"The Tenth Girl"

Born in Los Angeles, Sara Faring is a multi-lingual Argentine-American fascinated by literary puzzles.

After working in investment banking at J.P. Morgan, she worked at Penguin Random House. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in International Studies and from the Wharton School in Business. She currently resides in New York City.

Faring applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Tenth Girl, and reported the following:

This page opens on the eerie serenity of the remote Patagonian cliff of the infamous Vaccaro School. Mavi, a young teacher from smoggy Buenos Aires, delights in the fact that there's "No, CAFE HERE! No, public restroom, its walls of tiles begging to be defiled by an angsty teen. No empanada stands touting peso meat pockets. No gift shops full of miniaturized, seizure-inducing junk. I peek through the shuttered window of an unused cottage and find the interior dark, its contents impossible to see. But the glass itself is spotless. This mountain seems to exist inside some sort of time-exempt vacuum, in which dirt and dust and droppings and dew cannot accrue."

Her classroom cottage is chilling perfection: plucked from a dream and fully stocked. She can't know just how deep of a gothic spiral she's entered, but she feels the thrum of its wrongness in her bones: the house insists on that.

The page closes by hinting at the sticky hot core of the book, so I think it does indeed pass the page 69 test.

"Is this our moment?" Mavi asks, of the strange woman who knocks on the door of her cottage. The woman offers a sad little smile.

Visit Sara Faring's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Tenth Girl.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Professor of Immortality"

Eileen Pollack graduated with a BS in physics from Yale and earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. She is the author of the novels The Bible of Dirty Jokes, A Perfect Life, Breaking and Entering, and Paradise, New York, the short-story collections In the Mouth and The Rabbi in the Attic, and the nonfiction books The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys’ Club and Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull.

Pollack applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Professor of Immortality, and reported the following:

Maxine Sayers is the founder and director of the fictional Institute for Future Studies at the very real University of Michigan, where I’ve taught creative writing for the past 25 years. When a Unabomber-like terrorist publishes his manifesto, she begins to suspect it was written by her former student. As the plot unspools, Maxine needs to decide if she should share her suspicion with the FBI, a decision complicated by her affection for that former student and his friendship with her son.

I hope the suspense keeps readers hooked even as Maxine explores the questions the bomber raises in his manifesto. While she deplores his use of violence, she, too, wonders how we might respond to advances in science and technology that threaten to destroy our privacy and our environment and might result in the deaths of millions of people and wipe out countless other species.

Page 69 marks a quiet spot in the novel, as Maxine remembers her father’s early influence on her career. Having been trained as a radio technician in WWII, her father returns home to open a TV sales and repair shop. His predictions about the future fascinate Maxine, and she grows up helping him in the shop. When he dies of a faulty heart valve, she decides to become an engineer,

a field for which she seemed uniquely prepared by all the years she had spent acquiring skills even her male lab partners envied.

The problem was, she had loved tinkered at her father’s bench because she had loved tinkering beside her father. The smell of soldered lead caused her eyes to tear up from a longing to feel her father’s arms around her as he guided her hands on the red-hot iron. Without him, she hadn’t a clue what gadget to invent. She considered changing majors. But what would she change her major to?

Rather than invent new gadgets, Maxine decides she will study the effects brought about by the inventions of others. Later, Maxine becomes obsessed with the changes that drastically extended lifetimes—perhaps even immortality—might create for the human race. Although I came to my own interest in future studies through a slightly different route—as a child, I was told that girls couldn’t grow up to be scientists or mathematicians, so I earned a degree in physics. And yet, page 69 does capture at least some of my reasons for writing this book. Why are we letting so many young straight white men design and evaluate the technology that will shape the future? Where are the voices of all the rest of us, who will need to live in that future, too?

Visit Eileen Pollack's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Perfect Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Dangerous Engagement"

Ashley Weaver is the Technical Services Coordinator for the Allen Parish Libraries in Louisiana. She has worked in libraries since she was 14; she was a page and then a clerk before obtaining her MLIS from Louisiana State University.

Weaver applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, A Dangerous Engagement, and reported the following:

From page 69:

I was effectively a prisoner in the washroom. I couldn’t make my exit now without letting them know I had overheard part of this delicate conversation. There was nothing for me to do but stay still and remain quiet until they had gone. I shifted backward, retreating a bit farther behind the door so I wouldn’t risk being seen.

“It’s got to be kept quiet,” Mr. Alden said in a harsh whisper. “I’ve been hearing things, that word is getting around, and that’s not going to work.”

“I don’t have any control over that.”

“Well, you’d better find some way to control it, or both of our livelihoods will be on the line.”

Page 69 of A Dangerous Engagement involves a conversation that Amory Ames accidentally overhears. Wiping a lipstick smudge from her gloves in a washroom off the foyer of her hosts’ home, she is trapped when two gentlemen began talking outside the door, unaware of her presence. Having arrived in 1930s New York for the wedding of her friend, Amory doesn’t expect to get pulled into another mystery. But the tense conversation she overhears between two men—who outwardly pretend to barely know each other— is just one of many things that tell her something isn’t right. She is soon proven correct when a murder occurs, literally at her doorstep.

A reader glancing at this page would get some idea of the intrigue and deception that exist beneath the glittering and glamorous façade of 1930s high society. This is a world where everyone is hiding something and no one can be trusted completely. It also gives an example of the sort of trouble in which Amory often finds herself—even when she doesn’t intend to get involved. Of course, once she’s found a mystery, she’s always ready and willing to look for a solution, and this case is no different. She is soon drawn into the world of speakeasies and bootleggers at the tale-end of Prohibition and must work with her husband Milo to bring a killer to justice.

Visit Ashley Weaver's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Most Novel Revenge.

The Page 69 Test: An Act of Villainy.

Writers Read: Ashley Weaver.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man"

Dave Hutchinson is a science fiction writer who was born in Sheffield in England and read American Studies at the University of Nottingham. He subsequently moved into journalism, writing for The Weekly News and the Dundee Courier for almost 25 years. He is best known for his Fractured Europe series, which has received multiple award nominations, with the third novel, Europe in Winter, winning the BSFA Award for Best Novel.

Hutchinson applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man, and reported the following:

Ooh. Yes, this one. This is actually quite pivotal. Alex is dithering about taking a commission to write a book about a supercollider buried under a couple of counties in northern Iowa. He's a freelance journalist and not doing very well, and the commission would pay him a very large amount of money, but there's something not quite right about the setup in Rosewater County. He's kind of intrigued by it, but at the same time he has a sense it might be best to avoid it. And then he's approached one evening by a British intelligence officer called Kitson, who basically blackmails him into spying on the collider operation. So all of a sudden Alex has no choice; he has to stay and do the job. I tried to load the book with stuff that was absurd and off-kilter, and this is one of the most absurd incidents. Alex is walking into town for dinner and all of a sudden MI6 turns up out of nowhere, driving an Accord, in the middle of Middle America, and recruits him. It's the point where Alex's freewill is taken away; he's now stuck in Rosewater County and he has to stay and deal with everything that happens next.

