(2021), which received the HNS Review Editor’s Choice Award. Her work has been featured in People Magazine, The Mary Sue, and BookBub. Originally from the Missouri Ozarks, where as a young girl she could often be found wandering through the gravestones in her neighborhood cemetery, Kennedy’s affinity for fog-covered landscapes and haunted heroines only grew, inspiring her to become a writer. She now lives with her family and a menagerie of rescue pets in sunny Southern California, where sometimes, on the very best days, the mountains are wreathed in gothic fog.
Kennedy applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael, with the following results:
From page 69:Visit Paulette Kennedy's website.“...Beautiful things deserve to be enjoyed. Please, will you join me?”This is such an interesting test for The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael, because while the context of the scene is a meal shared between two soon-to-be lovers, it encapsulates many aspects of the novel: sensuality and hunger, as well as wealth and class, which are major themes. Vampires are true hedonists, and while Alex and Lillian are not vampires, this scene conveys sensory delight and the growing romantic tension between my characters. The setting of the novel, Charleston, South Carolina in the 1850s, was filled with earthly, materialistic vanities, pleasures, and classism. If readers were to turn to this page, it would help to set the tone for the book. The line, "Beautiful things deserve to be enjoyed," has an especially harrowing context when applied to the vampiric murderer, who very much views the young women he victimizes as beautiful things that he is entitled to. Predation and desire, ambition, and revenge are all explored in the novel, so I believe the Page 69 Test works well for this scene.
I sit next to him, and he pours wine into the crystal goblet nearest me. I raise it to my lips and drink. It’s rich and dark, with an underlying peppery tone.
“Zinfandel,” Alex says with a smile. “A newer wine variety. Have you ever tasted anything like it?”
“I can’t say that I have.” It’s been so many years since I’ve enjoyed a proper, seated dinner, much less wine. Papa preferred ale and cider with supper, although Mother would insist upon French wine for formal occasions. “It’s delightful.”
Alex carves the roast and serves it to me, ladling sauce over the meat. I dredge the meat in the sauce and lift my fork to my mouth. A moan of pleasure escapes my lips. It’s so tender it melts on my tongue. After years of near starvation in prison and in the marsh, and nothing but broth and soup during my recovery, this meal feels worthy of a queen. It makes me curious about Alex’s financial standing, and how he can afford such sumptuous food.
“Is it good?” he asks, his eyes sparkling.
“Heavens, yes,” I say, laughing. I carve another piece with my knife, savoring the taste more slowly this time.
The Page 69 Test: Parting the Veil.
The Page 69 Test: The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.
My Book, The Movie: The Artist of Blackberry Grange.
--Marshal Zeringue
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