"The Other Moctezuma Girls"

Sofia Robleda is a Mexican author who spent her childhood and adolescence in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. She completed her undergraduate and doctorate degrees in psychology at the University of Queensland, in Australia. She currently lives with her husband and son in London.

Her debut historical fiction novel, Daughter of Fire, was an Amazon First Reads and Editor's Pick for July 2024 and a top 100 Kindle bestseller. It has been translated into Spanish.

Robleda applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Other Moctezuma Girls, with the following results:

From page 69:

To her credit, Elvira did not make any fuss of the stilted interaction and said, “How are you finding the party?”

“It’s quite . . . fine.” I shrugged.

“Oh yes, it can be a little boring, especially if you’re not keen on dancing. I love dancing, but . . .” Her voice wavered. “Anyway, the food is magnificent, have you tried these tiny baked fish wrapped in corn husks? Mextlapique, I believe the dish is called. Does Catina like fish? Tell her it’s delicious, please, I don’t want her to be left out!”

I interpreted what she’d said. Catina nodded, still looking at the floor, and whispered, “I love fish.” My feelings for her mellowed, for I knew she was trying her hardest. I squeezed her hand and said, “Yes, we love fish infinitely more than dancing, which is the opposite of Nano. Alas, our older brothers have chased all his admirers away!”

Elvira’s smile faltered. “He is ever so popular at court.”

“Ah, but we prefer quality over quantity, don’t we?” I nudged him, and he returned a threatening smile. I fluttered my eyelashes back at him. “In fact, I was just telling him how much happier he’d be on the dance floor. Why don’t you indulge us all, brother. Take Elvira with you! You can’t possibly deny her, not after all the effort she’s made for Catina!”

His jaw set. A myriad of emotions flickered across his features. He pinned me with a look that conveyed his deep desire to strangle me, but when his gaze landed on Elvira’s glowing, expectant face, he warmed and slowly extended his palm.

“May I please have the pleasure of this dance, Señorita de Toledo?”

Her shoulders dropped infinitesimally. Likely she would’ve preferred for him to call her by her first name, like she had done with him, and the return to formality was disappointing. Regardless, she didn’t wait long before nodding and taking his hand.

“Don’t you dare move,” he said under his breath as they left.

I bent low as I bowed so he wouldn’t see the victorious smile on my face.

While I don’t think you can gain a thorough idea of the main plot in the novel from just this page, I do think it does a good job of showcasing the personalities and dynamics between the main character, Isabel, and her two siblings, Catina and Nano.

The page shows Isabel’s feistiness, her cheek and her daring. We glean Catina’s shyness, but also her courage at trying to speak in front of other people. We also witness Nano’s inner conflict, his frustration towards his sisters, born from a need to protect them, and the way his kindness overpowers him in spite of himself.

The scene shows the reader that these are the children of nobility. They belong to the upper echelons of New Spain society in the sixteenth century, although the only clue to the wider setting comes from the dish that Elvira mentions, mextlapique, a type of tamale made with native Mexican fish.

The scene also asks the question, why is Isabel trying to get rid of Nano? Why does she feel victorious when he leads Elvira away to the dance floor? Why does Nano resist?

At first glance, it may seem that Isabel is trying to set Nano up with Elvira, in which case the reader might be tempted to think this is perhaps a historical romance – and while there is a minor romantic subplot, it’s not the main theme of the book.

In fact, Isabel is trying to manoeuvre her brother away, because she wants to search the viceroyal palace for her dead mother’s journal. She is desperate to find it, as it contains part of the story of her mother’s life as the last Aztec empress before and after the Spanish conquest.

Catina has joined Isabel on this mission, but Nano knows nothing about it at that point. He is only vaguely aware that his sisters are plotting something. He knows Isabel like the palm of his hand, he knows she is reckless and headstrong, and he rightly guesses that she is up to no good.

Luckily for Isabel, she knows how to play her brother just right.

Visit Sofia Robleda's website.

The Page 69 Test: Daughter of Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Book of Forbidden Words"

Louise Fein is the author of Daughter of the Reich, which has been published in thirteen territories, the international bestseller The Hidden Child, and The London Bookshop Affair. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary’s University. She lives in Surrey, UK, with her family.

Fein applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Book of Forbidden Words, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Book of Forbidden Words opens with the musings of Lysbette Angiers, a young girl living in the household of Sir Thomas More in London in the 1520’s.

How would life be in a land where there was no thieving because nobody needed to?” Lysbette thinks. “Where there was enough time for leisure besides work, and where learning and reading was a pleasure enjoyed by all, boys and girls… And like her nobody had a penny to their name but they, unlike her, didn’t care because it was a place where gold and silver, where money itself had no value at all… In Utopia, nobody cared what religion you had. You could believe in God and the immortal soul of man, or the sun or moon or anything else, and nobody punished you for it…

The subject matter of page 69 of Book of Forbidden Words is uncannily pertinent to the novel. Lysbette, one of the three protagonists of the novel, has just read a little book that was written a few years previously by Sir Thomas More, her guardian, entitled Utopia. The book has a profound effect on young Lysbette and comes to influence her greatly in later life. The theme of Utopia and Utopian ideals run through Book of Forbidden Words and are central to the story of what happens in both timelines, namely the turbulent religious wars of the 1500’s and the oppressive suspicions of 1950’s McCarthy era America, and the uncanny echoes between the two eras.

Visit Louise Fein's website.

Q&A with Louise Fein.

Writers Read: Louise Fein.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Vermilion Sea"

Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of more than twenty novels, including Glamorous Notions, A Dangerous Education, A Splendid Ruin, Bone River, and An Inconvenient Wife. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

Chance applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Vermilion Sea, and shared the following:

From page 69:

They assembled after dinner in the main saloon. Victorine asked Maud to light candles, which glowed on the hutch and the end tables. Maud and Pollan had moved what furniture wasn’t fastened down into a makeshift circle and drawn the curtains. The room, which Billie had found melancholy before, was even more so now. It might have been romantic with the candles, but instead it felt crowded, gloomy, and claustrophobic.

The wind had come up; the Eurybia rocked in the chop, making the pictures hung on cords and the drapes in the saloon swing in a nauseating way. Victorine ordered them all to their places. James and Oliver in the armchairs. Victorine in a dining room chair brought in specially so she could sit in the middle of the circle. Roland and Billie were seated together on the settee. Once they were all assembled, Victorine said, “Now we must all hold hands. No one can break the circle once it begins, do you understand?”

“I’ve done this a hundred times, darling,” James drawled.

“The instructions are for the others,” she said. “Maud, Pollan, keep an eye on the candles, please. I don’t want them rolling and catching something on fire.”

The two servants stood against the doorway to the dining room, trying to keep their balance against the jamb as the ship pitched. Victorine seemed to vibrate with enthusiasm. “Oh, I know he’s here—I think I can already feel him. Quickly now! Everyone—everyone take hands!”

Page 69 of The Vermilion Sea is the point where the creepiness that has to this point only been alluded to really begins. It is where Victorine Coustan Holloway, the wife of the owner of the Eurybia, has decided to hold a séance to contact her brother’s spirit. Her beloved brother committed suicide on the ship two years prior and she yearns to know the reasons why. From this point, the book moves from a pretty standard historical fiction tale about collecting marine specimens for the San Diego zoo into something more ominous and threatening.

So I would say that page 69 is pretty indicative of what the book really is. While it doesn’t show the extent of the horror that ensues, it is the starting point. In that way, it gives the reader a good idea of the overall mood of the book.

Visit Megan Chance's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Splendid Ruin.

The Page 69 Test: A Splendid Ruin.

Q&A with Megan Chance.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Education.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Education.

Writers Read: Megan Chance (February 2023).

Writers Read: Megan Chance (January 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Glamorous Notions.

The Page 69 Test: Glamorous Notions.

My Book, The Movie: The Vermilion Sea.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Alphabet Sleuths"

Bestselling, award-winning author Laura Jensen Walker is the Agatha and Lefty-nominated author of more than 20 books including Murder Most Sweet, Hope, Faith & a Corpse, and Death of a Flying Nightingale.

