"We Are Watching"

USA Today and international bestselling author Alison Gaylin has won the Edgar and Shamus awards. Her work has been published in the US, UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Romania and Denmark, and she has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Macavity, Anthony, ITW Thriller and Strand Book Award. In addition to her novels, she has published many short stories and collaborated with Megan Abbott on the graphic novel Normandy Gold.

Gaylin applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, We Are Watching, and reported the following:

At the start of page 69, We Are Watching’s Meg Russo is trying to balance some heavy emotions – the enduring grief over her husband’s death in a car accident that she believes herself responsible for, a lack of connection with her 18-year-old daughter, Lily, who has become increasingly distant in her grief, and the stress of reopening her bookstore for the first time since the accident. Overshadowing everything though, is the fact that her employee, Sara Beth, has told Meg that her estranged father Nathan Lerner has called, and she needs to call him back. It brings back some unpleasant memories:

Meg was a senior in high school when her mother when her mother died from MRSA, which she most likely contracted when she cut herself on a thorn in their rose garden. Mom and especially Dad were distrustful of modern medicine, so by the time they realized she was suffering from something that couldn’t be cured with nettles or dandelion tea, it was already too late. The antibiotics wouldn’t take. Meg came home from school to a note that read, Mom’s in intensive care, and days later, her beloved mother was gone. Meg was shell-shocked. That was the only way to describe it. As though a bomb had gone off inside her, turning her heart to ash.

She received no comfort from Nathan. Lost in his own grief, he locked himself in his studio every day, smoking ashtrays full of joints and reciting the Kaddish again and again and again. He grew increasingly paranoid, babbling about religious zealots plotting Shira’s death, some secret cabal of anti-Semites that hated rock and roll. They murdered her! he’d shout late at night from the other end of the house as Meg tried to get to sleep. Not caring whom he frightened into hours of insomnia. It’s Kennedy all over again!

Reading this page, I was surprised at how much it sums up both Nathan’s character and one of the central relationships of the book – that of Meg and Nathan, whose arc toward understanding and trusting each other is essential to the plot. It also alludes to the question that drives the suspense in the book: Is Nathan as paranoid as Meg believes him to be – or is there really a “secret cabal” out to get him and his family? Throughout the rest of the book, the latter proves increasingly true. And Meg finds herself questioning the motivations of nearly everyone around her – including friends and neighbors she’s known for years. Meanwhile, Nathan learns to better understand his daughter and granddaughter – and how his own overarching grief and self- absorption has kept him from protecting them against a very real evil. Throughout the book, Meg and Nathan’s growing understanding of each other – and of the forces out to get them – becomes the one thing that can possibly save their lives. Will either of them take action before it’s too late?

Learn more about the book and author at Alison Gaylin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Into the Dark.

The Page 69 Test: What Remains of Me.

The Page 69 Test: If I Die Tonight.

The Page 69 Test: The Collective.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fagin the Thief"

Allison Epstein earned her MFA in fiction from Northwestern University and a BA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. A Michigan native, she now lives in Chicago, where she enjoys good theater, bad puns, and fancy jackets.

Epstein is the author of historical novels including A Tip for the Hangman, Let the Dead Bury the Dead, and Fagin the Thief.

Epstein applied the Page 69 Test to Fagin the Thief and reported the following::

From page 69:

He ought to have left the first stone at her grave, ought to have sat shiva in their empty flat for seven days. So much he ought to have done, but what does any of it matter? His mother is already gone. Everyone who ever cared for Jacob has left him. It’s his turn to leave now, if leaving will keep him alive. Better to cut his losses and care for himself, because this is the price that must be paid when someone else cares for you, the searing, ever-expanding pain when they inevitably disappear. Iron hearts can’t break. It’s a lesson he will remember.

This paragraph from page 69 is one of the core moments in Fagin the Thief that show my character Jacob Fagin developing his maladaptive worldview. This is literally the paragraph where all of his problems start, and they will mess him up and make him worse for every moment of the novel that remains. So well done, Page 69 Test! A+.

In this moment, Jacob is sixteen years old, and his mother Leah has just died. Up until this moment, she was the only person in the world who cared for him unconditionally. His father died before he was born, and though he has friends in his corner of London, these are largely transactional relationships. Leah is the only person who cared about Jacob because of who he was, not because of his luck or skill or talent as a pickpocket and troublemaker.

