Malinenko applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, This Appearing House, and reported the following:
I love the idea of the Page 69 Test as a means to discover if you will like a book. If a reader turns to page 69 in This Appearing House they be at the last page of chapter 7 which is the moment Jac, followed by her best friend Hazel, and two neighborhood boys – John and Sam – enter the House for the first time. They also discover they can’t leave.Visit Ally Malinenko's website.
And that they are not alone in the House.
This is the excerpt:They could only watch with horror as, from that darkness, long, thin, gray fingers appeared behind John’s head. They stretched out of the dark, wet hands on the ends of impossibly long arms. And as they watched, someone – something – grabbed John Johnson and dragged him into that dark room, the door slamming tight behind him.I think this is a great example because it is the first introduction to the Mourner – a creature that lives in the House and because you get a sense – even in this small bit – of how the House works. Prior to page 69 Jac, our main character has been struggling. She’s had a fall from her bike, some dizziness and possibly some hallucinations all of which has prompted Jac’s mother to schedule an MRI to make sure that the childhood cancer she survived hasn’t returned. But when a House appears at the end of the dead end drive in her neighborhood, Jac is drawn to it. Now that they have entered the House, they find they cannot get out. The front door leads only to more doors. And the creature inside the House is hungry for Jac. If readers continued to page 70 they would begin the long mad descent into Jac's very own Haunted House.
They heard a scream for just a moment before it, too, was swallowed up, and then there was nothing.
Q&A with Ally Malinenko.
The Page 69 Test: Ghost Girl.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