Learn more about The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man.

Visit Dave Hutchinson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man.

--Marshal Zeringue

"City of Beasts"

Corrie Wang owns and operates Jackrabbit Filly, a friendly neighborhood restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina. She is passionate about libraries, recycling, and eating all the food, everywhere. Her debut novel, The Takedown, received much love from the New York Public Library and YALSA.

Wang applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, City of Beasts, and reported the following:

Alas, page 69 is not highly indicative of City of Beasts.

But first, a quick run down… City of Beasts is set in my hometown of Buffalo, NY. Albeit, a nuclear and environmentally crashed – yet plausible - future version of it. In this future, girls (fees) have grown up entirely separate from males (beasts) due to nightmarish events that happened after the world essentially broke.

The story centers around Glori, a fee who crosses into the city of beasts to rescue something invaluable, thereby encountering males for the first time in her life and smashing expectations all around. It is a thrill ride, dark yet funny, page turner of a novel, that takes a look at how we currently perceive gender and how we might if we were able to start with a clean slate.

Page 69, however, is one of the rare calm moments of the book. In this scene, Glori and her best friend Su, who joins her for part of her journey, are having their first ever meal with Sway and Comma, two of the beasts that Glori has stumbled upon who have agreed to help her on her quest. They are discussing how best to get back the item she seeks – spoiler, it’s Glori’s younger sibling – considering they don’t trust each other enough to even share a table.

Su leans back, arms crossed. “Sorry. I’m allergic to poison.”

Sway rolls his eyes and scoops porridge into his bowl. “Let me guess, Matricula Rhodes says that’s how we kill you. Fine. More for us. But please tell Madame Rhodes that if we were gonna poison you, we wouldn’t waste SpaghettiOs doing it.”

It’s just an offhand comment, still Su and I exchange a look. It goes unnoticed as the males fill their bowls. After clinking their spoons together, they begin inhaling their food with their mouths practically right to the edge of their dishes.

It is, quite frankly, gross.

“Learn some table manners,” Su grunts.

“What for?” Sway asks.

While this page might not be a prime example of the book, it is highly representative of my life because it’s all about food. Outside of being an author, I am also about to open a restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina, called Jackrabbit Filly. It will serve heritage driven New Chinese American dishes that won’t be too far off what the characters in this scene eat.

Imagine that.

Visit Corrie Wang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Harp of Kings"

Juliet Marillier is the author of twenty-two historical fantasy novels and a collection of short stories. She was born and educated in New Zealand but now lives in Western Australia, where she writes full-time. The strong elements of history and folklore in her work reflect her lifelong interest in both. However, her stories are character-based, with a focus on human journeys and relationships.

2019 sees the release of two new novels from Marillier. Her stand-alone folkloric fantasy, Beautiful, based on the Nordic fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, was published in May. The Harp of Kings, the first book in a new historical fantasy series, Warrior Bards, was published in September. Marillier is currently working on Book 2 of Warrior Bards.

Marillier’s earlier works include the Blackthorn & Grim series and the Sevenwaters series, both set in a magical version of early medieval Ireland. She has won many awards for her writing, including five Aurealis Awards and four Sir Julius Vogel Awards, as well as the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Prix Imaginales. In 2019 she won the Sara Douglass Book Series Award for the Blackthorn & Grim series. Juliet is a regular contributor to award-winning genre writing blog Writer Unboxed.

Marillier is a member of OBOD (The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) and her spiritual values are often reflected in her work – the human characters’ relationship with the natural world plays a significant part, as does the power of storytelling to teach and to heal.

When not writing, Juliet is kept busy by her small pack of rescue dogs. She has four adult children and eight grandchildren.

Marillier applied the Page 69 Test to The Harp of Kings and reported the following:

The Harp of Kings is set in an imagined version of early medieval Ireland. While competing for places in an elite band of warriors and spies, our three protagonists are sent on a secret mission. An ancient harp has gone missing from a royal court not long before a new king is to be crowned. Tradition is that the Harp of Kings must be played at every coronation; if this does not happen, the candidate will be deemed unsuitable for kingship. Under cover as travelling minstrels, the team infiltrates the court with the task of tracking down the harp and returning it before its disappearance becomes public knowledge. The task proves far trickier than anyone expected. On page 69 our main protagonist, eighteen year old Liobhan, has found herself up in a tree, in conversation with a small girl who is hiding from her nursemaid. Liobhan is a forthright, outspoken character, both expert fighter and talented musician. She’s fiercely determined to perform the mission well and earn acceptance as an elite warrior. We’ve seen no softer side to her up till this point. In this excerpt, the child has just asked Liobhan if she can play her whistle. (Liobhan is going by the name of Ciara for this mission.)

“I could show you another time,” I say. “If Máire says it’s all right. Do you know how to play?”

“You could teach me.”

This is not what I’ve come to Breifne to do. What can I learn from a small child? But maybe the nursemaid, or big sister, or whoever the slumbering Máire is, will prove a more useful source of information. The girl’s pleading eyes are like those of a neglected puppy. “I could show you how to play a few notes. It takes a lot of practice before you can play tunes.”

She picks up both bag and plaything and hugs them to her chest, regarding me solemnly. The skin of her face and hands is very fair, and her nails are clean. Despite the tree climbing, her long hair is shining and has been neatly plaited, though some wisps are escaping. This is not the child of a servant.

“Only, no music up in the tree,” I tell her. “I might drop my whistle, and it doesn’t bounce very well.”

“Oh. All right. I like that tune that goes fast, really fast, with lots of notes.”

“And everyone gets up to dance?”

She nods, expression still grave.

“That tune is called ‘Artagan’s Leap.’ It’s quite tricky to play. We might start with something simpler.’

“Can we go and do it now?”

“No, because we have to find somewhere quiet, and you have to ask Máire if she approves, or you might get me in trouble. Also, if I’m going to let you play one of my whistles, I should know your name. Mine is Ciara.”

The child whispers her reply just as a woman calls from down below, “Aislinn! Where are you?”

“That’s Máire,” Aislinn says, still keeping her voice quiet. “She doesn’t know about this tree.” Now she sounds scared.

“You go down first, then, and I’ll wait until you’ve moved away.”

She slides quickly off the branch, making my heart jolt in fright. But she’s as nimble as a squirrel; I watch her rapid progress down the tree with admiration, wishing I could still do things as swiftly and silently. Partway down she stops and looks back up at me. “Don’t forget,” she mouths.