Following her death, Jacob decides no one will ever get that close to him again, because the pain of their inevitable abandonment isn’t worth the comfort that comes before. But this will turn out to be easier said than done. He’s only human, and though intellectually he knows the risks of being vulnerable, there’s still something in the animal part of him that wants to connect, to be seen.

After this paragraph, Jacob sets off on his own. What happens to take him from this moment of decision to the ringleader of a gang of child thieves we all know from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens? Well, that would be telling…

Visit Allison Epstein's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Tip for the Hangman.

The Page 69 Test: A Tip for the Hangman.

Q&A with Allison Epstein.

My Book, The Movie: Let the Dead Bury the Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Let the Dead Bury the Dead.

Writers Read: Allison Epstein (October 2023).

Writers Read: Allison Epstein.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Not Who We Expected"

As a forensic scientist at the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Black analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, and blood as well as other forms of trace evidence. Now she is a Certified Crime Scene Analyst and Certified Latent Print Examiner and for the Cape Coral Police Department in Florida. Black is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts. She has testified in court as an expert witness and served as a consultant for CourtTV.

She is the author of the Locard Institute series and of the highly acclaimed Gardiner & Renner series, for which she was nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award. Her books have been translated into six languages.

Black applied the Page 69 Test to the fourth title in the Locard Institute series, Not Who We Expected, and reported the following:

This test doesn’t work well for this book. In Not Who We Expected, the Locard Forensic Institute is hired by rock legend Billy Diamond, who is himself in the throes of a vital comeback tour (as well as several illegal substances). Billy’s daughter Devon left college for the summer and never returned after a career development retreat in the Nevada desert turned into her new home. When the boyfriend who accompanied her turns up dead, Billy wants eyes on his daughter without appearing to hover. Former FBI agent and new Locard professor Ellie Carr is dispatched to said desert to find some answers—and she does. But they come with new and ominous questions.

On page 69, Ellie’s long day at the ranch is drawing to a close. But instead of turning in with her fellow attendees, she moves a few yards out into the night to make a surreptitious phone call to her boss, Dr. Rachael Davies. As she’s cursing the elusive cell service signal, a young man materializes out of the dark. He tells her phone service is a fruitless pursuit, but later Ellie will realize that her fear was not misplaced. The young man’s job is to make sure the attendees/recruits/victims at the ranch stay in line—by whatever means necessary.

But if a browsing reader checked out the book only by reading page 69, which hops from the busywork to frustration with technology to Ellie being startled—these things might seem too random without the rest of the book to show why all three short incidents are important to Ellie, to Devon, and to their survival.

Visit Lisa Black's website.

The Page 69 Test: That Darkness.

My Book, The Movie: Unpunished.

The Page 69 Test: Unpunished.

My Book, The Movie: Perish.

The Page 69 Test: Perish.

The Page 69 Test: Suffer the Children.

Writers Read: Lisa Black (July 2020).

The Page 69 Test: Every Kind of Wicked.

Q&A with Lisa Black.

My Book, The Movie: What Harms You.

The Page 69 Test: What Harms You.

My Book, The Movie: The Deepest Kill.

My Book, The Movie: Not Who We Expected.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mulligan Curse"

Diane Barnes is the author of All We Could Still Have, More Than, Waiting for Ethan, and Mixed Signals. She is also a product market manager in the health-care industry. When she’s not writing, Barnes can be found at the gym, running or playing tennis, trying to burn off the ridiculous amounts of chocolate and ice cream she eats. She and her husband, Steven, live in New England with Oakley, their handsome golden retriever

Barnes applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, The Mulligan Curse, and reported the following:

On page 69 of The Mulligan Curse, Mary goes to work as a television news reporter for the first time as her 24-year-old self. This is her dream job and she’s excited. However, because she’s just dropped into her new life as her younger self, she has no knowledge of what’s happening at work or what she’s supposed to do. For most of the page, she’s confused and desperately trying to figure out what’s going on. Late on the page, Mary gets a memory dump that helps her acclimate to her new reality.

The Page 69 Test doesn’t work for this book. If a reader randomly opened The Mulligan Curse to page 69, they would be as confused as Mary. They wouldn’t understand that just a few pages before, Mary was a 54-year-old unhappy housewife. Nor would they understand that The Mulligan Curse isn’t a time travel story so Mary doesn’t have old memories to help her adjust to her new life.

Of course, what happens on this page is essential to the story. It helps to show Mary’s discomfort in her new, young life, and the discomfort Mary feels is important to the change she undergoes throughout the book.

Visit Diane Barnes's website.

Q&A with Diane Barnes.

The Page 69 Test: All We Could Still Have.

My Book, The Movie: All We Could Still Have.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Low April Sun"

Constance Squires holds a Ph.D. in English from Oklahoma State University and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. Her latest novel is Low April Sun. She is the author of the novels Along the Watchtower, which won the 2012 Oklahoma Book Award for Fiction, Live from Medicine Park, a 2018 Oklahoma Book Award finalist named in Electric Literature as one of the "Seven Candidates for the Great American Rock and Roll Novel," and the short story collection Hit Your Brights. Her short stories have appeared in Guernica, The Atlantic Monthly, Shenandoah, Identity Theory, Bayou, the Dublin Quarterly, This Land, and a number of other magazines.

Squires applied the Page 69 Test to Low April Sun and reported the following:

Page 69 of Low April Sun finds one of the main characters, Edie Ash, in the earlier of the two timelines in the book. It's April 19, 1995, and she, a young waitress driving home on the day of the Murrah Bombing in Oklahoma City, is sitting at an intersection in the rain when President Clinton's speech addressing the bombing comes on the air. She looks around and realizes that all of the people in the other cars at the intersection are weeping, as she is.

I wouldn't say page 69 encapsulates the whole book, but it does capture some important elements. What it doesn't do is give a sense of the other timeline, 2015 during the week of the twenty-year anniversary of the bombing and the Oklahoma Geological Survey's confirmation that the 200+ earthquakes shaking the area per day are in all likelihood caused by fracking, or the other significant characters with stories in both timelines, or even the plot of the book, but it does provide a good reaction shot of a main character on the day of the bombing, and a sense that the impact of the disaster on the larger community is a focus of the book, which it is. There are a few isolated places in the book where I'm pulling from my own memories of being in Oklahoma City that day, and this page is one of them. It's one of the core memories that gave rise to the story. Sitting in my car in the rain watching everyone in the other cars listening to Clinton speak and weeping openly was one of the moments when a layer of shock peeled off and I was aware of being in an unbelievable day. The character, Edie, is noticing with a little shame how the devastation gives rise to atavistic responses and primitive thoughts in her, like a willingness to be consoled by a leader, a need for justice, and even the sense that the rain seems like nature reacting to all the deaths. That interiority is characteristic of the voice, and a focus on the environment as an active part of the story, almost a character, is, too.

Visit Constance E. Squires's website.

My Book, The Movie: Low April Sun.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Into the Fall"

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Tamara L. Miller earned her PhD in Canadian history before embarking on a career working for the federal government. Miller began as a doe-eyed policy analyst and eventually moved into an executive role with the Government of Canada. She later left public service, older and perhaps a little wiser, to become a writer. Miller is past president of Ottawa Independent Writers and has written several articles published online by the likes of CBC and Ottawa Life Magazine.

Over the years, the author has called many Canadian cities home but now lives in Ottawa with her family and two long-suffering cats. She’s always been fascinated by the raw beauty of the wilder places in the world and escapes to them whenever possible.

Miller applied the Page 69 Test to her first novel, Into the Fall, and reported the following:

Well, I’ll be! Page 69 of Into the Fall turns out to be an early glimpse into the layered personality of the main character, Sarah Anderson. Though only half a page, it’s the first time readers see a hint of the cutting edge that Sarah tries to hide from the world.

Sarah seems to have it all—family, kids, career. But when her husband, Matthew, disappears while on a family camping trip, leaving her stranded with their two children, the cracks in Sarah’s perfect life are brought into the light. Under the scrutiny of a suspicious police offer, Sarah reconnects with her estranged sister, Izzy, who claws at the surface to reveal Sarah isn’t always the person she pretends to be, and she has secrets.

On page 69, Izzy coaxes a long-hidden story from their childhood that speaks to the lengths Sarah will go to in order to right perceived wrongs. Since it’s only a partial page, I’ve kept the entire quote:

Sarah kept her face unyielding and her secrets wrapped tight despite her sister’s mock-stern glare. “She—I heard she ran into a few problems, that’s all.”

Rumors had started circulating about Angie. Drips here and there—social arsenic in the stew of teenage angst.