A rabid Anglophile since being stationed at an RAF base with the USAF in her twenties, Walker lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband and two rescue terriers, where she drinks tea and dreams of England.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Alphabet Sleuths, with the following results:

From page 69:

He held up a six-pack. “I got the beer, and Tony’s bringin’ the subs.”

“Don’t let us keep you.” Claire climbed into the SUV.

“Sorry, ladies,” Vince said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.” He noticed the suitcases. “Goin’ on a trip, huh?”

“That’s right.” Barbara opened the door behind the driver’s seat and hopped in. “Girls trip to Vegas.”

Putting on her seatbelt, Atsuko started the SUV. “Let’s get this show on the road, ladies. My slots are calling.” She backed out of the parking space, leaving Lenny and Vince in the dust as Barbara waved goodbye.

* * *
“Uh-oh,” Barbara said an hour later from the back seat. “We’ve got trouble.”

“What is it?” Claire asked.

Barbara held up her phone, and Claire saw the face of the man she’d killed. A face she’d never forget. Beneath the dead man’s photo in the online edition of the Santa Bonita Herald, the headline read “Have You Seen This Man?”

“Want to share with the class?” Atsuko turned down the Golden Oldies station.

Barbara read aloud. “Benny Popov, longtime resident of Santa Bonita, recently released from prison, is missing. Mr. Popov’s parole officer said he failed to check in, and his employer, local businessman Dmitri Glazatovsky, said Benny never reported to work, to the job waiting for him upon his release. A rental car registered in Mr. Popov’s name was found in the parking lot of the Muddy Pig Saloon.”

Barbara continued reading. “Jake Hetland, longtime owner of the Muddy Pig, said he has not seen Mr. Popov since before he went to prison, years ago. I’m surprised Benny didn’t come straight here once he was released,’ Hetland said in an interview. ‘He always said the first thing he’d do when he got back here was come to the Pig for a Jack and Coke. I told him the drink would be on the house, but he hasn’t collected it yet. Benny, if you’re reading this, your Jack and Coke is waiting for you,’ Hetland said.”

The Page 69 Test gives a good idea overall of The Alphabet Sleuths since it furthers the critical plot we see in the first chapter where Claire accidentally kills a bad guy who’s in the process of strangling her friend, Daphne. She and her senior gal pals then have to dispose of the body, which becomes quite a comedy of errors.

On page 69, three of the self-proclaimed Alphabet Girls; Atsuko, Barbara, and Claire, are on their way to Nevada, to fill in retired cop Daphne (who’s left town to protect her friends) on the latest, and bring her back. What this page doesn’t reveal is the critical plot point of Claire finding another dead body—a friend and fellow resident who’s been brutally murdered—within their California retirement community. The friends then put on their sleuthing hats to solve the mystery of who killed the resident curmudgeon, despite the police warning them off, questioning suspects, discovering shocking secrets, and putting themselves at risk.

Visit Laura Jensen Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Q&A with Laura Jensen Walker.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Bone Queen"

Will Shindler has spent most of his career working as a broadcast journalist for the BBC. He also spent nearly a decade working on a number of British television dramas, working for both the BBC Drama Series Department, and Talkback Thames Television as a writer and script editor. He has been writing novels since 2020, including the five-book critically acclaimed DI Alex Finn series: The Burning Men, The Killing Choice, The Hunting Ground, The Blood Line, and The Cold Case. He currently combines reading news bulletins for BBC Radio London with his novel writing and has previously worked as a presenter for ITV West, a reporter for BBC Radio Five Live, and as one of the stadium presenters at the 2012 London Olympics. He lives in London.

Shindler applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Bone Queen, and reported the following:

I’m not going to lie, I found the premise of this absolutely fascinating. With some trepidation, I turned to page 69 of my novel The Bone Queen and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. My honest answer, after reading it, is yes: this page does give an accurate sense of the book as a whole.

By page 69, my protagonist Jenna has travelled to Athelsea (a fictional island off the coast of England) in search of her missing teenage daughter, Chloe. Jenna has already learned that Chloe may have become obsessed with a local legend: an ancient supernatural figure known as the Bone Queen.

