recognized as an O Magazine Insider and previous columnist and feature writer at Travel Oregon, US News, and Huff Post. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Whitworth University. A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, she served as a volunteer EMT with her local county search and rescue unit before launching her travel writing career.
After raising three children in the Pacific Northwest, Hagstrom traded the Cascade, Siskiyou, and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges for The Berkshires, making her home in Western Massachusetts with her wife.
Hagstrom applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Now That I Know You by Heart, and shared the following:
On page 69 of Now That I Know You By Heart, our protagonist, Shelby, has begun the process of restoring and rebranding her historic inn…a daunting and critical task thanks to a rumor that the inn is haunted. She’s also taken baby steps in rebranding herself, having started anew on San Juan Island after a personal tragedy and self-discovery. She returns to a local winery where she recently met an intriguing local, only to have her hopes of seeing her again dashed. And yet, the man behind the bar—her crush’s father, Dan Caster—has intel that can help her in her mission.Visit Amy Hagstrom's website.
An excerpt from page 69:[Dan] took the liberty of pouring Shelby a glass of the franc. “You must be new around here,” he added predictably.The Page 69 Test works pretty well for Now That I know You By Heart, because it marks the point where several formative elements of Shelby’s arc, which have been independently set up, come together on the page. Her acceptance (in herself) that she is romantically interested in the winemaker, Holly, dovetails with the professional intel she gleans from Dan about her problematic groundskeeper, Ezra. The novel has found its stride by this point, and the causal browser would be able to immediately intuit the stakes in the story.
Was there a script all San Juan Island residents followed when they smelled fresh meat? Shelby gave him her usual spiel about buying the inn, and then, before he could beat her to it, she heard herself say defiantly, “And yes, I already know what I’m in for.”
One eyebrow lifted. Shelby noted that Dan had Holly’s green eyes. Or rather, that Holly had Dan’s. “Ah yes. The haunted history.”
Just like last time, several additional heads turned at mention of this taboo subject of conversation, but also like before, the Caster behind the bar seemed immune to the stigma sticking to the Merrick. Suddenly, finding Dan at the winery instead of her daughter didn’t seem like quite as much of a waste of an evening.
“Do you know much about it?”
“I was working doubles here in the tasting room most of last season, while Holly bottled out back,” he said. “Had a front row seat to the stream of…enthusiasts…driving past to gawk at the Merrick. Word has it, Ezra Peterson put on quite a show.”
Now That I Know You By Heart is a quieter, more melodic read than my previous novels, which could be characterized as character-driven suspenses. It’s in moments of human connection, like on page 69, that the plot is formed and the tension rises, perhaps without the reader even aware, on a conscious level. In other words, it’s the people who make this book sing, and the ‘ensemble cast’ type quality of the book is certainly in evidence in this scene.
The Page 69 Test: The Wild Between Us.
Q&A with Amy Hagstrom.
Writers Read: Amy Hagstrom.
--Marshal Zeringue