"The Berlin Apartment"

Bryn Turnbull is an internationally bestselling author of historical fiction. Equipped with a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews, a Master of Professional Communication from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Bachelor's degree in English Literature from McGill University, Turnbull focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record.

Her debut novel, The Woman Before Wallis, was named one of the top ten bestselling works of Canadian fiction for 2020 and became an international bestseller. Her second, The Last Grand Duchess, came out in February 2022 and spent eight weeks on the Globe & Mail and Toronto Star bestseller lists. It was followed by The Paris Deception, which came out in May 2023.

Turnbull applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Berlin Apartment, and reported the following:

Given my familiarity with The Berlin Apartment (slightly more than glancing), I felt that I wasn't the best equipped to undergo the Page 69 Test - rather, I enlisted the services of a friend who agreed to act as guinea pig on my behalf.

But first, a quick summary of the book. The Berlin Apartment opens on a sunny summer's day in 1961, where we meet Uli, a student in his final year at the Free University in West Berlin, showing his fiancée Lise the apartment he bought for them, close to the open border that divides West Berlin from East. When the Berlin Wall goes up, Lise finds herself on the "wrong side", so to speak: though technically she's East German, she's built her life in the expectation of one day coming west but, as for so many, the erection of the Wall stops her future in its tracks. What follows is a story of love, loss, betrayal and redemption, as Uli embarks upon building a tunnel to rescue Lise from East Berlin and Lise strives to conceal her plans to flee from the watchful eyes of the East German secret police.

Back to my guinea pig. What he got out of the page was, in fact, a pretty accurate sense of what the novel entails. In the scene in question, Lise, our East German protagonist, is applying for a job in East Berlin - a job which she doesn't have any real interest in having, given that the life she wants to live, with the father of her unborn child, exists on the other side of the Berlin Wall. The scene alludes to the invisible but all-too-real control wielded by the East German state over its people; Lise worries about the impact that her actions, whether in staying in East Germany or going, will have on her East German family. The word that stood out most to my guinea pig friend was at the very bottom of the page: surrender. Surrender - or the perception of surrender - to the State was part of survival in East Germany, and it's this tightrope that Lise strives to walk as she accepts the job, knowing all the while that her real future is inching ever closer, beneath her feet, as Uli digs.

Visit Bryn Turnbull's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Paris Deception.

The Page 69 Test: The Paris Deception.

Q&A with Bryn Turnbull.

My Book, The Movie: The Berlin Apartment.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Brothers Kenney"

Adam Mitzner is the acclaimed Amazon Charts bestselling author of Dead Certain, Never Goodbye, and The Best Friend in the Broden Legal series as well as the stand-alone thrillers A Matter of Will, A Conflict of Interest, A Case of Redemption, Losing Faith, The Girl from Home, The Perfect Marriage, and Love Betrayal Murder. A practicing attorney in a Manhattan law firm, he and his family live in New York City.

Mitzner applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Brothers Kenney, and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Brothers Kenney is ironically the first page I wrote. When I initially considered writing about a former track star brought low, the idea came to me in the form of envisioning a race.

Sean Kenney, the protagonist of The Brothers Kenney, was once a world-class 1,500-meter man. Page 69 finds him running in the NCAA championships. More specifically, he’s entering the bell lap, the point in a race when a runner must disregard the burning in his lungs and the pain in his legs and the will to win takes over.

Another important part of my pre-writing conception of the book was the mantra of Sean’s coach. Inspired by Coach Taylor in Friday Night Lights (“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose”) Sean refers to it as Coach Pal’s prayer: Leg’s fast; mind faster; heart unstoppable.

There are several races in the book, told as flashbacks, which provide the framework for the story. Each showcases what Sean Kenney was once capable of and begs the question whether, even though his running days are long past, he can again find that best part of himself and thereby obtain redemption for his past failures.

In that way, page 69 is a snapshot of what the book is about – showing Sean at the height of his powers and raising the specter of whether he can rise to the challenges he now confronts as he did those back in his glory days.

Visit Adam Mitzner's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Conflict of Interest.