Page 69 is where several crucial ideas converge. Chloe is shown scouring the internet for information about the Bone Queen, uncovering fragments of folklore and accounts of other teenagers - girls very much like herself - who appear to have been influenced by the same legend. One post in particular explains the myth:

One long post written by someone in Toronto claimed she was a spirit of retribution, punishing children for the sins of their parents.

From there, through Chloe’s perspective, we learn that Jenna is a recovering alcoholic - an important plot and character point of the novel - and that during her worst periods of drinking she was not always the mother she wanted to be. There’s one passage in particular that encapsulates her:

Later Jenna would be mortified, ashamed of herself, and would apologize profusely. In many ways she’d never stopped apologizing.

Taken together, the page establishes two ideas that sit at the core of the book: the Bone Queen as a figure who punishes children for parental wrongdoing, and Jenna as someone haunted by the fear that she may deserve that judgment.

From a writer’s point of view, that’s the ideal sweet spot of exposition and emotional truth. So, from this mildly surprised - and genuinely delighted - author’s perspective, page 69 successfully passes the test!

Follow Will Shindler on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

My Book, The Movie: The Bone Queen.

Q&A with Will Shindler.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Study in Secrets"

Jeffrey Siger is an American living on the Aegean Greek island of Mykonos. A former Wall Street lawyer, he gave up his career as a name partner in his own New York City law firm to write the international bestselling, award-recognized Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series of mystery thrillers telling more than just a fast-paced story.

Siger applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, A Study in Secrets, and shared the following:

For more than 15 years, virtually every time I released a new book in my Greece-based Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series I’d take The Page 69 Test. And each time I’d be amazed at what the Test revealed. This year is different in many ways, but not in the uncanny revelations of the Test.

Now I’m launching A Study in Secrets as the debut novel in my brand-new “The Redacted Man” series. It’s set not in Greece, but in New York City, and instead of a gregarious, happily married Chief Inspector serving as my protagonist, I’m introducing a Sherlock Holmes-worthy amateur sleuth possessing a complicated George Smiley retired-secret-agent past. Practically a recluse and partially handicapped, Michael A spends his days imagining the lives of the anonymous people he watches in the park beneath the windows of his elegant New York City townhouse–number 221–his every need tended to by his housekeeper, Mrs. Baker.

For decades Michael has taken great care not to get involved in the lives of those he observes until one day he realizes that a young girl he’s watched for weeks sitting alone in the park at dawn faces terrible danger. For reasons unclear even to himself, he makes an uncharacteristic decision to abandon his solitude and help her…changing everything.

Page 69 represents two major revelations for Michael: First, he learns that a colleague’s trusted employee has played a key role in a process that put the young girl’s life in danger, and second, he realizes how a pair of seeming innocents came to possess a priceless purloined treasure that could now cost them their lives.

Page 69 also mentions virtually every “good guy” character central to the story line and one very bad one…leaving many more of the latter for readers to discover. Most significant for me, page 69 captures the essence of Michael’s character––revealing his thought processes, compassion, sense of humor, and decisive toughness whenever the situation calls for it.

Thank you, Page 69 Test, for once again eliciting from me a unique perspective on my own work.

Visit Jeffrey Siger's website.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in Mykonos.

The Page 69 Test: Prey on Patmos.

The Page 69 Test: Target Tinos.

The Page 69 Test: Mykonos After Midnight.

The Page 69 Test: A Deadly Twist.

Q&A with Jeffrey Siger.

The Page 69 Test: At Any Cost.

The Page 69 Test: Not Dead Yet.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Her Cold Justice"

Robert Dugoni is a critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and #1 Amazon bestselling author, reaching over 9 million readers worldwide. He is best known for his Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle. He is also the author of the Charles Jenkins espionage series, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and several stand-alone novels including The 7th Canon, Damage Control, The World Played Chess, and Her Deadly Game. His novel The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell received Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, and Dugoni’s narration won an AudioFile Earphones Award. The Washington Post named his nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary a Best Book of the Year.