Is this passage typical of The Harp of Kings? Maybe. With each of the book’s central trio taking a chapter in turn, it’s had to put a finger on what is typical. Although this seems a lightweight scene, the encounter is significant. Liobhan is making a connection that will prove vital to the mission. The reader meets an important new character in young Aislinn, and sees a different side to the ambitious, driven warrior as she employs humour and kindness to reassure the frightened child.

Learn more about the book and author at Juliet Marillier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara.

Writers Read: Juliet Marillier.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Imaginary Corpse"

Tyler Hayes is a science fiction and fantasy writer from Northern California. He writes stories he hopes will show people that not only are they not alone, but we might just make things better.

Hayes applied the Page 69 Test to his debut novel, The Imaginary Corpse, and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Imaginary Corpse is a recap-heavy scene, but in some roundabout ways it provides a nice encapsulation of what the book is about.

I slump into Mr Float’s Rootbeerium with my head hung low, belly up to one of the cake-stools, and order two double-scoop floats, heavy on the whipped cream.

This opening paragraph is a good summation of the surface imagery of the book: surreal and childlike.

The Legion is swapping quips and war stories like usual, but it doesn’t take my detective stuff to hear the tension in their voices, or to see them taking turns watching the room over their shoulders. The news hasn’t hit them hard enough to make them abandon their favorite watering hole, but the idea isn’t out of the question yet.

Here you get to see Tippy's 'detective stuff,' his magical sixth sense that helps him interpret clues and provide details his normal consciousness might not pick up. You also see the more complex emotions backing up the phantasmagorical exterior of the book, and a hint about the effects the denizens of the Stillreal have on each other, both positive and negative – a theme that will come back again and again. Most important here is that Tippy is concerned by their upset, which says a lot about who he is.

Mr Float swings by, his bar towel now flecked with root beer and cream, and drops off a glass that might qualify as a vase. It's comfort food – a foaming, towering, foot-plus-tall heap of comfort food. I bend the extra-long straw to my lips, take a sip of carbonated brain food, and review the clues.

This paragraph shows off a touch of the narrative voice. It also anchors the 'childish' elements in the more complicated narrative by showing them as both everyday and a source of comfort.

There are other pages I'd pick as the ideal summary of the book, but page 69 shows off a lot of the heart, and that makes it a reasonable success.

Visit Tyler Hayes's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Imaginary Corpse.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Sweetest Fruits"

Born in Saigon, South Vietnam, Monique Truong came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1975. Her novels include The Book of Salt and Bitter in the Mouth.

Truong applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Sweetest Fruits, and reported the following:

I didn’t write one word on page 69 of The Sweetest Fruits. Thank goodness because there are glaring historical inaccuracies. I’m a writer of fiction, but my third novel is a work of historical fiction, and facts are its flying buttresses, star anchors, and tie rods (mixing disparate architectural eras here). Instead, the writer was Elizabeth Bisland, the first biographer of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), a Greek-Irish author of over twenty books, who circumnavigated the world and who connected Elizabeth to the three women—Rosa, Alethea, and Setsu—whose first-person voices I did write. When Hearn passed away in Tokyo in 1904, he was well-respected and well-known as a Western expert on Japanese folklore, ghost stories, and cultural miscellany. Excerpts from Elizabeth’s biography of Hearn, published in the U.S. only two years after his passing, provide the official history of Hearn, while the voices of his mother and his two wives, the former born into slavery in Kentucky and the latter the daughter of a former samurai family in Matsue, Japan, calls that history into question. It’s this interplay between what is documented and what may have been lost or suppressed that is at the heart of The Sweetest Fruits.
--Monique Truong © 2019

Visit Monique Truong's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Sisters of Summit Avenue"

Lynn Cullen is the bestselling author of historical novels The Sisters of Summit Avenue, Twain’s End, Mrs. Poe, Reign of Madness, and I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Sisters of Summit Avenue and reported the following:

From page 69:

After eight years, Ruth knew to wait to see if this was one of the days that he could talk. And to not expect that it would be. So often when she sat with him, he couldn’t even open his eyes. They would quiver under his lids while his mouth and fingers twitched, like a long-dead monster coming back to life. No wonder the kids were afraid of him.

She took a deep breath and entered.

His eyes were open.

She cocked her head with surprise. “Hello.”

The “long-dead monster coming back to life” is John, a once-vital young man suffering from what was commonly called “sleeping sickness.” Millions of patients fell ill with encephalitis lethargica during a worldwide epidemic from 1915 to 1926. Many died, including the wife of the richest man in America, J.P. Morgan. Others, like John, and like my own grandfather, survived, only to be mostly confined to bed, sometimes lingering for decades. There was nothing wrong with the sufferers’ bodies. The victims retained all of their senses and were capable of moving—they simply could not stay awake long enough to interact. They could hear their families and see them, just not often join them.

This epidemic that affected so many lives is now relatively unknown. How did it drop from public consciousness? Because it ran its course at the same time as the Spanish Influenza epidemic? Because World War I and then rebuilding after the war commanded everyone’s attention? Or was it because of the mores of the time, families were embarrassed to have invalids at home, and so they kept it quiet? There were no public services to help patients and their families even if they did report an illness, so perhaps many long-term cases simply dropped from sight.

In The Sisters of Summit Avenue, set in 1934 in the middle of the Great Depression, one sister, June, is always golden. She marries well; she’s wealthy; she’s beautiful; she’s such a perfect hostess that she works developing recipes for that beloved food goddess, Betty Crocker. The other sister, Ruth, is the black sheep. She’s losing her husband’s family farm; she’s a little plain and way too blunt; her husband is bedbound with sleeping sickness. Yet each sister desperately wants something the other has. Page 69 hints at what that might be.

Learn more about the book and author at Lynn Cullen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Nanny"

Gilly Macmillan is the Edgar nominated and New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew, The Perfect Girl, Odd Child Out, I Know You Know, and The Nanny. She grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire and lived in Northern California in her late teens. She worked at The Burlington Magazine and the Hayward Gallery before starting a family. Since then she's worked as a part-time lecturer in photography, and now writes full-time. She resides in Bristol, England.

Macmillan applied the Page 69 Test to The Nanny and reported the following:

Page 69 is the start of a chapter about the detective investigating the human remains found at Lake Hall. Detective Andy Wilton, who is working class and no lover of the English upper classes, arrives at Lake Hall to interview Lady Virginia Holt. It’s not his first glimpse of the property but it is the first time he’s been inside, and he drinks it in, half-impressed, half-revolted that some people can own so much. It’s a great window into the tension between social classes that runs through the book and also the extremely privileged world that Virginia Holt and her family occupy. It hints at the fact that the Holts think themselves above the law. Andy also glimpses Ruby, Virginia’s eleven-year-old granddaughter, who is standing on the staircase, all dressed up in her grandmother’s clothes and luridly made up in her make up. Andy thinks of a David Lynch movie, emphasising how alien he finds the environment he has stepped into, and how surreal. The strangeness of the scene and the combative responses of Lady Virginia introduce a hint of menace.

