"Under a Sky of Memories"

Soraya M. Lane graduated with a law degree before realizing that law wasn't the career for her and that her future was in writing. She is the author of historical and contemporary women's fiction, and her novel Wives of War was an Amazon Charts bestseller.

Lane lives on a small farm in her native New Zealand with her husband, their two sons and a collection of four legged friends. When she's not writing, she loves to be outside playing make-believe with her children or snuggled up inside reading.

Lane applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Under a Sky of Memories, and reported the following:

From page 69:

After three weeks of almost-daily flights, the longest days Vita could have imagined, and a bone-deep tiredness that had them all falling asleep into bed each night as soon as they’d eaten, everything had come to a grinding halt.

Vita stretched and looked out at the endless expanse of water from their villa window, suddenly feeling like a bird in a gilded cage. In the beginning, she’d have done anything for some time off to spend lounging around and resting, but after days of doing nothing, she was bored. Not to mention she hated to think of all those troops in desperate need of being airlifted; how many would suffer or die just because they couldn’t get to them?

“Surely this weather can’t last,” she muttered to no one in particular.

“Want to play another game of cards?” Dot asked.

Vita turned and sighed, crossing the room and sinking into a chair at the table. “Alright, nut not rummy again, can’t we play something else?”

Dot shrugged. “Cheat?”

“I suppose so.” She wasn’t particularly enthused about playing any card game, but it beat pacing back and forth, staring out the window at the rain and the thick cover of clouds.

This is such a fun test! For my novel, page 69 is representative of the book, because it’s the start of a new chapter and it sets the scene for where the main characters are. My book was inspired by the true tale of a group of American nurses and medics who crash land behind enemy lines in Albania during WWII, and page 69 is them impatiently waiting for the weather to clear so they can board a plane. Their job is to transport injured soldiers from front line field hospitals, and they’re anxious to get back to work and save lives. What the characters don’t realise on page 69 is that the moment they board that plane, their lives will change forever, and they will end up very different characters by the end of the story, compared to the women they are before the crash. It’s a story of survival against all odds. So actually page 69 is a turning point in the novel - not that the reader knows it at that point!

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--Marshal Zeringue