Dugoni applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Her Cold Justice, with the following results:

On page 69, Keera and her private investigator, JP Harrison are asking neighbors if they saw or heard anything on the night of two homicides. They speak to Jada Davis, who lived across the street from the young man accused, Michael Westbrook, who is JP Harrison’s nephew.

If the reader opened to this page they would know that Keera is an attorney representing the accused in a double homicide and that she is trying to find any and all witnesses who might have seen or heard anything during the night in question. It would give them a good head start on what the book is about, but not much more. I would call the test inconclusive.

The book started with the simple premise, “Who is the most powerful person in the criminal justice system?” I think the reader will be surprised by the answer. Her Cold Justice explores how far a person will go to obtain justice and what are the far-reaching consequences for all of us when constitutional rights are not respected? It’s a scary proposition for anyone who finds themselves suddenly accused of a heinous crime and looking at the possibility of life in prison. The criminal justice system is a juggernaut and sometimes it grinds up everyone and everything in its path and the only thing a defendant can cling to is his attorney.

Visit Robert Dugoni's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Wrongful Death.

The Page 69 Test: Bodily Harm.

My Book, The Movie: Bodily Harm.

The Page 69 Test: Murder One.

My Book, The Movie: Murder One.

My Book, The Movie: The Eighth Sister.

The Page 69 Test: The Eighth Sister.

My Book, The Movie: A Cold Trail.

The Page 69 Test: A Cold Trail.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Agent.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Agent.

Q&A with Robert Dugoni.

The Page 69 Test: In Her Tracks.

Writers Read: Robert Dugoni (March 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Killing on the Hill.

My Book, The Movie: A Killing on the Hill.

The Page 69 Test: Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

My Book, The Movie: Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

Writers Read: Robert Dugoni (October 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Her Cold Justice.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Epicenter of Forever"

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 The Epicenter of Forever and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Epicenter of Forever is a pivot point in the novel. Our protagonist, Eden Hawthorne, has just reluctantly committed to spending several months with her mother in Grand Trees to nurse her back to health, and she’s adapting to the rhythms of the town that she swore she’d never return to.

The Page 69 Test works fairly well. Readers would get a good sense of the tone of the story and dynamic between the three main characters—Eden, her mother, and Caleb. The reader would see Eden and her mother’s polite, careful, and tense relationship—with some resentment simmering just beneath the surface. While Caleb is not in the scene directly, he’s mentioned several times in Eden’s interiority, revealing how quickly he’s woven his way into Eden’s psyche.

There’s a bit of foreshadowing as well, as we watch Eden’s visceral reaction to tending to her mom’s injuries. She’s determined to be a good daughter to the detriment of her own well-being. She’s burying a trauma response and ignoring her own needs in order to prove Caleb wrong. This is Eden’s harmful pattern and, ultimately, is the work she needs to do over the course of the novel: listen to her gut and acknowledge her own wants and needs.

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.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Simone in Pieces"

Janet Burroway, the author of Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, has written eight previous novels, as well as a memoir, plays, short fiction, children’s books, and more. Recipient of the Florida Humanities Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing, she is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at Florida State University at Tallahassee.

Burroway applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, Simone in Pieces, and shared the following:

The Page 69 Test works miraculously well for Simone in Pieces, showing Simone at a crucial turning point in her life, between a refugee childhood and a scholarship in New York City.

Simone Lerrante was rescued, alone, from the Belgian coast during the Nazi occupation of WWII. She was ten years old. Now she is in her early twenties, having lived through three periods with British families, and been awarded a good degree at Cambridge and a Fulbright. Page 69 is a critical hinge “piece” of the self that, because she has lost her childhood memory, she must gradually construct.

Here she is at her most confident, with perhaps a touch of hubris?—having “shed her old self like a skin. She’s her American self; optimistic, even sassy.” She has charmed her way up from steerage to Cabin Class, “exactly as she intends to do” in New York, has been invited to lunch at the purser’s table with a couple from South Dakota and a gaggle of wealthy Americans, and now she has been offered a bath in the couple’s cabin.