My Book, The Movie: A Conflict of Interest.

The Page 69 Test: A Case of Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: A Case of Redemption.

The Page 69 Test: Losing Faith.

My Book, The Movie: Losing Faith.

The Page 69 Test: A Matter of Will.

My Book, the Movie: A Matter of Will.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Marriage.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Marriage.

Q&A with Adam Mitzner.

Writers Read: Adam Mitzner (May 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Love Betrayal Murder.

The Page 69 Test: Love Betrayal Murder.

My Book, The Movie: The Brothers Kenney.

Writers Read: Adam Mitzner.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Havoc"

Deborah J Ledford is the award-winning author of the Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran suspense thriller series, including Redemption and Havoc, set in Taos, New Mexico. Part Eastern Band Cherokee, she is an Agatha Award winner, The Hillerman Sky Award Finalist, and two- time Anthony Award Finalist for Best Audiobooks Crescendo and Causing Chaos from her Smoky Mountain Inquest Series set in the great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Ledford lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband and awesome Ausky.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her newest release, Havoc, and reported the following:

From page 69:

It was a long drive back to the Windy City so Optum had plenty of time to ponder the next elements with his clueless partner, far more suited to play teacher than entrepreneur home builder. He would have Salas establish a formal corporation next month so that all financials would appear legit. A lot of his boss’s money would be run through what would incrementally become a large-scale venture. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands—hell, why not millions—could be laundered.

The possibility bloomed and his heart thudded a quick beat, which grew even more rapid when he approached the street that led to the bank he’d hit earlier that morning. He craned his neck to get a better look. Yellow police tape remained strung across the road and a police cruiser, parked sideways, denied entry.

He thought about the night before when, always the cautious criminal, he had pulled on nitrile gloves, scrubbed a toothbrush dipped in bleach over the entire 3D printed handgun and ammunition to be sure any possible fingerprints or DNA residue would not be traced to him or Salas. Then he had loaded the rounds into the magazine and assembled the gun as Salas instructed. Maybe he hadn’t paid good enough attention to putting the thing back together but it turned out to be a useless hunk of plastic.

He knew that timing was crucial when it came to pulling off a perfect crime, essential to stick to every step and movement he rehearsed in his mind for multiple hours, sometimes days, before he initiated his fully formed plan. One second off, a single deviation from the intent, and you’re fucked. The fake gun could have cost him way more than time. He smiled. Because that was the fun of it. The rush. The adrenaline pump. The not knowing if he would survive the transgressions.

Although the main location of Taos, New Mexico, nor any of the Native American characters at the heart of Havoc are featured, the Page 69 Test is valid for Havoc, primarily because the page features illicit 3D guns, which becomes the inciting incident introduced in Chapter 1. This portion shows the antagonist at the height of his pre-planning stage to make 3D gun production profitable for his crime syndicate boss—and that anyone who stands in his way is expendable.

Visit Deborah J Ledford's website.

Q&A with Deborah J Ledford.

The Page 69 Test: Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: Redemption.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Cold, Cold World"

Elena Taylor spent several years working in theater as a playwright, director, designer, and educator before turning her storytelling skills to fiction. Her first series, the Eddie Shoes Mysteries, written under the name Elena Hartwell, introduced a quirky mother/daughter crime fighting duo.

With the Sheriff Bet Rivers Mysteries, Taylor returns to her dramatic roots and brings readers much more serious and atmospheric novels. Located in her beloved Washington State, Taylor uses her connection to the environment to produce tense and suspenseful investigations for a lone sheriff in an isolated community.

Taylor is also a senior editor with Allegory Editing, a developmental editing house, where she works one-on-one with writers to shape and polish manuscripts, short stories, and plays.