Visit Gilly Macmillan's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Nanny.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Swipe Right For Murder"

Derek Milman has worked as a playwright, screenwriter, film school teacher, DJ, and underground humor magazine publisher. A classically trained actor, he has performed on stages across the country and appeared in numerous TV shows, commercials, and films. Milman currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he writes full time.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Swipe Right for Murder, his second novel for young adults, and reported the following:

I think page 69 is representative of the novel. Aidan, our hero, has hooked up with an older man at a ritzy hotel (via app) and the man has wound up dead. Getting embroiled in a gay terror group called The Swans, and being hunted by them and the Feds, Aidan has gone on the run, and he pretty much stays on the run for most of the story. The book has a lot of movement, Aidan always in flight. On page 69 Aidan has traveled from upper Manhattan to a warehouse party late at night in glowing, kaleidoscopic Brooklyn, where he's trying to convince his slightly drunk, slightly stoned best friend Jackson that he's in serious trouble. Jackson, in turn, is trying to get Aidan to examine some of his reckless behavior which led to all this drama to begin with. They're both blurry and off-kilter, in their own ways, not quite seeing the other person in front of them. Anyway, Aidan nabbed a flash drive from that hotel room, which curiously contains loads of photos of himself, even ones going back to him at school, and he needs to find out why, and soon. It's life or death.

Visit Derek Milman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Scream All Night.

Writers Read: Derek Milman.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Man with No Borders"

Richard C. Morais's books include the New York Times and international bestseller The Hundred-Foot Journey, a novel about an Indian chef who conquers the rarified world of French haute cuisine. The book sold in 35 territories around the world and in 2014 Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey released The Hundred-Foot Journey as a popular film starring Helen Mirren and Om Puri.

Morais applied the Page 69 Test to his newest novel, The Man with No Borders, and reported the following:

By chance, page 69 ends with the happiest day in the narrator José Maria Alvarez de Oviedo’s long life. It is the day, as a teenager, José catches a record 28 salmon on the Sella River in northern Spain, while helping his much-loved younger brother Juan catch his first salmon on the fly. At the end of the day, the boys joyously gather with their father and uncle in front of the fishing lodge, as the river guides lay out on the grass banks behind them all the fish the Alvarez family have caught that day. The family, drunk on fish and scotch, poses for a photograph before their salmon slaughter, just as the sun is setting “and the air around the fish is, for a glorious moment, imbued with a pink-and-blue rainbow shimmer.”

But Jose’s final observation is only about his brother: “Juan never looked more radiant and alive and full of hope for the future. One hand was lightly and possessively touching the flank of the first salmon he ever caught on the fly, but his other, it must be said, was wrapped tightly around my shoulder, pulling me close toward him.”

In many ways the entire novel is contained in those two final lines of the chapter – José is drawn in close by his brother, both Juan and the very air they breathe redolent with love and life and hope, but below the surface of this scene there is a faint sense of tragedy and foreboding and a longing to hold on to this special moment forever. But that is life – such moments slip through our fingers forever and remain, in the end, only as wispy visions in our fading memory.

Visit Richard C. Morais's website; watch a video of the author explaining why he wrote the novel.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Secrets of Lost Stones"

For as long as she can remember, Melissa Payne has been telling stories in one form or another—from high school newspaper articles to a graduate thesis to blogging about marriage and motherhood. But she first learned the real importance of storytelling when she worked for a residential and day treatment center for abused and neglected children. There she wrote speeches and letters to raise funds for the children. The truth in those stories was piercing and painful and written to invoke in the reader a call to action: to give, to help, to make a difference. Payne’s love of writing and sharing stories in all forms has endured.

She lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and three children, a friendly mutt, a very loud cat, and the occasional bear.

Payne applied the Page 69 Test to The Secrets of Lost Stones, her first novel, and reported the following:

The Secrets of Lost Stones is a book about loss, love, grief and survival and the redemption that comes with facing the past and letting it go. It is about Jess, a mother who endured the loss of her young son, and Star, a lonely teenage girl who believes her best option is to sleep under a city bench, and Lucy, a woman with a gift to tie them all together. I was surprised at how well page 69 highlighted one important aspect of this story. Star’s reluctance to trust anyone and her subsequent suspicion of Lucy’s intentions.

Star shook her head. “I-I…” Her bottom lip trembled, and she felt her eyes get wet. No, no, no. She would not cry. She pressed her lips together, waited for the moment to pass, then stood straight and crossed her arms. “You know about the accident?"

Lucy shook her head.

“Then how do you—” Star’s voice faltered, and she cleared her throat. “What do you want?”

Lucy sat back in her chair, resting her hands on the padded armrests. “Those are excellent questions, Star.”

She waited for her to continue, but Lucy tilted her head and gazed intently over Star’s shoulder. Her scalp tingled the way it might when someone stood just behind her. “Then why aren’t you answering me?”

Lucy smiled, piling the loose skin of her cheeks into soft folds around her mouth. “Give me time, girl. I don’t always understand what they want at first.”

Cool air brushed across her neck. She shivered. “What who wants?”

Lucy waved a hand in the air. “Never mind that for now. But you can trust me, Star.”

She snorted. “You want me to trust you? Then tell me why you want me to stay here. And how you know all those things about me. Tell me something.”

Lucy nodded. “I can’t tell you much yet, but I do know that the pieces are finally coming together, and I can promise you that it will all make sense in time.” Without another word, she rose from the couch and swept from the room, her black skirts swinging, leaving Star to ponder her cryptic words.

She should have left right then. Grabbed a handful of jewelry and sprinted for the bus stop. But she didn’t. She sat as though glued to the chair, her stomach twisted into knots.

Star wants to believe that Lucy can help her, that Lucy has the answers that will make everything better. But up to this point in her life, her experience with adults has shown her otherwise. Yet Lucy’s mysterious way of knowing things, her interest in Star’s well-being and the very fact that she wants to help Star, touches on Star’s deepest desires. To be loved and part of a family again. And this moment on page 69 is the jumping off point for Star because she could leave and return to the life she thinks she deserves, yet she doesn’t. In fact, this is the first moment in a long time when Star decides to take a leap of faith and put her trust in an adult. And who better than Lucy, the witch of Pine Lake.

Visit Melissa Payne's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Melissa Payne & Max.