With a “flute’s worth of champaign and half a snifter of Remy Martin” in her “lean and solid, long, presentable body,” she finds herself deliciously adrift, “wafting in the water sloshing in the tub on the ship that wallows in the ocean that is cradled by the underwater mountains of the planet Earth, which is a bubble adrift in the solar system.”

For the moment, adrift is a delicious state. Too delicious? Can that ambitious stasis morph to “nomad,” where to be adrift becomes a permanent state and an unfulfilled way of being?

Visit Janet Burroway's website.

The Page 69 Test: Bridge of Sand.

--Marshal Zeringue

"First Do No Harm"

SJ Rozan, a native New Yorker, is the author of twenty novels and eight dozen short stories. Her work has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel and the Edgar for Best Short Story. She’s also the recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award and has received Life Achievement Awards from both the Private Eye Writers of America and the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Rozan applied the Page 69 Test to First Do No Harm, the newest title in the Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery series, with the following results:

Page 69 of First Do No Harm is the start of Chapter 12, so it's just over half a page long; but it does give a good idea of the book. There's description:

I could see a puzzle-piece of sky squeezed between the canopy over the driveway and the high-rises across the avenue.

dialogue between my two leads, Lydia Chin and Bill Smith:

(Bill:) ...it might be a great time for us to spelunk in the east basement.

(Lydia:) Spelunk. You're a show-off, you know that?

and a new plan being made that will lead into the rest of the scene:

(Lydia:) ...You're right about the east basement, though. He pretty much told us it's got no security...

These are elements -- description, dialogue, action -- that I like to keep in balance and page 69 is a good example of how I try to do it. I use description to anchor the viewer in time and place; but while place is important to me, pure description ("There was a canopy over the driveway") is dry and tells the reader nothing about the person doing the describing. In this case "puzzle-piece" is a word Lydia might not have used if the case weren't so confusing. I always try to make an element do more than one job; for example, in this dialogue -- and I use dialogue to tell as much of the story as possible -- Bill suggests a course of action, but in a way that also shows a facet of his relationship with Lydia.

Throughout the book in different places one or another of the elements will predominate, but to the extent that I'm successful in using each element to comment on the others, the book will be textured and will move forward in ways that will both surprise readers, and keep them interested.

Visit S.J. Rozan's website.

The Page 69 Test: Paper Son.

The Page 69 Test: The Art of Violence.

Q&A with S. J. Rozan.

Writers Read: S.J. Rozan (February 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Family Business.

Writers Read: S. J. Rozan (November 2023).

The Page 69 Test: The Mayors of New York.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Loon Point"

Carrie Classon is a performer and a nationally syndicated columnist with Andrews McMeel Universal. Born in Minnesota, she had a fourteen-year career in theater, performing in dozens of shows from Oregon to Maine. After founding and running a professional Equity theater for seven years, Classon earned her MBA and began working in international business. She also holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Mexico and has written a memoir and over six hundred columns.

In her 600-word weekly column, The Postscript, Classon writes about the transformative power of optimism and how to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. She champions the idea that it's never too late to reinvent our lives in unexpected and fulfilling ways. She performs a live show based on her writing—with lots of sequins. With her husband, Peter, and former street cat Felix, Classon splits her time between St. Paul, Minnesota, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, Loon Point, and reported the following:

I would be very happy if a reader were to open to page 69. While it might not be the most defining moment of the book, it offers a great glimpse into the character of Wendell and, without Wendell, there would be no story to tell.

In the scene, Wendell is introduced to the Chickadee Cabin, a log cabin in a resort on the shore of a northern Minnesota lake. It is offered to him as a place to live after the roof of his house collapses in a late March snowstorm. Wendell is rescued, somewhat unwillingly, from his ruined home and taken to the Chickadee Cabin until a new home can be found.

Wendell surveys the neat and well-maintained cabin, decorated in a chickadee theme, and sees none of it: not the comfort of the cabin, nor the beauty of its environment, and certainly not the generosity of the people who offered him a place to live when he had nowhere to go. Wendell surveys the cabin despondently and thinks, “So. This is what it has come to.”

