"If I Die Tonight"

USA Today and international best-selling author Alison Gaylin has been nominated for the Edgar three times. (Most recently, What Remains of Me was nominated in the best novel category.)

Gaylin applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, If I Die Tonight, and reported the following:

On page 69 of If I Die Tonight, Jackie, the concerned mother of outcast teen Wade Reed, finds herself in a rare moment of calm. It is the morning, and as she makes coffee in silence, Jackie reflects on the unusually pleasant dinner she shared with her two sons the night before – a rarity, especially now that high school football star Liam Miller is on life support, the victim of a late night hit-and-run that many in their small town suspect Wade of having committed. As she readies herself to do the laundry, Jackie realizes the main reason why she and her children shared such a stress-free evening: they’d all avoided the news, the phone, and, most importantly of all, social media – perhaps the most formidable villain in the book. It’s a moment of calm before a storm that proves more devastating than Jackie could ever imagine at this point. It highlights the true danger of the outside world by showing how much safer everything feels in its absence.

Learn more about the book and author at Alison Gaylin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue