can’t be sure; they may have. Kit knows that if the two thugs believe Sarah witnessed them in Mayfair, they’ll kill her to silence her.

The Page 69 Test works amazingly well for An Artful Dodge! As the two sisters only have each other, Kit is always preoccupied with Sarah’s safety. Later in the book, Maggie, the new head of Kit’s thieving gang, kidnaps Sarah to force Kit to run a heist that is incredibly dangerous—but as we see on page 69, Kit’s concern is keeping her sister safe, so she takes on the heist … though not in the way Maggie intends. Furthermore, this conversation highlights other themes in the book—how we bring ourselves with us wherever we go and how London is vast yet interconnected. Sarah can leave seedy Elephant and Castle for wealthy Mayfair—literally, she crosses the River Thames—but her world is still with her.

The idea for this book began with my visit to the Great Scotland Yard Hotel in London, with a bar called “The Forty Elephants.” My daughter and I went in for a drink and a QR code on the table offered more information about the “Forty Elephants.” Of course I clicked. I learned the name referred to an all-women thieving gang that began in the 1870s in the Elephant and Castle neighborhood, south of the Thames, and that targeted the new West End department stores. I was instantly fascinated by this thieving ring and by the bonds that held these women together; was there honor among these thieves? I often feel my mystery plots are the clotheslines upon which I hang my current preoccupations; with this book, I wanted to explore relationships and loyalty among women, and this moment when these two sisters have a conversation with life-and-death implications is central to that concern.

Visit Karen Odden's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Odden and Rosy.

The Page 69 Test: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Duet.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Duet.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (January 2020).

Q&A with Karen Odden.

My Book, The Movie: Down a Dark River.

The Page 69 Test: Down a Dark River.

My Book, The Movie: Under a Veiled Moon.

The Page 69 Test: Under a Veiled Moon.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (October 2022).

Writers Read: Karen Odden.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Valet"

J.P. Lacrampe received his MFA in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College. His short fiction has been published by Glimmer Train, McSweeney's, Instant City, and in Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit. He is a professor at Santa Clara University & SJSU, where he teaches courses in composition, fiction, and screenwriting.

Lacrampe applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Valet, and reported the following:

Page 69 in Valet drops the reader into the middle of a comedy of errors involving three androids of varying sophistication who are clumsily exchanging valuable information. It includes, of course, the narrator Cy, as well as the principal human character Grayson.

I'm not sure how well the Page 69 Test works for this book. A reader would definitely get a sense of the world (near-future, robots abound, etc.), as well as some of the satire. Most notably how -- much like humans -- robots judge themselves against others, even to the point of talking down the capabilities of those they believe are beneath them. So in those respects, the test works! But I don't think a reader would be able to gather much of the story from this single page (or any one page).

I get the logic of the test! It puts you far enough into the book -- the end of Act 1 or the beginning of Act 2, depending on the length of the story -- where many of the most important elements are set. Right into the middle of the action!

Visit J.P. Lacrampe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Ishtar Deception"

James L. Cambias is a writer, a game designer, and the cofounder of Zygote Games. He has been nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the 2001 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Cambias applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Ishtar Deception, and shared the following:

Page 69 of The Ishtar Deception might seem like an odd digression. It's part of a chapter-length flashback, taking place five millennia before the main action of the book. A group of shady characters are crossing the surface of Venus in an armored crawler, hoping to salvage some valuable ancient technology nobody else knows about. None of them trusts the others, and they're arguing about how much the prize could be worth and how much each of them should get. Superficially, none of this has much to do with the rest of the novel, which has a different cast of characters, and takes place thousands of years later in a completely different location on Venus — which has been completely transformed in the meantime.

So, no, readers would not get an accurate idea of what the book is about. But my page 69 is not irrelevant, either. Readers who have read all of my "Billion Worlds" stories might know my narrator Daslakh's personal history, but I wanted to give new readers a chance to learn about it. In the flashback we see Daslakh (under a different name) behaving pretty badly, giving the reader some understanding of why present-day Daslakh feels guilty about it. Also, some of the actions taken millennia earlier turn out to be of critical importance.

The section also lets me show how the planet Venus itself has changed between the two eras. In the flashback section Venus is basically the real planet as we understand it: a crushingly dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide, temperatures on the surface hot enough to melt lead, sulfuric acid clouds, and winds of deadly power.