My Book, The Movie: The Secrets of Lost Stones.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Vexations"

Caitlin Horrocks's story collection This Is Not Your City was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Another story collection, Life Among the Terranauts, is forthcoming from Little, Brown in 2021. Her stories and essays appear in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The Paris Review, Tin House, and One Story, as well as other journals and anthologies. Her awards include the Plimpton Prize and fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the MacDowell Colony.

Horrocks applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, The Vexations, and reported the following:

There are five main characters in The Vexations: the book circles around Erik Satie, the French composer (1866-1925), but also contains chapters told from the points of view of his brother Conrad, his sister Louise, his friend and collaborator Philippe, and a romantic interest, the painter Suzanne Valadon. All of the characters are based on historical counterparts. Page 69 falls during the first Philippe section, when he’s newly arrived in Montmartre, the arty Paris neighborhood that he’s been building up in his head throughout his childhood in Tarragona, Spain. Philippe is desperate to be part of a community of artists, and will soon be equally desperate for money. He’s met a young Erik Satie at the Chat Noir, and Erik has proposed setting some of Philippe’s poems to music:

Not sure which poems Erik might want, Philippe swept into his bag the whole row of notebooks on the single shelf in the room he’d rented at an address Erik had suggested, near the top of the Montmartre Butte, the highest point in the city. The pricier, flatter part of the neighborhood lay at the bottom of streets so steep that Philippe had to throw his weight backward from his hips as he walked, wary of his slick, worn shoes on the cobblestones. Happily, he’d had no heavy luggage to bring up the hill, where horse-drawn cabs refused to go. Like all the other men and women who filled the streets around the Place du Tertre, he lived lightly, with what he could carry on his back.

I think page 69 is representative of the novel in its effort to imagine and depict the realities of living in a place and time that by now has layers of clichés crusted over it. Belle Époque Montmartre didn’t actually look like a Toulouse-Latrec poster for the Moulin Rouge cabaret, so what did it look like? There’s a romance to our idea of the “starving artist” that I’m guessing the artist himself did not feel when he was literally starving. Art-making has always seen its share of hustle, exploitation, and hard decisions about where and how to make rent. Not every character shares these concerns, and I hope readers who wouldn’t normally gravitate towards a book with a lot of music or artists in it will still find plenty to enjoy in this novel. But I hope the book does justice to the realities of the time and place, in both the Philippe sections and elsewhere.

Visit Caitlin Horrocks's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Devotion"

Madeline Stevens is a writer from Boring, Oregon currently based in Los Angeles.

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

Page 69 of Devotion is entirely made up of Lonnie’s journal entries, or, more accurately, Ella’s memory of them. It begins, “These men are both exactly the same and completely different,” ends on, “Something awful is going to happen,” and gets quite sexual in the middle! This, does, funny enough, feel very representative of the rest of the book to me. It's secret information, stolen from a hiding place. It also encapsulates the themes of doubling I’m playing with, not just with the men but with Lonnie and Ella, as well as the underlying darkness and dread that runs alongside that doubling. Finally, structurally, Ella’s rewriting of Lonnie’s journal says a lot about her simultaneous attempt to erase and recreate her.

Visit Madeline Stevens's website.

My Book, The Movie: Devotion.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Remembering the Dead"

A two-time winner of the Bloody Words (Bony Blithe) Award for Canada’s best light mystery, Elizabeth J. Duncan is the author of two series of traditional mysteries: the Penny Brannigan series set in North Wales and Shakespeare in the Catskills featuring costume designer and amateur sleuth Charlotte Fairfax. A former journalist, public relations practioner, and college professor, Duncan is a faculty member of the Humber School for Writers. She divides her time between Toronto, Canada, and Llandudno, North Wales.

Duncan applied the Page 69 test to Remembering the Dead, the tenth title in the Penny Brannigan mystery series and reported the following:

From page 69:

She stepped onto the gravel path that ran alongside the house and moved through the velvety blackness toward the light. The rain that had been falling heavily earlier had slowed to a soft drizzle.

“Lane,” she called. “Are you out here? It’s Penny. Are you all right?” When there was no response, she tried again. “You’re not in any trouble, Lane. We just want to know you’re all right.” She paused, straining to hear something to let her know that Lane was nearby, but there was no movement, no response, only muffled and indistinct voices coming from the car park. And then came the chirping of car door openers, followed by the sound of doors being opened and closed and engines starting up. Oh, no, she thought. Emyr’s let the guests go home. Why would he do that?

Dressed only in a pair of black trousers and a white shirt, to fit into the background with the waitstaff, and shivering in the freezing night, Penny realised it would be faster to continue on toward the back door rather than retrace her steps to the scullery. Hugging her arms to her chest again for warmth, she darted forward in the darkness, but lost her balance…

Well! Poor Penny. The dinner party she organized to mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War 1 has gone completely pear shaped. A waiter disappeared between courses and the young fellow who was meant to set up the coffee and dessert service, whom she is searching for in this scene, is nowhere to be found. But worst of all, a priceless Welsh artefact, the Black Chair awarded to Welsh poet Hedd Wyn, was stolen sometime during the dinner, which is why she’s dismayed that the host allowed his dinner guests to depart.

And just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, she’s one page away from discovering a fatally wounded young man.

You can bet this dinner party will be the talk of the town the next morning.

Remembering the Dead passes the Page 69 test with flying colours. It’s completely representative of the rest of the book -- in tone, setting, plot … every way that matters. But there’s more to the story … on other pages you’ll find stunning views of the Welsh countryside, delicious meals, and even a ferry ride across the Irish Sea to Dublin.

Learn more about the book and author at Elizabeth J. Duncan’s website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Ten Thousand Doors of January"

Alix E. Harrow is a part-time historian with a full-time desk job, a lot of opinions, and excessive library fines. Her short fiction has appeared in Shimmer, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Apex, and other venues. She and her husband live in Kentucky under the cheerful tyranny of their kids and pets.

Harrow applied the Page 69 Test to The Ten Thousand Doors of January, her debut novel, and reported the following:

Page sixty-nine of The Ten Thousand Doors of January reads:

She crawled animal-like into the sagging center of her rope bed. She felt rubbed raw, as if the grasses in the field had been sharp-edged, cutting away at that childish part of her that believed in adventure and magic.

She had lingered beside the ruins of the cabin all day, knowing the ghost boy would not appear but waiting anyway.

Perhaps there had never been an elsewhere, and she was simply young and lonely and foolish, and had dreamed up a story about a ghost boy and another world to keep herself company. Perhaps there was nothing at all except the rule-bound world of her aunts and grandmother, real as corn bread and dirt and just as dull.

And—as much as any one page could represent the other three-hundred-eighty-three—it’s pretty damn representative. It features a girl who wishes for other worlds but can’t find her way through to them. Longing and heartbreak and hope. A wistful nostalgia for a world that maybe never was. Check.

