community for 14 years in both England and Scotland, working with students who use BSL (British Sign Language), and began losing her hearing in her twenties. She lives in North Lincolnshire with her husband and son. Pattison is the author of novels The Silent House, which was a USA Today bestseller, Silent Night, and The Silent Suspect, featuring British Sign Language interpreter Paige Northwood.
Pattison applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, Nowhere to Hide, and reported the following:
On page 69 of Nowhere to Hide, we find a group of people preparing to go out for a hike on 26th December. They’re discussing whether it might snow, and it’s obvious there’s tension between several members of the group for different reasons. The chapter is narrated by Lauren, and on this page we see some of her simmering annoyance at her sister, Emily. We also get a brief suggestion that something has happened recently to set them on edge, something involving Alec, one of their group.Follow Nell Pattison on Twitter.
This test works in part for Nowhere to Hide: page 69 would give the idle browser an insight into some of the characters, and a clear indication that this isn’t a group of people who all get on well, with some foreshadowing that the weather might cause them some problems along the way. It gives an air of tension and possibly foreboding that, if the characters had noticed it, might have saved someone’s life. However, this page doesn’t fully illustrate the extent of the fast-paced action that comes slightly later in the plot, or the terror of being in an isolated setting with a killer on the loose.
One thing this page might do is raise a lot of questions about the characters, that would hopefully make the person who picked it up want to read more. Why is Emily there if she clearly doesn’t like outdoor pursuits? Why is Lauren trying to hide her dislike of her sister? Why is Dan so secretive, and what trauma is he processing? And what did Alec say in the pub a few nights ago that has led everyone to distrust him? All of the characters are hiding something, and these secrets will gradually be revealed throughout the course of the action.
The idea for this book came as I was walking around a nature reserve in the north of England with my husband, and I realised how somewhere so beautiful could easily be turned into a frightening setting given the right circumstances. The action in the novel takes place over just a few hours, beginning with the characters meeting up at the nature reserve, then following them on their hike until disaster strikes, and they end up separated. Each character is involved in narrating the story, meaning the reader gets to see the plot unfold from different perspectives, but who can we believe?
--Marshal Zeringue
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