who admired her from beyond the picket fence. Now she writes about strong, messy women finding their way in the world. Williams is the author of The Truth Is in the Detours and The Epicenter of Forever. When not writing or reading, she can be found enjoying California’s beaches, redwoods, and trails with her husband, three kids, and disobedient dog.
Williams applied the Page 69 Test to The Epicenter of Forever and reported the following:
Page 69 of The Epicenter of Forever is a pivot point in the novel. Our protagonist, Eden Hawthorne, has just reluctantly committed to spending several months with her mother in Grand Trees to nurse her back to health, and she’s adapting to the rhythms of the town that she swore she’d never return to.Visit Mara Williams's website.
The Page 69 Test works fairly well. Readers would get a good sense of the tone of the story and dynamic between the three main characters—Eden, her mother, and Caleb. The reader would see Eden and her mother’s polite, careful, and tense relationship—with some resentment simmering just beneath the surface. While Caleb is not in the scene directly, he’s mentioned several times in Eden’s interiority, revealing how quickly he’s woven his way into Eden’s psyche.
There’s a bit of foreshadowing as well, as we watch Eden’s visceral reaction to tending to her mom’s injuries. She’s determined to be a good daughter to the detriment of her own well-being. She’s burying a trauma response and ignoring her own needs in order to prove Caleb wrong. This is Eden’s harmful pattern and, ultimately, is the work she needs to do over the course of the novel: listen to her gut and acknowledge her own wants and needs.
Q&A with Mara Williams.
The Page 69 Test: The Truth Is in the Detours.
My Book, The Movie: The Truth Is in the Detours.
Writers Read: Mara Williams (August 2025).
My Book, The Movie: The Epicenter of Forever.
Writers Read: Mara Williams.
--Marshal Zeringue