It also tells you something important about this book, which is that, despite the title, there are not actually ten thousand doors in this story. It’s not an adventurous romp through a hundred dazzling worlds—it’s much more about this world, and how desperately we need to escape it, and how hard it can be to find our ways out.

Visit Alix E. Harrow's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Last Train to London"

Meg Waite Clayton is a New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, most recently The Last Train to London. Her previous novels include the #1 Amazon fiction bestseller Beautiful Exiles; the Langum Prize-honored The Race for Paris; The Language of Light, a finalist for the Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (now the PEN/Bellwether); and The Wednesday Sisters, one of Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time.

Clayton applied the Page 69 Test to The Last Train to London and reported the following:

The Last Train to London is based on the true story of the kindertransport effort to get thousands of at-risk children out of Germany and Austria in the years before World War II began, and one extraordinary woman who lead the Vienna transports. That woman— the largely forgotten Dutch hero, Truus Wijsmuller (“Tante Truus”)—literally faced down the young and ambitious Nazi then in charge of Vienna, Adolph Eichmann (who would go on to devise “the final solution”), to bring Austrian children to safety.

Truus was, in real life, incredibly clever, and quite willing to use her wiles when it suited her purpose. The novel opens in late 1936, in the last 15 months that Austria was an independent country and Vienna a progressive city, before Hitler invaded. Part I alternates between Truus’s early efforts to bring small groups of children to safety from Germany, and the comfortable lives of two Viennese teenagers—an aspiring playwright and a young math prodigy he is sweet on.

Page 69 begins a chapter in which Truus is in Germany with her attractive friend Klara, to spirit 30 children across the border from Germany into the Netherlands. Truus has rescued small numbers of children before, but Klara is new to the effort. The two talk in a German train station as they await the arrival of the children:

Truus said, “Now, here is what I would like you to do: The soldier who will be overseeing the boarding of our carriage? Show him your ticket, and ask him in Dutch if this is where you belong. Perhaps you can express confusion that you are not in first class? But not too much confusion. We don’t want him to move you to a better carriage and leave me to tend thirty children alone. If he doesn’t know Dutch, pretend a poor knowledge of German, but enough to make him feel attractive. Do you understand?”

Klara looked doubtful. “We don’t have papers for the children?”

“We do, but it would be better if fewer questions were asked.”

The Dutch entry visas were real, thanks to Mr. Tenkink. The German exit visas might or might not be. Truus preferred to believe they were.

It’s a nice peek at Truus: What she is doing here is quite dangerous, but she plunges forward undaunted, or at least not so daunted as to be stopped. And it is based on a moment from her life.

I was so inspired by Truus—truly a female Schindler, yet a Dutchwoman even my Dutch publisher had never heard of. I hope The Last Train to London does justice both to the children she rescued and to the extraordinary Truus Wijsmuller.

Learn more about the book and author at Meg Waite Clayton's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"After the Flood"

Kassandra Montag is a poet and novelist. Her work has appeared in Mystery Weekly Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and Prairie Schooner, among other literary journals. She has won the Plainsongs Award, New Year's Poet Award, and 1877 Award.

Montag applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, After the Flood, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Daniel wouldn’t look me in the eye, and I felt tension coming off his body like steady heat.

“Maybe we should go, Pearl,” I said, setting my hands on her shoulders.

An old man from the table next to Daniel’s tottered toward us and laid a gnarled hand on my arm. He smiled widely, showing a mouth with few teeth. He pointed in my face.

“I see things for you,” he said, his voice coming out wheezy, stinking of alcohol and decay.

“Town prophet,” Daniel said, nodding to the old man. “He already told me my future.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“That I’d cheat death twice and then drown.”

“Not bad,” I said.

“You,” the old man pointed in my face again. “A seabird will land on your boat and lay an egg that will hatch a snake.”

This passage captures how different people grasp for control and meaning in different ways in this flooded world. The prophecy refers to Myra’s two daughters: seabirds are symbolic of Row, and snakes are symbolic of Pearl. As such, the passage touches on the primary conflict of the novel: Myra’s dilemma in choosing between protecting Pearl and rescuing Row. Daniel’s prophecy alludes to how he has cheated death once already (Myra saved him by fishing him out of the sea) and asks the question: will he really cheat death again? And if so, how?

In this passage, both Myra and Daniel are keeping secrets from each other about their motives, and prophecy—the belief in fate—creates a contrast to their grappling for control through deceit. This excerpt is a calm moment in the eye of the storm. A lot of the book features action-oriented passages: sailing through a storm, hand-to-hand combat, etc. I like how these moments of dialogue establish a bit more context for the reader. Page 69 is representative of the book in how it portrays the secrecy, dilemmas, and desires of these characters, though it is a quieter moment compared to other passages in After the Flood.

Visit Kassandra Montag's website.

My Book, The Movie: After the Flood.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Lightest Object in the Universe"

Kimi Eisele is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Longreads, Orion Magazine, High Country News, and elsewhere. She holds a master’s degree in geography from the University of Arizona, where in 1998 she founded You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography. She has received grants from the Arts Foundation of Southern Arizona, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Kresge Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Tucson and works for the Southwest Folklife Alliance.

Eisele applied the Page 69 Test to The Lightest Object in the Universe, her first novel, and reported the following:

From page 69:

She reached out and hovered her hand over the mirror. “Someone cleans this every day,” she said, nervously diverting attention to some- thing else. There was always a menial narrative to accompany polished brass and sparkling mirrors.

“Flora,” he said. “She’s from El Salvador.”

When the elevator stopped, Beatrix looked at Carson’s hand as he gestured for her to exit. She’d been noticing his body all day, the long bones that held him upright, the lean muscles of his arms, the gray of his eyes, and now, the strong tendons in his hands.

Once inside the apartment, as he folded his jacket over a chair, she reached for his arm.

Carson turned and brushed her hair off her face and tapped her fore- head gently. “Just making sure you’re really here.”

“Yes,” she said. “I am here.”

He was taller than she had remembered. She wondered, briefly, if June was there, somewhere, in his mind. He pulled her closer. He smelled like soap and wool. He reached beneath her hair to the back of her neck and pressed his other hand to her heart. He kissed her ears, temples, forehead, cheeks, nose. When he got to her mouth, he pulled away.

“I am here,” she said again, and reached her mouth to his.

Carson pulled her shirt up over her head. She pushed her head against his chest. He said her name slowly at first: “Bee-ah” then a quick “tricks.”