Her favorite place to be is at Paradise, the property she and her hubby own south of Spokane, Washington. They live with their horses, dogs, and cats. Taylor holds a B.A. from the University of San Diego, a M.Ed. from the University of Washington, Tacoma, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new Sheriff Bet Rivers mystery, A Cold Cold World, and reported the following:

A snowstorm rages in the tiny, mountain town of Collier, Washington, at the same time that Sheriff Bet Rivers questions a teenaged girl about the movements of her friend the previous day. The friend is a boy who died in a snowmobile crash high on a ridge. The teenager is angry and a little snarky, which Bet fully understands, as Aimee has been left behind at home by her parents and her closest friend while the power is out and the storm rages all around her. Bet needs the information the girl has but is also sensitive to the teen’s situation. Bet can’t tell Aimee that her friend is dead, which makes it harder to ask her questions because she can’t share any information in return. She’s thoughtful, but professional, and under a lot of stress to determine what caused the accident.

Page 69 provides an excellent idea of one aspect of the book, which is that of Bet’s processes as a sheriff investigating a crime. There is a summation of recent events in her mind as she questions the girl, and readers can also see how Bet thinks about people. What it doesn’t do is show the action that takes place in much of the book. A Cold, Cold World is a mystery, not a thriller, but it does have a lot of physical, dangerous action. So, I would say this page does a great job of showing how thoughtful and methodical Bet can be when investigating a homicide, but doesn’t show the action sequences, such as pursuing suspects in the storm.

A Cold, Cold World is the second in the Sheriff Bet Rivers series. Bet is a lot more confident in her role as sheriff now that she was voted in and isn’t just there as an interim. However, Bet continues to work on her own identity in the role. She’s realizing that she’s never going to be the sheriff the way her father was (and his father before him), but that doesn’t make her better or worse, just different. A good example of that is on page 69. The teen shows embarrassment at admitting she’s afraid to be alone in the storm. Bet says, “I don’t like to be left alone in the dark either. That’s why I have a big dog.” This line illustrates how Bet is in the world. She’s okay admitting to something that could be perceived as a weakness, especially if it helps her connect to another person. I like that about Bet. Plus. I love the dog! Schweitzer is an Anatolian shepherd and definitely a fan favorite.

Visit Elena Taylor's website.

Q&A with Elena Taylor.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Poisonous Palate"

Writing as Lucy Burdette, clinical psychologist Roberta Isleib is the author of 24 mysteries, including the Key West food critic mystery series. Her most recent book is A Poisonous Palate, along with a cookbook based on the series (Lucy Burdette’s Kitchen.) Number 13, A Clue in the Crumbs, was a USA Today bestseller and Florida Book Award gold medal winner in popular fiction. Both A Dish to Die For and The Key Lime Crime won the bronze medal for popular fiction from the Florida Book Awards. She's a past president of Sisters in Crime, and currently president of the Friends of the Key West Library.

Burdette applied the Page 69 Test to A Poisonous Palate and reported the following:

Page 69 at the beginning of chapter 9 carries some important weight, but may not give the best idea of the whole book. Before I explain, I will show you the page:

“Almost every family has a secret they never discuss. Ours is this: We were taste testers for Pop-Tarts.”
—Laura M. Holson, “Confessions of a Pop-Tarts Taste Tester,” New York Times, October 6, 2023

I fired my empty coffee cup into the trash and walked two blocks to the Key Zest office. Once again, I felt baffled by the many moods of Catherine. How could one person be simultaneously imperious and grateful?

Palamina and Danielle had already gathered in Palamina’s office. My boss, Palamina, moved down from New York to Key West a few years ago to take charge of Key Zest, and she still struggled to adjust to the slower pace of island life. Danielle had worked at the e-zine as a receptionist almost from its inception. She was a native Key Wester—a Conch—who had embraced her engagement and upcoming marriage to a Key West police officer with the same ebullience she brought to her job and her friendships. At the moment, Palamina wore the expression of a cold-snap-stunned fish, so I suspected Danielle had been regaling her with the last-minute details of her Sunday wedding. She practically grabbed my hand to pull me in. “What do you have for us for next week?” she asked.

Why oh why couldn’t we have chosen a page highlighting some amazing cooking, or a pulse-pounding action sequence, or even some toe-curling sexy romance. (Oh wait, I don’t write that.) Instead, we find food critic Hayley Snow in transition from discussing possible sleuthing for a strong-minded woman intent on solving a cold case, to her arrival at the Key Zest office, where she works as a food critic.

