She applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, The Groom Says Yes, and reported the following:I’d never heard of the Rule of 69 before but I’m game for anything. After all, it makes sense. Page 69 is about a fourth of the way through the book. Stuff should be happening by then.Visit Cathy Maxwell's website.
So I looked at that page in The Groom Says Yes. We are in Regency Scotland. Sabrina is the local magistrate’s daughter and the spinster of the parish. She’s the one the married women volunteer for all the tasks they claim they don’t have time to do. Her life has been uncomplicated, predictable, tidy. On page 69, her careful world begins to unravel.
She has stashed an unconscious, deathly ill stranger in the stable, planning to explain his presence to her overbearing father before she brings him in. Little does she know, but the reader does, that this stranger is a convicted felon who just barely escaped hanging. Not exactly the kind of guy you bring home to dad.
However, before she mentions their new houseguest, she must confront her father on a few secrets she has discovered he has been keeping from her. They argue and he leaves the house without telling her. She chases him to the stables, fearing he will see the stranger curled up in the pony cart and be angry. Instead, her father is so preoccupied, he doesn’t notice. He saddles his horse and rides off without a backward glance at her.
And in that moment, Sabrina’s life changes. Page 69 is where expectations and reality cross, leaving in their wakes choices and a call to adventure.
She has spent a lifetime taking care of others, only to realize she isn’t important in their lives. So where does that leave her?
Everything she has thought of herself will be challenged through the rest of the book, as it should be. After all, when do any of us really become interesting? When we are doing what is expected? Or when we step off the beaten path and take a chance?
--Marshal Zeringue
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