Whereas by the time of the main narrative, Venus has been "cryoformed" by means of a giant sunshade, in order to freeze out all the carbon dioxide. The air is pure nitrogen — not breathable, but a lot more pleasant than "natural" Venus atmosphere. The temperature is about as cold as the surface of Mars. People can and do go out on the surface of future Venus with nothing more than oxygen tanks and warm clothing. It's more tolerable for humans and machines. As a result Venus has become tremendously important to the economy of the Solar System, which is what draws spies and secret agents like my protagonist Sabbath Okada there. He's initially investigating a suspicious death in the giant city of Ishtar, but that leads to a bigger plot, and . . . well, let's just say that in a novel called The Ishtar Deception, you should assume nothing is as it seems.

Visit James L. Cambias's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Darkling Sea.

Writers Read: James L. Cambias (January 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Arkad's World.

The Page 69 Test: Arkad's World.

My Book, The Movie: The Godel Operation.

Q&A with James L. Cambias.

The Page 69 Test: The Godel Operation.

The Page 69 Test: The Miranda Conspiracy.

My Book, The Movie: The Miranda Conspiracy.

Writers Read: James L. Cambias (February 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Architect"

John Katzenbach is the New York Times bestselling author of such novels as the Edgar Award-nominated In the Heat of the Summer, which was adapted for the screen as The Mean Season; The Traveler; Day of Reckoning; Just Cause and Hart's War, which were also made into movies; The Shadow Man, another Edgar nominee; State of Mind; The Analyst; and The Madman's Tale. Katzenbach has been a criminal court reporter for the Miami Herald and Miami News and a featured writer for the Herald's Tropic magazine.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Architect, with the following results:

Well, first off, this is what they say in Latin America is “complicado...”. Readers turning to that page in The Architect might get the right idea – if intrigue is what they’re hunting for. Here is what is on page 69: the architect of the book title gets her first assignment from her new employer. Instead of being explicit --each element of that assignment is a cryptic mystery.

The set-up of The Architect is this: A brilliant young woman graduating at the top of her architecture school class at a moment of personal stress and intensity – a mother that has suddenly disappeared and is seemingly dead and an ex-boyfriend who abruptly starts to stalk her -- is asked to design a memorial by an anonymous wealthy patron. It is the proverbial offer she cannot refuse. He gives her six names to investigate – people he alleges influenced his life profoundly. But as Sloane Connolly researches each name, she discovers that none were particularly worthy of memorializing. Instead of being valuable, they exhibited cruelty, betrayal, bullying, addictions and the sorts of routine evils that make us swallow hard and be grateful that those people aren’t in our lives. Despicable is more accurate, she learns, than saintly. The why of memorializing these names and the what did they do to her employer dominates her unsettled feelings.

And – adding to her unease – she learns each of the six died in unusual and undeniably savage fashions.

Her inquiries lead her into a twisted history, a whirlpool of danger --- where her own past is a major thread, and her life and her future are thrust on balance scales. What she doesn’t know about who she is puts her at great risk.

Page 69 exhibits a first step – one that is slippery and unsteady – but a stride that my character is determined to take. In a fashion, much is said on that page – but it is the undercurrent of what is being asked of young Sloane Connolly that creates the inherent tension in The Architect. What lies hidden beneath the surface is the heat that brings the story to explosion. And that is what is hinted at on page 69.

Like I said above, “complicado.”

But from the author’s perspective – essential.

Visit John Katzenbach's website.

My Book, The Movie: Red 1-2-3.

Writers Read: John Katzenbach (January 2014).

The Page 69 Test: Red 1-2-3.

Writers Read: John Katzenbach.

Q&A with John Katzenbach.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hot Wings and Homicide"

Carmela Dutra is a Bay Area–based author who writes cozy mysteries with sharp banter, strong sibling bonds, and the vibrant food culture of Northern California’s most eclectic region. Her Food Truck Mystery Series blends culinary competition, small-town secrets, and humor-forward sleuthing, all rooted in the distinctly diverse rhythms of the Bay Area.

Dutra's debut novel, A Murder Most Fowl, received praise from Kirkus Reviews for its “serious set of crimes leavened by plenty of amusing moments,” and from Criminal Element for the “juicy reasoning behind the sabotage [that] was almost as shocking as the murder itself.” New York Times bestselling author Ellery Adams called it “the perfect escapist read, brimming with banter and an extra helping of fun.” Dutra has also been featured in CrimeReads.

The second installment in the series, Hot Wings and Homicide, earned additional praise from Kirkus Reviews, which said, “Winner, winner, murder for dinner ... An entertaining mystery with amusing characters—including a pet chicken.” Further cementing the author’s voice in the cozy mystery space.

A frequent podcast guest and live-event panelist, Dutra has appeared on Bookish Flights, The Fiction Lounge, Cozy Crime Reads, and Bookshelf Odyssey, and has spoken at bookstores including Kepler’s Books & Magazines. She is known for her warm, engaging presence and her ability to connect with readers through humor, craft, and community.

Dutra lives in the Bay Area with her husband, two dinosaur-obsessed sons, and an assortment of over-cuddled pets. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found at a bookstore, a farmers’ market, or chasing the perfect chicken wing.

The author applied the Page 69 Test to Hot Wings and Homicide and reported the following:

From page 69:

"He ran 5Ks, ate kale salads, and drank those disgusting green smoothies that smelled like lawn clippings.”

“That was over three years ago,” Rylie reminds me.

“True.” I chew on my bottom lip. “I hate to admit it, but Brad didn’t let himself go after he dumped me. Which honestly feels like an extra slap in the face. Like, couldn’t he have gained fifty pounds or something?”

“At the very least, lost his hair,” she adds.

“It’s important to study all angles.” Seth says. “We have to consider the possibility that someone, maybe the person standing on the path, may have used the rock to kill him.” “Could the person I saw have found Brad, panicked, and fled for no other reason than fear of what they found?” I ask.

“It’s plausible,” he says. “Fear and flight are common reactions for many people.”

The thought of abandoning someone in need is inconceivable to me. Even if that person was my awful ex-boyfriend. My stomach churns with the question I can’t seem to answer.

Did Brad fall?

Did he hit his head?

Or did someone pick up a rock and swing?

Rylie finishes typing her notes. “There,” she says, as our phones ping simultaneously with a message. “Each of us has a copy of the Kluckin’ Clues list.”

“This isn’t your true-crime podcast,” Seth says. “This is a job for the police. My job is to handle things legally. Your job”—Seth shakes a hoof at us—“ is to let the police do theirs.”

Rylie and I share an eye roll.

She grabs a tumbler with our laughing chicken logo on it and pours herself lemonade. We rarely serve fresh drinks—bottles are easier—but Rylie convinced me that summer drinks like lemonade and iced tea would sell well. I caved and bought aftermarket drink dispensers for the festival. Who knows? If we land regular catering gigs, they could come in handy.

On page 69 of Hot Wings and Homicide, Beth Lloyd, her twin brother Seth, and her best friend Rylie are discussing the suspicious death of Beth’s ex-boyfriend, celebrity food critic Brad Dawson. The conversation jumps between murder theories and commentary about Brad’s irritatingly healthy lifestyle.

At one point Beth reflects:

“I hate to admit it, but Brad didn’t let himself go after he dumped me. Which honestly feels like an extra slap in the face. Like, couldn’t he have gained fifty pounds or something?”

Meanwhile, Seth tries to be the rational voice of reason while Beth and Rylie enthusiastically create a shared “Kluckin’ Clues” suspect list instead of leaving the investigation to the police.

I actually think page 69 gives readers a surprisingly accurate snapshot of the book as a whole. Hot Wings and Homicide is very much about the balance between humor and murder, and this page captures both. There’s speculation about whether Brad’s death was an accident or intentional, but there’s also sibling banter, sarcasm, food truck logistics, and Beth’s very complicated feelings about her ex. Most importantly, the page highlights the group dynamic at the center of the story. Beth tends to dive headfirst into trouble, Rylie fully enables her, and Seth desperately tries to keep everyone grounded in reality. That push and pull drives much of the humor throughout the book.

The page also quietly reflects something important about cozy mysteries in general: even in the middle of a murder investigation, everyday life continues. People still argue over lemonade dispensers, complain about exes, and make questionable decisions with their friends. That combination of danger, humor, and ordinary life is exactly the kind of story I love to write.

Visit Carmela Dutra's website.

Q&A with Carmela Dutra.

Writers Read: Carmela Dutra.

My Book, The Movie: Hot Wings and Homicide.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Roaring Ridleys"

K.M. Colley writes thrillers, contemporary mysteries, and cinematic stories that explore legacy and ambition. Her work often centers around powerful families, glamorous settings, and complex characters. Born in Mobile, Alabama, she’s currently based in Tampa and Philadelphia. When not writing or reading, Colley enjoys traveling, learning new languages, and building a creative legacy. She’s also passionate about raising her autistic daughter, who dreams of creating her own comic book one day.

Colley applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Roaring Ridleys, and shared the following:

Okay, I need to know what kind of sorcery this test is. Because, wow, oddly enough, it shows exactly the catalyst of it all. The man who is the reason their secrets could be exposed is remembered in the same gossip column that has brought them down. I absolutely love that the test fits perfectly for my debut! Page 69 is the first page in chapter 9, which follows the aftermath of the return of their annual summer party and the death of a famous gossip columnist.