I do like some of the character development on this page—Hayley’s confusion about this prickly woman who asked for help in the previous chapter, Danielle’s enthusiasm about her upcoming wedding, and their boss’s dismay at hearing too many nuptial details. But this page also highlights a big conundrum for the writer of a long running mystery series. A Poisonous Palate is number 14 in the Key West series, which means there will be a variety of consumers: loyal readers who have read every book in the series and know the characters better than I do, longtime readers who may have read the books but don’t have total recall, readers who’ve read some of the books but not all, and readers who are brand new to the series. One challenge is to summarize some of what’s happened in previous books, without plot spoilers and without tedium. The same goes for characters. I need to include enough information about recurring characters as they appear on the page so that new readers can pick up without getting lost, but without boring devoted fans. I hope I did that here on page 69!

Visit Lucy Burdette's website, Twitter perch, and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: An Appetite For Murder.

Writers Read: Lucy Burdette (January 2012).

The Page 69 Test: Death in Four Courses.

The Page 69 Test: A Scone of Contention.

My Book, The Movie: Unsafe Haven.

The Page 69 Test: A Dish to Die for.

--Marshal Zeringue

Katherine Blake's "The Unforgettable Loretta Darling"

Katherine Blake is a pseudonym for Karen Ball, an author who has written over twenty-five children’s books and was a Bookseller Rising Star thanks to her publishing consultancy, Speckled Pen.

She regularly appears on podcasts, including The Bestseller Experiment and SJ Bennett’s PrePublished. She lives in London and runs a biweekly newsletter filled with fun news, book reviews, and regular updates about her miniature schnauzer.

Blake applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, The Unforgettable Loretta Darling, and reported the following:

I’d never heard of the Page 69 Test, but the gods of typesetting had already gifted me a memorable page 69 in The Unforgettable Loretta Darling as she encountered a Golden Era Hollywood party…

From page 69:

Chapter 13

I never expected my first orgy to be quite this glamorous. It was full of actors, actresses, directors, producers, writers – all looking for distraction. And, boy, had they found it. The stars worked their butts off during the week, but on a weekend they partied hard.

Still, nothing had prepared me for this.

The smiles were painted on as thick as the Silver Stone No. 2 body paint some of the naked girls were smothered in as they paraded around in their swimsuits and feather headdresses. Clouds of blue cigar smoke billowed above our heads. Have you ever heard the rattle of a studio executive’s laughter? I tell you, it sends a chill down your spine.

I walked past a tight clutch of men in suits, one of them loudly complaining, ‘I brought the son of a bitch over from Europe, paid for his passage, and all he does is tell me that the story I paid eighty thousand for is no good.’ As one, the group turned and stared darkly at the oblivious young actor who was kissing a woman by the pool.

Primrose was still holding my hand and my grip tightened as we gazed around.

‘Keep smiling,’ she said from between clenched teeth. ‘Just keep smiling!’

Does my page 69 tell you everything that you need to know about the novel? Some. Loretta still has a lot to learn – not just about Hollywood but about herself. Still, it’s clear that she’s up to the task. How did I achieve that in so few words? Let’s take a look.

Loretta has a voice that spills out from chapter one. By page 69, we can be confident that she has the backbone of a whale, to take on whatever life throws at her. She’s not running anywhere, and certainly not from the best adventure that’s ever hit her. Or the best adventure she’s ever found, by bribing her way to America.

She’s arrived with ambitions to be a make-up artist and her future skills are already seeded in this extract as she recognises the body paints and the studio executives. She can describe the colours – the blue cigar smoke – and eavesdrop on gossip. In 200 short words, we understand who Loretta is, and what she faces. We are also certain that she’s going to survive and it won’t be by wearing Silver Stone No. 2 body paint…

Visit Katherine Blake's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Queen City Detective Agency"

Snowden Wright is the author of American Pop and Play Pretty Blues. He has written for The Atlantic, Salon, Esquire, and the New York Daily News, among other publications. A former Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellow at the Carson McCullers Center, Wright lives in Yazoo County, Mississippi.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Queen City Detective Agency, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“They were worried about the black-and-white police cruiser that had been parked across the street for hours.”

The Page 69 Test works well for my book.

Page 69 concludes Chapter Eight of The Queen City Detective Agency. The sentence above is the only complete one on the page.

Set in 1980s Mississippi, Queen City follows the private detective Clementine Baldwin, a former cop, as she investigates a high-profile murder. Chapter Eight ends with Clem waking up to realize that the DA’s office assigned a squad car to watch her apartment—not out of suspicion but concern for her safety. They’re afraid the Dixie Mafia will seek retaliation against the PI handling the case.

The last line of the chapter invokes the fraught relationship many people have with the police. The “they” who are worried about the police cruiser across the street are Clem’s neighbors, and as we learn in the next chapter, her neighbors, like Clem herself, are Black.

Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner...

Although Queen City takes places thirty years before the Black Lives Matter movement, I did my best to conjure it, a sort of ghost from the future. Writers of historical fiction often succumb to anachronistic virtue—making their historical protagonists improbably, if not impossibly progress-minded and pure-hearted—but the issues rooted in Black Lives Matter are, unfortunately, perennial. I couldn’t cite the moment by name, of course, but I could address racially motivated violence an discrimination committed by those who are supposed to protect and serve.

The line on page 69 is one of many like it in Queen City. A primary crux of the novel concerns how Clem Baldwin’s allegiances, as a woman of color and as a former badge, are pulled in two directions. She has faith in the law but also knows how often it’s broken by the very people meant to uphold it.

Visit Snowden Wright's website.

The Page 69 Test: American Pop.

My Book, The Movie: The Queen City Detective Agency.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blind To Midnight"

Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman is the New York Times-bestselling author of thirty-one novels—including six in Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series—short stories, poetry, and essays.

In addition to his acclaimed series characters, Moe Prager and Gus Murphy, he has written the stand-alone novel Gun Church and collaborated with decorated Irish crime writer Ken Bruen on the novel Tower.

Coleman is a four time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories: Best Novel, Best Paperback Original, and Best Short Story. He is a four-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards.

With their kids moved away to far off Brooklyn, Coleman, his wife Rosanne, and their cats live in the wilds of Suffolk County on Long Island.

Coleman applied the Page 69 Test to his new Nick Ryan novel, Blind to Midnight, and reported the following:

From page 69:

[In an oil painting]
A tall, elegant-looking man of forty stood beside a younger blond-haired woman who would have been equally at home on the cover of Vogue or House Beautiful. Seated in front of them were two teenage children, a boy and a girl. The girl, older than her brother had her dad’s looks. The boy, his mother’s. Nick recognized the boy. The photo array on the Steinway grand piano confirmed it. The kid was older now. He wasn’t covered in mud, nor was he begging for his life.

This is the totality of page 69, but it is revealing, because in two crucial ways, the plot revolves around the people in the painting. Earlier, Nick and his ersatz partner, Ace, rescue the boy in the painting from being executed. The reason for the attempted execution lies at the heart of the story, though at this point in the novel, neither Nick, the rescued boy, nor the boy’s mother, the blond-haired woman, Victoria Lansdale, have any notion of what is to come. One thing is clear, the Lansdales are wealthy and someone means to do some or all of them harm. Nick is conflicted about people of power and wealth because his heart is for the little guy, but the love of his life, Shana Carlyle is from a wealthy Park Avenue family. So while Nick wants no thanks for the rescue nor any part of the Lansdales, he cannot help but be drawn into their orbit.

I don’t know about the validity of the Page 69 Test. Sometimes, sure, page 69 is meaningful, but it is just as likely not essential to the story. In Blind to Midnight this seemingly innocuous passage happens to feature important players in what is to come. I think it’s a fun concept and it can be interesting to see how my fellow authors twist themselves into pretzels to find significance in their page 69s. This time, I got lucky.

Visit Reed Farrel Coleman's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Hollow Girl.

The Page 69 Test: Where It Hurts.

The Page 69 Test: What You Break.

Writers Read: Reed Farrel Coleman (March 2017).

My Book, The Movie: Sleepless City.

Q&A with Reed Farrel Coleman.

The Page 69 Test: Sleepless City.

Writers Read: Reed Farrel Coleman.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl"

Bart Yates is the Alex Award-winning author of novels including Leave Myself Behind, The Brothers Bishop, and The Third Hill North of Town, written as Noah Bly. He is also a musician, and plays clarinet, saxophone, and bass guitar. He lives in Iowa City, IA.

Yates applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl, and reported the following:

Page 69 of my book starts off with part of a scene that takes place in 1950, in a movie theater in Des Moines. The three main characters in the novel--Isaac Dahl (the narrator), Agnes (Isaac's twin sister), and Bo (Isaac's best friend)--are seated together in the same row of the theater, along with other Dahl family members, watching Walt Disney's Cinderella and squabbling amongst themselves instead of paying attention to the movie.

For somebody wanting to get an idea of what my book is about, page 69 is a great place to start. It features most of Isaac's family, and captures the playful spirit and complexity of their relationships. They're all smart, witty people who love each other deeply but also get on each other's nerves all the time---especially when it comes to the platonic love triangle of Isaac, Agnes, and Bo.

Visit Bart Yates's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The House on Cold Creek Lane"

Liz Alterman is the author of The Perfect Neighborhood, He'll Be Waiting, and Sad Sacked. Her work appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney's, and other outlets. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three sons where she spends most days microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms. When Alterman isn't writing, she's reading.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The House on Cold Creek Lane, and reported the following:

Page 69 in The House on Cold Creek Lane is written from Corey Sutton’s point of view. After suffering a devastating loss, this character moves to Florida to live with her mother in her retirement village condo. Corey takes a job at a garden center as a distraction. In this scene, the reader gets a glimpse into Corey’s state of mind and her inability to move on from the past that haunts her.

From page 69:

Rex was young, maybe twenty-five. He knew I wasn’t much for conversation. I kept my head down. Did the work. Being quiet made me mysterious, more interesting than I actually was.

We were clocking out around the same time the afternoon he saved me from that customer.

‘If you ever want to talk more about funguses, maybe we could get a drink sometime?’ His smile – that’s what got me. How long had it been since anyone had shown me kindness that wasn’t fueled by pity or twisted curiosity? Something stirred at the base of my body, a long-dead engine turning over, rumbling to life.

‘How about now?’ That stupid cactus clock ticked like a bomb as I stared at my boots and waited for his answer. What if he said, ‘Now? Really? We smell like manure,’ and I’d have to laugh it off or come back with some crack like, ‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realize you thought you were The Bachelor.’

What he’d said was, ‘I’ve got the perfect spot.’

Did I know what I was doing? That one drink would spill into four? That I wasn’t strong enough to resist the combination of his eyes and the water at sunset? That his calloused hand grazing mine to reach for the bar bill would be the same one that led me back to an apartment where we had hungry, urgent sex, once in the shower and then on the couch, its leather squeaking and sticking to our damp skin.

After, we laid there. His heart pumping so close to mine dragged me backward to Kenny, to the early days. I stared at the ceiling fan spinning to nowhere and felt the nothingness rush in, spreading through me like a disease.

‘That was . . .’ Rex let out a long whistle.

‘A mistake,’ I said at the same time he moaned, ‘Fantastic.’

‘Ouch.’ He laughed. ‘Is it ’cause I live with my parents? They’re on a cruise and I’m getting my own place, I swear.’

I shook my head. Hell, I lived with my mother in a retirement village. I wasn’t judging him. I couldn’t let it happen again because to feel good, normal, only to remember what my life had become, was too much. When we’d been pressed together, our bodies bumping hard and fast as pinball flippers, it swallowed me. Everything fell away. When it was over, guilt slammed me with the force of a hurricane. That’s when I vowed not to let anyone in again. To forget, even for a second, was a betrayal. I’d already failed Frankie enough.

At the risk of being non-committal, it’s hard to say if page 69 is truly representative of the novel because most of the story has an undercurrent of foreboding that the reader may not sense here.

