"The Queen Underneath"

Stacey Filak was born in a small town in Michigan, where she dreamed of hero's quests, epic battles, and publishing a book. At least a couple of things have come true. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband and four children, and a menagerie of pop-culture named pets. She manages a veterinary clinic as her day job and aspires to someday write something that means as much to someone else as her childhood favorites mean to her.

Filak applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Queen Underneath, and reported the following:

In The Queen Underneath, page 69 is a turning point, where the loose strings that have tied the main characters together begin to pull taut. The reader is introduced to Elam – a sex-priest and main protagonist Gemma’s best friend. Page 69 is the first glimpse that we get of the two of them together, and it introduces a softer side to Gemma than the reader has yet seen.

It is also on page 69 that the reader starts to understand the vast repercussions of what has been transpiring in Yigris, and the ways that they will echo throughout the city. Though the reader doesn’t know it, yet, page 69 is critical to another relationship, the spark of which is made in the paragraphs therein.

In the end, page 69 is truly representative of The Queen Underneath, because it is from that page that the webs of friendship, romance and partnership first begin to spread out. Soon after, the reader will come to understand the depth of the crisis facing Yigris, the bond between the group from Under and the brotherhood of the two men from Above will all be joined together by Elam, the link between their worlds.

Visit Stacey Filak's website.

--Marshal Zeringue