Wendell came into being after I read a Facebook post quoting from my weekly syndicated column, The Postscript. The post was written by someone I knew named Wally, and it was 1200 words of criticism concerning my excess of optimism—or idealism as the writer, Wally, would describe it.

He went on to say how my brand of optimism caused people to ignore or dismiss natural disasters and mass shootings and could only be maintained by people who kept themselves deliberately ignorant. He finished the piece with a touch of regret that he was unable to maintain this level of stupidity, as he was sure it would make his life more pleasant.

I was hurt, angry, and intrigued—in that order—for about 48 hours.

I was hurt because I was genuinely concerned that I was seen as someone who lacked empathy, but I concluded that a concerted effort to see the good in the world made me far more empathetic than I would otherwise be.

I was angry that Wally would say such unkind things about my character after quoting me by name.

But finally, I was intrigued by his point of view and wondered what, if anything, would cause a person who believed what Wally believed to change his mind.

And Wendell was born.

Visit Carrie Classon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Now That I Know You By Heart"

Amy Hagstrom is the author of The Wild Between Us and Smoke Season. She is a writer and editor with two decades of experience in the travel and outdoor industry, recognized as an O Magazine Insider and previous columnist and feature writer at Travel Oregon, US News, and Huff Post. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Whitworth University. A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, she served as a volunteer EMT with her local county search and rescue unit before launching her travel writing career.

After raising three children in the Pacific Northwest, Hagstrom traded the Cascade, Siskiyou, and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges for The Berkshires, making her home in Western Massachusetts with her wife.

Hagstrom applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Now That I Know You by Heart, and shared the following:

On page 69 of Now That I Know You By Heart, our protagonist, Shelby, has begun the process of restoring and rebranding her historic inn…a daunting and critical task thanks to a rumor that the inn is haunted. She’s also taken baby steps in rebranding herself, having started anew on San Juan Island after a personal tragedy and self-discovery. She returns to a local winery where she recently met an intriguing local, only to have her hopes of seeing her again dashed. And yet, the man behind the bar—her crush’s father, Dan Caster—has intel that can help her in her mission.

An excerpt from page 69:

[Dan] took the liberty of pouring Shelby a glass of the franc. “You must be new around here,” he added predictably.

Was there a script all San Juan Island residents followed when they smelled fresh meat? Shelby gave him her usual spiel about buying the inn, and then, before he could beat her to it, she heard herself say defiantly, “And yes, I already know what I’m in for.”

One eyebrow lifted. Shelby noted that Dan had Holly’s green eyes. Or rather, that Holly had Dan’s. “Ah yes. The haunted history.”

Just like last time, several additional heads turned at mention of this taboo subject of conversation, but also like before, the Caster behind the bar seemed immune to the stigma sticking to the Merrick. Suddenly, finding Dan at the winery instead of her daughter didn’t seem like quite as much of a waste of an evening.

“Do you know much about it?”

“I was working doubles here in the tasting room most of last season, while Holly bottled out back,” he said. “Had a front row seat to the stream of…enthusiasts…driving past to gawk at the Merrick. Word has it, Ezra Peterson put on quite a show.”

The Page 69 Test works pretty well for Now That I know You By Heart, because it marks the point where several formative elements of Shelby’s arc, which have been independently set up, come together on the page. Her acceptance (in herself) that she is romantically interested in the winemaker, Holly, dovetails with the professional intel she gleans from Dan about her problematic groundskeeper, Ezra. The novel has found its stride by this point, and the causal browser would be able to immediately intuit the stakes in the story.

Now That I Know You By Heart is a quieter, more melodic read than my previous novels, which could be characterized as character-driven suspenses. It’s in moments of human connection, like on page 69, that the plot is formed and the tension rises, perhaps without the reader even aware, on a conscious level. In other words, it’s the people who make this book sing, and the ‘ensemble cast’ type quality of the book is certainly in evidence in this scene.

Visit Amy Hagstrom's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Wild Between Us.

Q&A with Amy Hagstrom.

Writers Read: Amy Hagstrom.

--Marshal Zeringue