"Hum If You Don’t Know the Words"

Bianca Marais holds a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto’s SCS, and her work has been published in World Enough and Crime. Before turning to writing, she started a corporate training company and volunteered with Cotlands, where she assisted care workers in Soweto with providing aid for HIV/AIDS orphans. Originally from South Africa, she now resides in Toronto with her husband.

Marais applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Hum If You Don’t Know the Words, and reported the following:

I was curious to see what page 69 from Hum If You Don’t Know the Words would reveal about the novel, and was surprised to discover that it contained a really important scene containing a plot twist. I hate spoilers so I won’t reveal too much, except to say that it centers around one of the protagonists, Robin, a nine-year-old girl whose parents have just been murdered. As she waits at the police station for her aunt to come fetch her, she’s frantic about her twin sister, Cat, who got left behind at their home when the police arrived in the middle of the night. The scene explains a lot about Robin’s psyche and the coping mechanisms she has developed in order to become the child she thought her parents wanted her to be. It’s a great snapshot that very representative of the book which deals with weighty subject matter and has quite a few twists and turns along the way.

Visit Bianca Marais's website.

--Marshal Zeringue