Ha! In some ways, this is the “money shot” of the novel. Pardon my slang. A love story set in the post-apocalypse, the book follows Carson, a high school principal on the East Coast, and Beatrix, a fair trade activist on the West coast, as they try to stay alive and find their way back to each other after a financial crash, flu, extreme weather, and a cyberattack have left the world in collapse. They’ve met in person only twice, prior to the crash and before the book opens. Once, when Beatrix gave a guest lecture to a classroom of students in Carson’s school, and months later when she returned to his city for a meeting, after they’d been corresponding long distance for nearly a year. The scene on page 69 recounts part of that second meeting, the love born over distance finally compressed to the space between their bodies, in the same room. It’s one of the novel’s few sex scenes. It’s very subtle. (In earlier drafts it was less so. Sex is hard to write well! Suggestion and metaphor are critical.)

The setup to their consummation reveals something about each character. This section is narrated from Beatrix’s point of view, so there is her attention to Carson’s body, revealing his physicality to both her and the reader. Beatrix demonstrates concern for the underdog, the underpinning of her activist life, noting as they ride the elevator that someone cleans it. Carson reveals the the name of that someone, which means he’s asked and remembered, a detail that illustrates his kindness and curiosity.

It’s one of the few times we see Carson and Beatrix together in the book. It’s an essential scene. The sexual tension between them is both released and established here. The fact of this moment is what propels Carson on a cross-country journey on foot along the railroad to find Beatrix. It is what gives Beatrix hope thousands of miles away as she collaborates with her neighbors to survive. And it’s one of the first glimpses of “the lightest object” itself, which you’ll discover more of if you read the book.

Visit Kimi Eisele's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Campusland"

Scott Johnston grew up in Manhattan and graduated from college in the 1980s. From there, Wall Street (Salomon Brothers of Liar's Poker fame) and a stint in Hong Kong. On the side, he opened a couple of nightclubs in New York City and wrote popular books on beer drinking and golf betting games. More recently, Johnston shifted gears and co-founded two tech startups. He lives in Westchester with his wife and three children.

Johnston applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Campusland, and reported the following:

Page 69:

Lulu Ubers to Manhattan

LULU WAS BACK among her people, here for the big On the Avenue shoot. Because she had no Tuesday classes, she’d taken an Uber (Sheldon’s account) the day before for the two-hour drive to Manhattan and spent the night at home. She hadn’t bothered to call and wasn’t surprised to find Sheldon away. Charlie, the doorman at her building since she was a child, greeted her warmly. “Hello, Miss Lulu. So good to have you home.” She liked to think she had a great relationship with all the doormen.

She arrived in time to meet up with some city friends at Debajo, the club of the moment. They all had fake IDs, even if for a certain crowd, at certain places, it really didn’t matter. Bottle service (Grey Goose) had been five hundred dollars a bottle, and at the moment she couldn’t recall if she’d paid or someone else had paid. Or perhaps she’d just left. Details were a bit hazy, but no matter. Someone paid, she was sure. Pretty sure.

She and her group called themselves the Snap Pack, owing to their habit of documenting their fabulousness on social media. They’d been featured last summer on a blog called the Rich Kids of Instagram. While she knew the site was meant to be mocking, she also knew that people were secretly jealous. One of her friends, Thea von Klaussen, had already launched a clothing line. Being back in the city reminded her that people were moving on while she sat in classes. She was here to play a little catch-up.

It was understood that the Avenue in On the Avenue magazine referred to Park Avenue, specifically between Fifty-ninth and Eighty-sixth Streets, an area

I'm going to say no, this page is not illustrative of the rest of the book. It's the beginning of a side misadventure for one of the principal characters, Lulu Harris. She has blown out of Devon University (where she is a freshman) for a couple of days to advance her social aspirations, which in no way include spending four years at college, even a great one like Devon (think Ivies).

Campusland features a variety of characters as they navigate a somewhat insane year. All have an agenda, particularly Lulu. The novel is very much intended to be an indictment of the extreme political correctness that has gripped our universities like a vice. For a random page to capture the essence of Campusland, you'd have to catch a bit of that.

Learn more about Campusland and follow Scott Johnston on Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Black Nowhere"

Reece Hirsch is the author of five thrillers that draw upon his background as a privacy attorney. His first book, The Insider, was a finalist for the 2011 International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel. His next three books, The Adversary, Intrusion, and Surveillance, all feature former Department of Justice cybercrimes prosecutor Chris Bruen. Hirsch is a partner at the San Francisco office of an international law firm and cochair of its privacy-and-cybersecurity practice. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife.

Hirsch applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Black Nowhere, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Silicon Valley is built on a lie, and it’s a lie told to the young.

They come to the Valley hoping to become the next Brin, Zuckerberg, or Dorsey, or at least to be a part of building something exciting and new. But the reality is very different. I’ve seen some of the best, brightest people I know squandering their youth as:

Unpaid interns;

Minimum wage “content generators”; and

Sales associates making hundreds of cold calls a day to make quarterly revenue projections for a buggy software product.

They’re grossly underpaid, but they’re told that they are receiving invaluable experience, and maybe even some sweet stock options—which more likely than not will be underwater if the company ever goes public. If the company tanks, and even if it doesn’t, they walk away after a year or two with very little. But their sweat drives the revenues that enable the company to go public. Note that I said “revenues,” not “profits,” because the idea that a business should turn a profit seems to have become an outdated concept, so Old Economy.

They take all the risk, those interns and content generators and sales associates, because they bet their twenties and thirties that the jobs will be worth it. And they pay the price, while the founders and the VCs have insulated themselves with their stock ratchets and golden parachutes. That tiny band of insiders typically makes millions, maybe even billions, even if the company crashes and burns.

And what do my peers and classmates get in return? A “fun” workplace painted in preschool primary colors with a tube slide connecting the floors. Branded shirts, hats, and backpacks. A kitchen with a wall of candy dispensers where you can have all of the M&Ms and yogurt-covered almonds you can eat.

Kyte may be illegal, but it’s still more honest than most Silicon Valley start-ups. We pay our coders and admins better than many of the Valley’s giants. We can’t provide health insurance or stock options given the nature of our relationship with the law, but at least we don’t pull a bait and switch. You get exactly what we promise you, and you take home real money—or at least real Bitcoin.

Our pirate ship is sailing. I can’t tell you how all this will end, but I can promise you an adventure. Let’s knock Silicon Valley on its ass and show them what a disruption really looks like. I hope you’ll join us.

We will never ask you to work for less money in exchange for a “learning opportunity” or a “fun work environment.” And I can promise you that we will never have a fucking candy wall.

Black Nowhere is loosely based on the rise and fall of the Dark Web drug marketplace Silk Road and the FBI investigation that brought it down. Nate Fallon is a brilliant Stanford physics graduate student who creates the Dark Web marketplace in my book, known as Kyte.

Nate’s site begins as an experiment in libertarian free-market economics but quickly becomes an enormously successful and profitable enterprise that puts him in the crosshairs of the FBI and a Mexican drug cartel. On pages 67-69 of Black Nowhere, Nate posts this entry from his Kyte Founders Journal, which quickly goes viral online. With this pronouncement, Nate is attempting to position himself as a successor to some of the titans of the tech industry whom he idolizes.