“I may have said a thing or two about her that got out,” Sarah told her sister.

None of it could be verified, of course. But it was enough to fuel the rumor mill. Did Angie really sleep with Daisy Schneider while she was dating Steve Isaacs, the soccer team captain? Was Angie selling pot and uppers out of her locker after school? Never anything concrete, but enough to get people wondering, talking, and sidestepping Angie in the halls. The specifics were left up to adolescent imagination. When the Principal’s impromptu locker search had turned up a baggie in Angie’s locker, no one was surprised.

“It was time she got a taste of her own medicine,” Sarah said.

“Well color me surprised! I had no idea you had that in you?” Izzy said, a look of genuine admiration crossing her face.

“I don’t like bullies.”

Izzy is the mirror through which Sarah starts to see herself and her past. This scene showcases a central relationship in the book. So, I’d say the Page 69 Test is spot on.

Visit Tamara L. Miller's website.

My Book, The Movie: Into the Fall.

Q&A with Tamara L. Miller.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Killing Plains"

Sherry Rankin grew up in New Jersey where she became an early and avid reader of mystery fiction. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and currently lives in Abilene, Texas where she has taught writing and literature at a local university for twenty years.

She has written scholarly articles and worked as an editorial consultant, manuscript reader and ghostwriter, but her avocation has always been creative writing.

Her novel, Strange Fire, was shortlisted for the 2017 Daniel Goldsmith First Novel Prize and won the 2017 CWA Debut Dagger Award.

Rankin applied the Page 69 Test to her debut thriller, The Killing Plains, and reported the following:

The Killing Plains is about Colly Newland, a former Houston detective, who has returned to her late husband’s home town in rural West Texas to solve a murder of which his brother has been accused.

Once there, she finds herself faced with a baffling sequence of killings that she feels morally bound to solve in order to move on with her life.

Colly is grieving a serious personal loss and is rife with inner conflict: she’s a gifted detective who has abandoned law enforcement; she’s widowed and lonely, but not emotionally ready for a new relationship; she has deep regrets about her own failings as a mother and is trying to compensate by parenting her traumatized young grandson; she feels she owes a moral debt to her late husband’s family, but she is repulsed by their wealth and entitlement and wants to cut ties with them once that debt is paid.

Page 69 occurs in the middle of a pivotal chapter in the novel. It takes place at a fireworks stand beside a bleak, lonely West Texas highway. Colly has just found a crucial clue; she has also just faced her first serious setback in the case and discovered, to her horror, that the killer is actively interfering with her investigation in a creepy and unsettling way.

On page 69, Earla Cobb, forensic specialist for the county, shows up on her motorcycle to examine the scene. Page 69 also highlights Colly’s struggle to balance the needs of her grandson, Satchel, with her professional responsibilities—a theme that runs throughout the novel.

While I’m not sure anyone would buy the book on the strength of page 69 alone, it definitely does come at a key plot point and depicts some of the central themes and motifs of the book.

Visit Sherry Rankin's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Killing Plains.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Miranda Conspiracy"

James Cambias has been nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the 2001 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Miranda Conspiracy, and reported the following:

My new novel The Miranda Conspiracy is a far-future political thriller set inside and around Uranus's moon Miranda. It's a direct sequel to my first "Billion Worlds" book, The Godel Operation, and follows the main characters from that story. The sarcastic AI Daslakh accompanies its human best friend Zee, and Adya Elso, the woman Zee has fallen in love with, back to her home world Miranda, where her parents are part of the exclusive plutocratic ruling class known as the Sixty Families. They travel aboard Pelagia, a spaceship with an uplifted orca brain who is a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

In the ocean under Miranda's icy crust, the three of them must face spies, gangsters, mercenaries, and the biggest threat of all: Adya's family. Her parents want Adya to marry for money in order to preserve their position, and Zee has nothing to offer but his own good nature. Adya and Zee try to solve the crisis facing Adya's family and get drawn into deeper and deeper layers of intrigue.

I don't think page 69 of The Miranda Conspiracy is a good indication of what the book is like. The page is split between two scenes. On the top half, Zee and Daslakh are discussing a little of Miranda's history and Zee reaffirms his vow to recover the incredibly valuable cargo payload inbound from the Oort Cloud, which Adya's great-grandmother left to her, but which got sold off when her parents were scrambling to repay debts.