Chapter 9

KAVITA RIDLEY

The Manhattan Herald
July 11, 1927
FAREWELL TO DALE CAIMEN

It is with our saddest regrets that we announce our beloved Dale Caimen passed away suddenly Saturday night. Dale has worked for The Manhattan Herald since he was in high school. He started as an intern, assisting anyone in need of help. It wasn't until he began his column, Metropolitan Musings, that he surprised New York City. People finally learned about social events and got a glimpse of life through the eyes of New York's elite. He had the wit to boot, along with charm and class, as he reported on goings-on from the city we all clambered to read first thing in the morning, before our first cup of coffee. Dale Caimen was adopted by the late Donald and Phoebe Caimen, leaving behind his legacy in his voice at the column.

His passing has shaken the Ridley family, as his unexpected death happened at Saturday's gala.

Readers will get a fantastic first impression of the book. If anything, they get the fast track pass straight into the juiciness of this story. It also gives Dale humanity, even though he is the source of pain for the Ridley siblings. I love how, on this page, the reader sees how eerily similar his background is to being adopted, just like them.

The Roaring Ridleys follows seven siblings who are adopted from around the world. They are thrust into the luxurious life of one of the wealthiest and most famous families in 1920s New York. Life isn't just filled with the privilege they are born into, but a world filled with secrets and danger that one of them feels is worth killing for.

Visit K.M. Colley’s website.

My Book, The Movie: The Roaring Ridleys.

Q&A with K.M. Colley.

--Marshal Zeringue

"This Isn’t New"

Cynthia Swanson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the psychological suspense novels The Bookseller, The Glass Forest, and Anyone But Her, and the new short story collection This Isn’t New: Women’s Historical Stories. Swanson was named 2025 Indie Author of the Year by the Indie Author Project, has received the Colorado Book Award (twice) and the WILLA Literary Award, won the Indie Author Project contest, and been a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, the WILLA Literary Award, and the CAL Award. She is also the editor of the award-winning anthology Denver Noir. She lives with her family in Denver.

Swanson applied the Page 69 Test to This Isn’t New with the following results:

Because This Isn’t New: Women's Historical Stories is a relatively short book (170 pages), page 69 is not quite halfway into the text. It’s part of a story called “The Unlived,” the fourth of nine in the collection. The scene on page 69 is toward the end of this story. Because I don’t want to give away the full story, I’ll summarize the situation: Claire, the main character in “The Unlived,” has an abortion in 1932. The procedure was illegal then in all of the United States, but Claire lives in Denver, which I learned via my research was at the time considered an “abortion capital of the country.” Claire also gets lucky: she’s given the name of a doctor who performs her procedure safely and she suffers few physical repercussions.

However, the event impacts her emotionally for the rest of her life. On page 69, it’s fifteen years later, and Claire reads an article in the newspaper titled “Smashing Denver’s Abortion Racket!” (This is an actual article that I found via my research.) Claire wonders, as she reads the article, if the chief investigator in the case asked the women who were given procedures by the arrested doctors what their stories were—why each woman sought an abortion in the first place.

Is this a good test of the entire book? I think it is. The intent of This Isn’t New is to demonstrate, via the power of storytelling, that many of the same things women fight for today, many of the same issues they face, have been happening throughout time. While I’m sensitive to the fact that not everyone believes abortion should be legal, my personal view is that people deserve the right to control their own bodies. This is an issue that has, in my opinion, taken a backslide in recent years. Are we in the same space that Claire was in 1932? Not completely, but Claire chose abortion for medical reasons, and women today in many parts of the country face the same challenge. They either have to go elsewhere for an abortion or carry on with their pregnancies, regardless of risks.

“The Unlived” is one of nine stories in the collection. While it’s mostly about Claire and what she experiences, the story is indicative of the collection as a whole. Each of the stories features a different woman, in a different era, facing a particular challenge. By highlighting stories spanning more than a century, my intent with This Isn’t New is to provide, via a storytelling lens, a view into women’s challenges historically and how they relate to today’s world.

Visit Cynthia Swanson's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bookseller.

The Page 69 Test: The Glass Forest.

Writers Read: Cynthia Swanson (February 2018).

Q&A with Cynthia Swanson.

The Page 69 Test: Anyone But Her.

My Book, The Movie: This Isn't New.

Writers Read: Cynthia Swanson.

--Marshal Zeringue