I think this excerpt passes the Page 69 test because it underlines one of the key themes of the book: the dark side of Silicon Valley’s optimism that technology “disruption” is always a good thing. I was fascinated by the Silk Road story that inspired Black Nowhere because that Dark Web marketplace followed the same arc as many wildly successful Valley startups with one important exception – it was a criminal enterprise. In this passage Nate Fallon is trying to portray his website Kyte as just a new and (he would say) more honest version of the classic Silicon Valley startup. As Fallon goes farther and farther to protect his growing empire, we see just how dangerous certain disruptive technologies can become.

Visit Reece Hirsch's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Insider.

The Page 69 Test: Surveillance.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Ventriloquists"

Evan Roxanna Ramzipoor is a writer based in California. She also works as a content marketer, writing about cybercrime and online fraud. She studied political science at UC Berkeley, where she researched underground literature in resistance movements and discovered the forgotten story of Faux Soir. Her writing has been featured in McSweeney's and The Ventriloquists is her first novel. She lives with her partner and a terrier mix named Lada. She is never far from a notebook or a pair of running shoes.

Ramzipoor applied the Page 69 Test to The Ventriloquists and reported the following:

From page 69:

The Gruppenführer carried on as if he hadn’t heard Aubrion. “I’ve singled out Colère not because it’s particularly well-written or crafted. It is not. It’s long-winded for a revolutionary paper. The people like simple, catchy sentences. You’ll corroborate that with a great many theories, I’m sure, Professor.” He nodded at Martin Victor. “However, there is something unique about this paper.” The Gruppenführer turned it over and flipped to the third page. “This column here. Dispatches from the High Command. What can any of you tell me about this column?” No one replied. “Anyone?” Even Aubrion remained silent. “Oh, come now. Must I resort to crude threats?”

“It was written by a Nazi turncoat.” Tarcovich took a drag on her cigarette. “A former oberführer, I think. It was mostly information about military movements, and the like.”

“As you know, that sort of column is very much in demand,” said Professor Martin Victor. He attempted to smooth his tie—a nervous, compulsive movement—but it tangled in his handcuffs. “After I returned from my investigations at Auschwitz back in ’41, and I wrote about—what I saw there...” Victor paled. “After that, the Belgian people were clamoring for more information on the atrocities, the horrors—the numbers. It’s always the numbers that get them. One hundred thousand refugees. Twenty-two thousand casualties. You know. There became a great demand for information about what Germany has been doing, what its goals are.”

“And the column was born,” Mullier supplied.

“All we needed was a Nazi willing to sell himself.” Tarcovich smiled.

Wolff nodded. “Except that there was no Nazi traitor, was there? He is a fiction.”

When we reach page 69, our ragtag heroes have been captured by the Nazis. They’re sitting around a table listening to their captor, Gruppenführer Wolff, tell them why he’s brought them here: to force them to create a Nazi propaganda newspaper or be killed.

Wolff introduces the heroes to the concept of “black propaganda,” which is designed to look like it came from one source when it actually came from a different one. As he speaks, Marc Aubrion—who’s been roughed up for giving the guards some lip—comes up with a crazy idea to undermine the Nazis.

I love this conversation because it sets up a theme of the novel: the malleability of truth. In this era of “fake news,” we generally view propaganda and fake content as uniformly bad. But The Ventriloquists turns that idea on its head. The novel is about a group of people who want to tell the truth—to use their voices in a world that has become hostile to free expression. But to do that, they create a fake newspaper.

Seems counterintuitive, right? Not if you’re a misfit writer with nothing to lose…

Visit E.R. Ramzipoor's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Evan Ramzipoor & Lada.

My Book, The Movie: The Ventriloquists.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blood of an Exile"

Brian Naslund had a brief stint in the New York publishing world but quickly defected to tech in Denver where he does internet marketing.

Naslund applied the Page 69 Test to his debut novel, Blood of an Exile, and reported the following:

As fate would have it, page 69 of Blood of an Exile is mostly comprised of a sex scene.

In terms of being representative of the book, that’s tricky. There are only two sex scenes in Blood of an Exile, so if you were to read this page and expect it to signal tons of steamy romps between the fantasy sheets, you’d be disappointed.

But, beyond the sex, this scene does encapsulate important aspects of the two main characters: Silas Bershad and Ashlyn Malgrave.

I actually can’t get into many details without introducing some spoilers, so I will say this: both of them are carrying large secrets—from each other and from the world—that are hinted at on this page. The secrets have major implications for the story, and by the end of Blood of an Exile, both of them have come to terms with the secrets, and burdens, they carry.

There are also a lot of things that this scene lacks in terms of representing the entire book. Among them: dragons, swords, a love and deep respect for nature and animals, and a band of misfits bullshitting by a campfire.

Visit Brian Naslund's website.

My Book, The Movie: Blood of an Exile.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Glass Woman"

Caroline Lea was born and raised in Jersey in the United Kingdom. She lives in Warwick, England.

Lea applied the Page 69 Test to The Glass Woman, her second novel, and reported the following:

How appropriate that much of page 69 demonstrates Jón’s suffocating control over his fearful new wife, Rósa, who is eating a meal alongside him, while horrifyingly aware of the rumours about the death of his first wife, Anna. Much of the scene depicts the way in which menace can often rest in the unspoken: “the bread is like ash on Rósa’s tongue”, while her husband “rips into” his meal. Domestic dramas often take place on a deceptively quiet stage: the kitchen and bedroom become the focal points of fear. I wanted The Glass Woman to explore gaslighting and claustrophobia, and this is certainly overwhelmingly present on page 69: Jón tells Rósa, gruffly, “You must care for yourself. Your life is important, now you are my wife.” I wanted to portray the way in which rigid control can seem, on the surface, to be love and concern.

However, page 69 doesn’t demonstrate some other crucial elements of the novel: the breathtaking ferocity of the Icelandic landscape, which may swallow a person whole; the intense terror created by Iceland’s mythology of the menacing huldufólk, the hidden people. Nor does page 69 make mention of the Icelandic witch trials, and the threat they represent to all the characters.

I love writing about the collision of public and private worlds, and the way we hide secrets from each other, and from ourselves. There’s no mention here of the mystery and menace surrounding the death of Jón’s first wife, or of the locked loft and the strange noises that so horrify Rósa. Nor does this page allude to the sweeping love stories, which ultimately imperil all of the characters.

The Glass Woman is suffused with darkness and intensity; page 69 captures some of the novel’s drama, but not its full savagery.

Learn more about The Glass Woman, and follow Caroline Lea on Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue