nutshells, and even attend her birthday party. Tietjen lives in New England with her husband and two sons.
She applied the Page 69 Test to Death in the Details, her first novel, and reported the following:
On page 69, my main character, Maple, is interacting with Kenny (a young officer in the sheriff’s department) for the first time. He has just driven her home after she discovered a dead body across town:Visit Katie Tietjen's website.Kenny nodded once, solemnly. “Sometimes the wheels of justice turn slowly.”Page 69 gives a great little slice of plot and character, as it turns out! At this point in the story, Maple has discovered the body at the center of the mystery and has just met the character who will become her sidekick/ partner. Browsers who turn to this page will get a good sense of both Maple and Kenny’s personalities: her, prickly and brooding and him, eager and earnest.
Maple barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Enough is enough, she decided. Self-reflection was one thing. Sitting here enduring earnest cliches from a kid was another. Steadying the dollhouse with her left hand, Maple opened the door with her right and climbed awkwardly out as Kenny scurried around to the back and pulled Maple’s wheelbarrow out.
“Where can I put this for you, ma’am?”
He was so eager. It made her weary.
“Oh, just leave it there. Thank you, Kenny.” She shifted the dollhouse onto her hip and pulled out her house key from her coat pocket with her free hand.
“Uh, actually, ma’am, it’s Ken,” he said in a deeper voice.
“That’s how my—the sheriff should’ve introduced me.”
Maple’s supply of patient niceties had officially run dry. She let herself in her front door and closed it on Ken-not-Kenny’s goodbye.
To me, their relationship is one of the most fun aspects of the book. I had a blast writing their scenes together. They develop a deep mutual respect and friendship as the book progresses, but along the way their vastly different personalities and attitudes cause them to drive each other bonkers on multiple occasions.
My favorite part on page 69 is when she closes the door in his face mid-sentence because he’s irritating her and she just runs out of bandwidth; I think it’s an impulse many of us have, but one we rarely act on. Over the course of the story, she helps him get rid of his rose-colored glasses and he helps her shed some of her cynicism—transitions both of them needed to make in order to move forward in their lives, but likely wouldn’t have been able to make without each other’s influence.
--Marshal Zeringue