On the bottom half of the page, Adya and Zee are at dinner with Adya's parents, and Adya brings up the possibility that the family's financial difficulties might be the result of a deliberate attack by some hostile party. Her father also mentions the divisive political issue of the Cryoglyphs — ancient ice carvings from the early days of Miranda exploration, thousands of years earlier — and how his desire to protect them has cut him off from the possibility of financial aid from the other members of the ruling coalition.

By themselves, these two snippets seem a bit trivial, and we certainly don't see any of the underwater chases, space battles, or sneaking around that liven up the book's action. However, both segments are laying track for some major developments. Zee's drive to recover the Oort payload for Adya — and thereby save the family's fortunes and win her parents' approval — will lead him through a series of encounters in Miranda's oligarch class and underworld, which in turn will put Daslakh in position to recognize the real author of the Elso family's problems.

Meanwhile Adya's investigation of the forces opposing her father put her in touch with revolutionaries who want to overthrow the existing oligarchy, Miranda's police service, and her airheaded sister's fanatical fans. In the end, the two plot lines intersect in a coup and invasion.

In effect, page 69 is about the point at which the situation has been established, the scene set, and the plot begins accelerating down the runway to takeoff.

Visit James L. Cambias's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Darkling Sea.

Writers Read: James L. Cambias (January 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Arkad's World.

The Page 69 Test: Arkad's World.

My Book, The Movie: The Godel Operation.

Q&A with James L. Cambias.

The Page 69 Test: The Godel Operation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wagtail Murder Club"

New York Times bestselling mystery author Krista Davis writes three mystery series: the Domestic Diva Mysteries; the Paws & Claws Mysteries; and the Pen & Ink Mysteries.

Davis resided in Northern Virginia for many years and lived for a time in Old Town, Alexandria. Today she lives with an assortment of dogs and cats in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Wagtail Murder Club, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Bizzy Bloom,” I said. “I have to hand it to her. She’s very stylish. Not runway-model fashionable. More comfortable chic. Her son is Logan Verlice, the bartender over at Tequila Mockingbird.”

“Really?” said Oma. “I must meet her. He is a fine young man.”

“You mentioned Ella?” said Dave.

“She’s married to Wendell Walters,” said Mom. “I think she’s quite a bit younger than Wendell. She was in a terrible car accident recently and came here to be with her husband directly from the hospital, which I thought sort of odd. If it were me, I would have gone home and told my husband I would see him when he got back.”

“Hmm. Some serious devotion there,” said Mr. Huckle.

“And she’s afraid of big black dogs,” I added. “But I think Squishy may have won her over.”

Squishy raised his head at the sound of his name.

“Oh!” Oma perked up. “Is she an adoption candidate?

I shrugged. “Maybe!”

“Is that it?” asked Dave.

“As far as I know.”

“So here’s my plan. Ben is our best source of information because he’s part of this group. He knows them. But— ” he raised his forefinger “— Ben has a vested interest, so he’s not entirely reliable. And I have to consider him a suspect.”

“You mean because he wants them to open an office and give him the job of working here?” asked Mom. “He wouldn’t kill anyone for that.”

Dave scoffed. “People have murdered for less than that. Holly, I need access to Dinah’s room, please. And I need you to hang out with Ben and infiltrate the group.”

I think page 69 reflects the nature of the book. They’re talking about possible suspects. And Dave, the local cop in this very small town, needs Holly’s connection to Ben, her former boyfriend, to get to know them better and find out what she can.

The page includes three members of the Wagtail Murder Club. Holly and her grandmother (Oma) own the Sugar Maple Inn where most of the suspects are staying. The victim was an attorney, so the killer is most likely a member of the law firm where the victim worked or one of their spouses. It could be a townsperson, but it’s logical of Dave to pursue her work colleagues first.

Names are mentioned here, so it would be easier to follow if one read from the beginning. But, good news! I always have a list of characters at the beginning of my books.

Visit Krista Davis's website.

Coffee with a canine: Krista Davis & Han, Buttercup, and Queenie.

The Page 69 Test: The Ghost and Mrs. Mewer.

The Page 69 Test: Murder, She Barked.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Sun's Shadow"

Sejal Badani is the Amazon Charts, USA Today, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Storyteller’s Secret and Trail of Broken Wings. She is also a Goodreads Best Fiction award and ABC/Disney Writing Fellowship finalist whose work has been published in over fifteen languages. When not writing, she loves reading and traveling. Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, and Ed Sheeran are always playing in the background.