Corey and the other main character, Laurel West (not discussed here), grapple with how the losses they’ve endured color and impact their judgement as they attempt to move forward with their lives.

This page isn’t characteristic of the novel’s tense and suspenseful tone but it does illustrate Corey’s sadness and how she punishes herself for what happened to her daughter, Frankie. She believes that if she experiences pleasure or allows herself to forget her child even for a moment, she’s betraying her.

This page also shows Corey’s sarcastic, snarky nature. Her refusal to create positive change or accept the help she’s offered propels the storyline, and in that way, it does pass the Page 69 Test. Maternal guilt and pressure are other themes I explore within the novel, and I think readers get a taste of that here.

Additionally, on this page, readers learn that Corey makes impulsive decisions when she asks Rex, ‘How about now?’ She doesn’t necessarily consider the consequences of her actions or how they affect others. As that reckless and restless side takes hold, it ultimately leads to the book’s dramatic conclusion.

I may have just talked (or written) myself into a “Yes, it does pass the Page 69 Test!”

Visit Liz Alterman's website.

Q&A with Liz Alterman.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Neighborhood.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Neighborhood.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Farewell to Arfs"

Spencer Quinn is the pen name of Peter Abrahams, the Edgar-award winning author of many novels, including the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery series, Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, The Right Side, and Oblivion, as well as the New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for younger readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana―and Dottie, a loyal and energetic member of the four-pawed nation within.

Quinn applied the Page 69 Test to A Farewell to Arfs, the newest Chet and Bernie mystery, and reported the following:

Here is page 69 of A Farewell to Arfs. Chet and Bernie are approaching a house where a buzzard has just landed on the roof. Chet is not a fan of buzzards. Bernie has just asked him if something’s wrong.

Not a thing. I put a stop to any barking that may or may not have been going on. We hopped out of the car, me actually hopping, and hopping big time. A shadeless house but maybe not shadeless forever: little trees were growing here and there in the yard. I was considering laying a mark on at least one of them when two kids came stumbling around from the back of the house. These were skinny kids, kind of tallish, perhaps the kind called teenagers. But I hardly noticed any of that. What caught my attention was what they wore on their faces, strange goggles that weren’t at all like little windows, were in fact like little walls surrounding the top part of their heads. They were bobbing and ducking and dodging, throwing a punch or two and shouting, “nice try!” and “whoops!”

Bernie laughed. “VR, Chet,” he said, which made no sense, and then he raised his voice and said, “Guys? Hey, guys!”

No response from the kids, who kept on doing whatever it was they were doing. Had I ever seen anything like this? Why, yes! Escaped hostages! I got ready for who knows what to emerge from behind the house, but before that could happen Bernie stepped forward and touched one of the kids on the shoulder.

The kid jumped right off the ground. Then he whipped off the gizmo. “Huh?” he said. “What the hell?” He got a good look at us and backed away. Meanwhile the other kid also took off his gizmo, also backed away. The first kid had a faint, fuzzy sort of mustache and a rat tail. The second kid had pimples but no mustache and no rat tail.

“It’s all right,” Bernie said. “I’m Bernie and this is Chet. Didn’t mean to interrupt. We’re looking for Billy Parsons.”

“He’s not home,” said the pimply kid.

“Is he your dad?” Bernie said.

“Sort of,” said the pimply kid. “Like stepdad.”

“What’s your name?”

“Felix,” said the kid.

Will you get a good idea of the whole work from this sample? Yes! But here’s the truth. A Farewell to Arfs is the fifteenth novel in the Chet and Bernie series (which can be read in any order, by the way). Plus there are a number of short stories. Back of the envelope calculation, call it 5000 pages total. But the point is you could have picked any one of the 5000 and it would have been a good representational choice. Why? Because every single word comes from the mind of Chet. He is the sole narrator. A dog, yes, but not a talking dog. He’s as canine as I can make him, and therefore an unreliable narrator in some ways and super-reliable in others. When I discovered that—by accident—I thought oh, boy, think of the possibilities, and I’ve been thinking of them ever since.

And as a bonus on this page 69 you get to see Chet and Bernie working a missing persons case (or what appears to be one), which is their specialty. It even includes some thematic material because virtual reality and AI specifically are important factors in the story. Hard to imagine how that could be in a dog-narrated novel? Nevertheless! Also we have an indication of some troubling family dynamics in the offing. Chet is great with kids, although you have to turn the page to see some of that.

Visit Spencer Quinn's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Audrey (September 2011).

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Pearl (August 2012).

The Page 69 Test: The Dog Who Knew Too Much.

The Page 69 Test: Paw and Order.

The Page 69 Test: Scents and Sensibility.

The Page 69 Test: Bow Wow.

The Page 69 Test: Heart of Barkness.

Q&A with Spencer Quinn.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Daughter of Fire"

Sofia Robleda is a Mexican author. She spent her childhood and adolescence in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. She completed her degrees in psychology at the University of Queensland, in Australia. She currently lives in the UK with her husband and son, and splits her time writing, raising her son, and working as a psychologist, supporting people with brain injuries and neurological conditions.

Robleda applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Daughter of Fire, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Normally, Father loved a banquet, just for the opportunity to publicly humiliate his enemies en masse. If left to his devices, he would’ve thrown a somber affair, a pitiful feast, to remind everyone present what he thought they deserved. But they’d gotten ahead of him that year. They’d written to the emperor to complain of last year’s meager portions, and said it was an insult to His Majesty’s honor.

Father had been ordered to provide. There was no argument to be had, and so the garden was sumptuously decorated. Since the weather was so pleasant, the tables were out in the open air, ornamented with the palace’s gold-embroidered cloth and silver dining set. The fountain in the middle of the main courtyard was draped in fruits and flowers. A harpist, brought in from Chiapas, plucked an airy tune as we made our way in, trailed by our many guests, who exclaimed as they took in the delights of the garden. Impeccably dressed servants in their blue livery rushed forward with wine served in Venetian glassware.

Father had done his duty, but by the look on his face, he’d rather have swallowed poison than bring so much joy to people he so disliked. People who constantly opposed him, who threatened him and the New Laws, every single day. His mood blackened as his two worst rivals, Bishop Marroquín and Captain Lobo, the lord treasurer, approached him together with broad, satisfied smiles. They gave me a small nod, which I hesitantly returned.

“Don Alonso, what a pleasant change from last year’s gathering,” said Captain Lobo, a grizzly, middle-aged conquistador who was as wolfish as his name. He had a scar across his left cheek and light hazel eyes that could’ve been mistaken for yellow. “Could this be a sign that times are changing for the better, perhaps?”

The feast was one of Lobo’s triumphs over Father, who forced a smile. “The emperor may want you to sup in splendor for the night. But his New Laws remain the same.”

“Come now, another two families left us in the last month. Good, honorable families, gone back to Spain,” said Bishop Marroquín, who was tall and slim, with a small white goatee and balding head. “I implored them to stay, but I had nothing to say against their protestations.”

Aghhhh, I’m super annoyed because if this test had been about page 68, then it would’ve passed with flying colors! All my main characters are mentioned on page 68, as well as Catalina’s aim and the mess she’s gotten herself into, all the barriers which are preventing her from achieving her goal of re-writing the Popol Vuh. There’s even a little excerpt where she recites a line from it! Plus, a bit about the beautiful scenery with the Guatemalan volcanoes in the background… sigh! But of course, this is about page 69.

Whilst page 69 really doesn’t do the book justice, this page does provide quite a good overview of the political and contextual backdrop for the novel from the viewpoint of the bickering Spanish settlers, two of which were real historical figures. It highlights their silly little intrigues and power plays, and some of the pressures Catalina’s father faces in trying to uphold the New Laws, which were meant to prevent the abuse of Indigenous people. It also shows the wealth which they’ve accumulated in the short time since their arrival.

I would hope the page would still draw readers in, particularly those who love historical novels set in the 16 th century, but are hoping for a fresh perspective.

Visit Sofia Robleda's website.

--Marshal Zeringue