Badani applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Sun's Shadow, and reported the following:

Page 69 offers an emotionally charged snapshot of the novel, encapsulating a pivotal moment that defines the story’s central themes. It captures the aftermath of devastating news—Celine and Eric learning that their son, Brian, has cancer. Celine hesitates, paralyzed by a desperate hope that the diagnosis might somehow prove to be a mistake, a fleeting nightmare she can wake from. She wrestles with her own denial, longing to shield Brian from the painful reality for just a moment longer. Eric, however, insists that Brian deserves honesty, no matter how painful. This clash b

etween avoidance and confrontation not only highlights the differences in their coping mechanisms but also exposes cracks in their relationship.

The narrative delves into Celine’s internal monologue, revealing how this moment forces her to confront wounds from her own childhood. Raised amidst conflict and instability, Celine reflects on the contrast between her tumultuous upbringing and Eric’s idyllic childhood. It is this very contrast that once drew her to him, as though falling in love with Eric allowed her to vicariously experience the stability and warmth she always longed for. However, this dynamic now adds tension to their marriage, as their differing approaches to parenting and coping with trauma create a growing emotional distance between them.

Brian’s diagnosis becomes the novel’s central conflict, serving as a catalyst for transformation in both the family dynamic and the broader narrative arc. Although page 69 is brief—closing out a chapter—it carries immense weight. The scene offers a raw and unfiltered look at the family’s struggles, balancing heartache with moments of introspection.

If a new reader were to pick up the book and turn to this page, it would serve as a powerful introduction to the story’s emotional stakes. While its brevity and lack of broader context may limit its ability to fully represent the novel as a whole, it undoubtedly hooks the reader. It offers just enough to compel them to keep reading, eager to uncover how this family navigates the immense challenges ahead.

Visit Sejal Badani's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Sejal Badani & Skyler.

My Book, The Movie: The Storyteller's Secret.

Q&A with Sejal Badani.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Glamorous Notions"

Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of more than twenty novels, including A Dangerous Education, A Splendid Ruin, Bone River, and An Inconvenient Wife. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

Chance applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Glamorous Notions, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Julia glanced around, seemingly casually, but Lena knew her well enough to see her tension. Julia rose and left the table, and Lena remained in the shadows. She didn’t like what she saw. There was something wrong, or even . . . ominous about this. Lena hesitated, wondering what to do.

Make the delivery was the obvious answer, and so she made her way to La Grotta, which of course was closed.

Lena pounded on the door until Tony answered. “What is it, Lena?”

“Where’s Petra?”

He opened the door wider to let her in. There were a couple people in the small kitchen behind the bar, Marco drinking coffee and Paolo gnawing on a sandwich.

“She’s in the back,” Tony said. “You want espresso?”

Lena shook her head and went through the curtain and out a narrow door into what could hardly be called a courtyard, just a narrow fenced-in brick square in the alley with the trash bins and a grill Tony sometimes used. Petra sat in a chair she had angled back against the railing, her eyes closed. Petra’s hair, as usual, was artfully piled on her head, looking ready to fall at any moment.

“Hey,” Lena said. “I’ve got something for you.”

This is only a part of page 69 in Glamorous Notions, but in it the main character, Lena, is on her way to make a delivery when she spots her closest friend, Julia, with a strange man at the restaurant Strega on the Via Veneto. Lena is in Rome studying fashion design at the Art Academy, and Julia has given Lena (who used to be Elsie) a new name and new confidence. Lena would do anything for Julia. Doing anything, at this particular moment, means involving herself in the exciting world of smuggling what she believes is small contraband—mostly hashish. For Lena, who comes from a small town in Ohio, everything about Rome and Julia is different, compelling, and wonderful, and under Julia’s tutelage, she feels herself changing into someone worldly and sophisticated, and she loves that. In this scene in particular, Lena is unsettled and confused by how different Julia looks, and how cold she seems. This is when Lena begins to realize that nothing is quite as it seems in Rome. This scene, in fact, is hugely important, because it marks the beginning of the danger that follows Lena back to Los Angeles and becomes the impetus for all the lies that make up the house of cards Lena builds for herself. It also gives a nascent sense of the uneasiness and vulnerability that become hallmarks of the story, and Lena’s state of mind, from this point on.

Visit Megan Chance's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Splendid Ruin.

The Page 69 Test: A Splendid Ruin.

Q&A with Megan Chance.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Education.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Education.

Writers Read: Megan Chance (February 2023).

Writers Read: Megan Chance.

My Book, The Movie: Glamorous Notions.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Department"

Jacqueline Faber is an author and freelance writer. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Emory University, where she was the recipient of a Woodruff Scholarship, and taught in the Expository Writing Program at New York University, where she received an award for excellence in teaching. She studied philosophy in Bologna, Italy, and received a dissertation grant from Freie University in Berlin, Germany. Faber writes across genres, including thrillers, rom-coms, and essays. Her work explores questions about memory, loss, language, and desire. Steeped in philosophical, psychological, and literary themes, her writing is grounded in studies of character. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Faber applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, The Department, and reported the following:

It just so happens that page 69 of The Department is short. Only about a third of a page. So, in some ways, the Page 69 Test isn’t an accurate representation of the work as a whole, as the reader only gets a very small taste of the writing and the narrative pacing. On the other hand, it just so happens to be the precise moment in the novel when the stakes are raised to a dangerous height. For this reason alone, I would say The Department passes the test.

The last lines of the page read as follows:

The year Luke took it, there were only eleven students in the class.

Luke-fucking-Lariat was one.

Lucia Vanotti was another.

Until now, one of our protagonists, philosophy professor, Neil Weber, has been casually investigating the disappearance of undergraduate student, Lucia Vanotti. He has a vague memory of sharing a smoke with her on a bench outside the philosophy department months earlier. At the time, it felt inconsequential. Two people shooting the shit, killing time.

Now that she’s missing, he’s imbued their exchange with meaning. He can’t help but pore over every nuance of their conversation, in part because he senses it might have been a plea for help, and in part because his own life is unraveling, and Lucia’s mystery offers him a new raison d'être.

On page 69, Neil realizes that the informal (and unsanctioned) questions he’s been asking around campus have led him to the very place he least expected: the halls of his own department. At this moment in the text, one of his closest friends and colleagues is implicated in a highly concerning way.

It is a moment of no return for Neil. He can no longer simply hop off this moving train — a train that he himself put into motion through his amateur sleuthing. The question now is: how far is he willing to go to uncover the truth, and what unexpected secrets will he reveal in the process?

Visit Jacqueline Faber's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Department.

Q&A with Jacqueline Faber.

--Marshal Zeringue

"An Excellent Thing in a Woman"

Allison Montclair is the author of the Sparks and Bainbridge mysteries, beginning with The Right Sort of Man, the American Library Association Reading List Council's Best Mystery of 2019. Under her real name, she has written more mystery novels and a damn good werewolf book, as well as short stories in many genres in magazines and anthologies. She is also an award-winning librettist and lyricist with several musicals to her credit that have been performed or workshopped across the USA. She currently lives in New York City where she also practiced as a criminal defense attorney.

Montclair applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, An Excellent Thing in a Woman, and reported the following:

On page 69 of An Excellent Thing In A Woman, Iris Sparks, co-proprietor of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau, is interviewed by DS Michael Kinsey after discovering the body of Jeanne-Marie Duplessis, a Parisian dancer:

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me this has nothing to do with you, Sparks,’ he said.

‘I wish I could, Mike,’ she replied. ‘She was a client.’

‘Of The Right Sort?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘But she’s from Paris. How did she manage that?’

‘She walked in two days ago,’ said Sparks, and she recounted everything she could remember of the interview. By the time she was done, he was shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Strange,’ he said. ‘Any idea why she was in such a rush to get married?’

‘Nothing specific,’ said Sparks. ‘She mentioned something about Paris, about not being able to continue on there, but we didn’t get any more detail than that.’

‘She’s here with a dance troupe,’ said Kinsey. ‘Maybe one of them will know. I wish my French was better.’

‘Would you like me to translate?’

‘No thanks, Sparks,’ he said. ‘You’re a witness.’

‘Not a suspect this time?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I must be losing my touch.’

This is a nice test for this book. Amateur detectives have contentious relationships with the police, and this is particularly true for Iris and Mike — because he’s also her ex-boy friend.

Mike is not in all the books — Scotland Yard has more than one detective — but he’s back and things continue to be tense between Iris and him. Iris and Gwen both have varying encounters with the different detectives they run across in the series, but Mike and Iris are a special case. She considers him the man she loved the most in her life, but her work for British Intelligence during the war led her to betray him, an act that wounded both of them deeply. Her continuing silence as to what happened is required by the Official Secrets Act, so reconciliation between them may never be possible. Yet here they are, once again.

Visit Alan Gordon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Saint of the Narrows Street"

William Boyle is the author of eight books set in and around the southern Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend, where he was born and raised. His most recent novel is Saint of the Narrows Street. His books have been nominated for the Hammett Prize, the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France, and they have been included on best-of lists in the Washington Post, CrimeReads, and more. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Boyle applied the Page 69 Test to Saint of the Narrows Street and reported the following:

From page 69:

Chooch opens the back door, and he pushes the wheelbarrow straight outside. No stairs this way. Again, Giulia and Risa trail him. Communication seems less and less necessary. They're following his lead. He's trying not to feel, only do what needs doing.

Page 69 finds the main characters--Risa, Giulia, and Chooch, with baby Fabrizio in tow--in a precarious position, away from Saint of the Narrows Street (their block in southern Brooklyn where most of the action of the book is set), at Chooch's crumbling country house in upstate New York. They have arrived there after things took a dark turn in Risa's apartment with her bad seed husband, Sav. To say too much about this scene would spoil a key plot point in the first part, but I do think that reading this page would give readers a good idea of the whole book. The tone and feel of it, especially. You can get a sense of the position these characters are in, their backs against the wall, the desperation they're feeling, the way they're struggling with decisions they've had to make. You can get a sense, I think, of what's coming in the future for them. The way this moment, this memory, will haunt their lives. This scene is freighted with tension and heartbreak, but there's also dark humor to it.

Visit William Boyle's website.

My Book, The Movie: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.

The Page 69 Test: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.

The Page 69 Test: City of Margins.

My Book, The Movie: City of Margins.

Q&A with William Boyle.

The Page 69 Test: Shoot the Moonlight Out.

My Book, The Movie: Shoot the Moonlight Out.

Writers Read: William Boyle (December 2021).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beneath the Poet’s House"

Christa Carmen lives in Rhode Island. She is the author of The Daughters of Block Island, winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a Shirley Jackson Award finalist, the Indie Horror Book Award-winning Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated "Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell" (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror). She has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Boston College, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine.

Carmen applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, Beneath the Poet’s House, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Beneath the Poet’s House passes this Page 69 Test with flying colors. Protagonist Saoirse White has just walked from her home on Benefit Street to a career fair on Brown University’s campus. After deciding the career fair is a bust, she goes to leave and literally runs into the man whom she suspects has been following her since her arrival in Providence. Emmit Powell convinces her to join him at a nearby café, and from there, their relationship evolves into something imaginative and intense. The meeting between Saoirse and Emmit on page 69 is the single most important event of the novel.

With that being said, I don’t love the idea of someone using page 69 as the example of my writing with which to decide whether to purchase the novel. Not that the writing is bad or there’s something I would change, but the interaction captured on page 69 is a moment that hinges more on the position of two bodies in space and time—and their coming together—as opposed to rich characterization or lush description. It also occurs at what is probably the least interesting, i.e., the least gothic or historically significant, setting in the entirety of the novel. Prior to page 69, we see the action unspooling in an old library and beside a possibly cursed fountain, at the former home of Sarah Helen Whitman—brief fiancé of Edgar Allan Poe—on 88 Benefit Street and in an architecturally quaint-and-curious coffee house. After page 69, the action takes place anywhere from an underground séance parlor to the secluded corner of an off-the-beaten-path restaurant, in a hotel room shadowed by the poor vision that comes with too much drinking and along the labyrinthine passages connecting H.P. Lovecraft’s Shunned House to other East Side locations across Providence. In short, the decidedly unthreatening energy of a midday career fair at Brown’s Chaffee Garden isn’t necessarily what I would put forth as the best excerpt with which to form an opinion on the novel as a whole.

For that, I’d encourage you to read at least until you get to walk through Whitman’s rose garden and beyond, into the cemetery frequented by Poe and his poetess, nestled beside a darkly Gothic cathedral. A cemetery where, on foggy nights, the tops of the headstones cut through the fog like rows of teeth.

Visit Christa Carmen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue