"In the Family Way"

Laney Katz Becker is an award-winning author, writer, and a former literary agent. Her books include the novels, In the Family Way and Dear Stranger, Dearest Friend, and the nonfiction anthology, Three Times Chai, a collection of rabbis’ favorite stories. When she’s not writing, Becker enjoys drawing, sewing, reading, long walks, playing tennis, and canasta. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, raised her two children in Westchester County, New York, and currently lives on the east coast of Florida with her husband and their Havanese.

Becker applied the Page 69 Test to In the Family Way and shared the following:

It's sort of scary how indicative page 69 is when it comes to the themes in my novel. On that page, Lily’s best friend and neighbor, Becca, has dropped by for a visit. She’s nervous because she’s about to share a secret with Lily—something even Becca’s own mother doesn’t know: that Becca was “in the family way” when she married her husband, Bradley, more than a decade earlier. Now, Becca and Bradley have three sons but Becca’s recently discovered she’s pregnant again—with a baby she doesn’t want and cannot afford. But this is before Roe, so Becca has no options. Or does she?

On this page we also learn that when Becca and Bradley were dating and first started “doing it” in high school, Becca thought she was protected because she douched afterwards. The lack of knowledge so many women had about their bodies in the 1960s, coupled with living in a repressed society (Lily is mortified as Becca shares her story)—where sex education wasn’t taught in schools and nice women didn’t talk about such things—is only one reason Raven House, the local Maternity Home for Unwed Mothers, is overflowing with girls who are “in trouble.” On page 69, Becca confesses that “there but by the grace of God,” she didn’t wind up in a place like Raven House.

Because my novel is set before the women’s movement, the women in my novel have to rely on each other to navigate through life’s challenges, marital issues and their pregnancies—both wanted and unwanted—and page 69 touches on all of those things.

Visit Laney Katz Becker's website.

Q&A with Laney Katz Becker.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Terra Incognita"

Steph Post is the author of the novels Terra Incognita, Miraculum, Lightwood, Walk in the Fire, Holding Smoke, and A Tree Born Crooked. She graduated from Davidson College as a recipient of the Patricia Cornwell Scholarship and holds a Master’s degree in Graduate Liberal Studies from UNCW. Her work has most recently appeared in Garden & Gun, Saw Palm, and Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, a Rhysling Award and was a semi-finalist for The Big Moose Prize. Terra Incognita received the 2024 Gold Medal in the Florida Book Awards.

Post applied the Page 69 Test to Terra Incognita and reported the following:

Terra Incognita is a classic adventure tale told through a kaleidoscope of medium, forms and voices. I was especially excited, then, that page 69 lands within the bounds of the first “Crossing” piece: Whenever the six main characters are traveling across large distances—the ocean, seas, wilderness—the story is told through a collection of epistolary ephemera. On page 69, we have the first of many journal entries written by Sebastian Dahl, mineralogist and conflicted protégé of the expedition’s leader, Sir Ashmore Bedivere.

Among his scientific observations and sketches of ship-life aboard the Undine, Sebastian expresses his anger, frustration and bewilderment at being left out of Ashmore’s secret plan to discover the last lost city, Alatyra.

I only wish Ashmore had confided in me from the beginning.

As he used to.

I wonder how much more Cristabel knew than me. She appears to be in his confidence again, which would explain why I’ve been shut out. I knew I shouldn’t have traveled home to Copenhagen last fall! I could feel the difference when I returned, not only with Ashmore, but with Cristabel as well. It was as if the two of them had grown closer somehow. Closing doors in Lunete House. Heads together, whispering at the top of the stairs.

Does Sebastian’s first journal entry give the reader an idea of the book as a whole? Absolutely not. But then neither would an excerpt from one of Cristabel’s—Sir Ashmore’s wife—furtive letters or Theo’s telegrams as he impersonates a Zulu prince. The same would go for Ashmore’s internal monologues to his dead partner, Lily’s immediate musings as she grapples with an entirely different life than the one she knew as a thief on the streets of New York City or Felix’s reminiscences of the story itself, framed a year later by his narration.

But that doesn’t make this page any less vital than any other page in the novel. Terra Incognita is rooted in Sir Ashmore’s expedition, but at its heart, too, is the beat of every character Ashmore drags along—and down—with him. As each character becomes entangled with the rest, a web is created that can either snare them or catch them safely from falling. As Felix informs us from the very beginning, “Terra Incognita is not the dark space on the map to be illuminated, but the darkness in our hearts, to be tamed or unleashed.” Each character is on a journey to find that darkness and choose to give in to it or cleave to their new, found family. Therefore, each voice is just as important as the story as a whole.

Visit Steph Post's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Steph Post & Juno.

My Book, The Movie: Lightwood.

The Page 69 Test: Lightwood.

My Book, The Movie: Walk in the Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Fire Concerto"

Sarah Landenwich is a writer and writing educator. Also a classically trained pianist, her debut novel The Fire Concerto was inspired by her love of music of the Romantic period. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband and daughter.

Landenwich applied the Page 69 Test to The Fire Concerto with the following results:

From page 69:

A growing disquiet was stirring in Clara's stomach. From the moment she heard the metronome accelerate ahead of the grandfather clock, a memory had been inching to the surface of her mind: Madame in the gallery, crossing out the metronome marking on Starza's Dark Angel Sonata with a lash of her pencil. Madame, who held sacred a composer's original intent the way Constitutionalists revered the Founding Fathers, scribbling in a new tempo. To Clara's look of incredulity, Madame had offered only the simplest of explanations. It is too fast, she had said. His metronome was not right.

Page 69 of The Fire Concerto falls in chapter 6, one of my favorite chapters of the book. Earlier in the novel, my protagonist, Clara, a famous pianist before she suffered career-ending injuries in a fire, inherits a mysterious metronome from her deceased piano teacher, a formidable woman Clara calls “Madame.” In this chapter, Clara and her friend Julián have taken the metronome to an antiques store for evaluation. Clara is realizing that the metronome has a unique time anomaly akin to that of a metronome that belonged to a famous Romantic composer, Aleksander Starza. It is here that Clara understands that the metronome in her possession may in fact be Starza’s long-lost metronome, a valuable object thought to have been destroyed over a hundred years ago, after the composer’s 1885 murder at the hands of one of his pupils, a brilliant female pianist named Constantia Pleyel.

I’d give the Page 69 Test a 90% accuracy rating for The Fire Concerto. This page marks the beginning of a critical reveal in the novel, one that propels my protagonist more deeply into the mystery of why she has been given this unusual bequest. The story is largely happening in the present, but the past—both the distant past of the composer as well as Clara’s own past as a musician with a complicated relationship with her teacher—are always near the surface, influencing the actions Clara takes.

Page 69 is also reflective of the way this book is full of fascinating (to me, anyway!) specialized information—how metronomes work, ways to identify a counterfeit million-dollar violin, bizarre 19th-century treatments for injuries (a bath in some tea and brandy, anyone?), just to name a few. I took great care to contextualize this technical information in accessible packaging—usually through dialogue—so it’s delivered to the reader in digestible and entertaining ways. On page 69, Clara and Julián talk about the metronome’s sordid past in the playful banter that characterizes their friendship. After Clara tells him the history of Starza’s murder, Julián responds with his typical effusiveness: “Holy sh**!” Julián raised both arms to the ceiling like a football player who had scored a touchdown. “I told you the thing was haunted!”

Later on page 69 and going into page 70, the reader receives the “full” story of Starza’s murder at the hands of the shadowy figure Constantia Pleyel—the official full story, anyway….

Visit Sarah Landenwich's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"No Lie Lasts Forever"

The son of two librarians, Mark Stevens was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and has worked as a reporter, as a national television news producer, and in public relations. The Fireballer (2023) was named Best Baseball Novel by Twin Bill literary magazine and named a Best Baseball Book of the Year by Spitball Magazine. His novel Antler Dust was a Denver Post bestseller in 2007 and 2009. Buried by the Roan, Trapline, and Lake of Fire were all finalists for the Colorado Book Award (2012, 2015, and 2016, respectively), which Trapline won. Trapline also won the Colorado Authors League Award for Best Genre Fiction.

Stevens’s short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, and Denver Noir. In both 2016 and 2023, Stevens was named Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Writer of the Year. He hosts a regular podcast for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and has served as president of the Rocky Mountain chapter for Mystery Writers of America.

Stevens applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, No Lie Lasts Forever, and shared the following:

Well, bingo.

I think the test works.

Page 69 of No Lie Lasts Forever is when our “retired” serial killer Harry Kugel starts to realize he needs to treat protagonist Flynn Martin, a sullied television reporter, as a “project.” By this he means that he needs to understand every inch of her life. This is how he used to case his victims before he would attack. (We’ll soon be given a precise example of Harry’s detailed, thorough process.)

He needs to treat Flynn Martin as a project.

Needs to work as carefully and think as carefully and act as carefully as if he were conducting a project.

The risks are the same.

By reaching out to defend his honor and his brand, after all, he might expose himself.

Every project needs a working title. The titles mean you are starting to write a story.

Blank page, working title, chapter one, go.

Titles mean you are organizing all the details into one new compartment in your brain. Storing all the factoids. What you need. How it’s going to work.

A title sets the theme and organizes his thinking.

If the title changes as the story progresses, that’s okay.

He feels like a writer in control of scenes on a page.

At this point of the story, Flynn doesn’t believe that the anonymous messages she’s getting can possibly be from the actual serial killer who terrorized Denver fifteen years prior. She’s dismissive, dubious. So Harry is concocting a way to prove to her that it’s actually him. He needs her help because there is a new murder victim in the city and Denver police are claiming that the long-gone but never caught serial killer known as PDQ has resurfaced. But Harry knows that’s not true, because he is PDQ. He didn’t commit this latest crime. If he can convince Flynn to help him out, she can restore his reputation and take this murder off his list. And, in the process, he can help Flynn restore her reputation so she can get her job back.

Visit Mark Stevens's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Fireballer.

Q&A with Mark Stevens.

My Book, The Movie: The Fireballer.

Writers Read: Mark Stevens.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When We Go Missing"

Edgar-award winning and New York Times-bestselling author April Henry knows how to kill you in a two-dozen different ways. She makes up for a peaceful childhood in an intact home by killing off fictional characters. There was one detour on Henry's path to destruction: when she was 12 she sent a short story about a six-foot tall frog who loved peanut butter to noted children's author Roald Dahl. He liked it so much he showed it to his editor, who asked if she could publish it in Puffin Post, an international children's magazine. By the time Henry was in her 30s, she had started writing about hit men, kidnappers, and drug dealers. She has published 29 mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults, with more to come. She is known for meticulously researching her novels to get the details right.

Henry applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, When We Go Missing, and reported the following:

Page 69 of When We Go Missing starts mid-sentence:

herself, let alone a bunch of strangers. And certainly not John. He was too impatient. Too dismissive.

While Mrs. P had seemed scattered lately, she was still the adult Willow trusted the most. But downstairs, it was just like Neil had said. Mrs. P was deep in conversation with a guy in coveralls holding a clipboard. His index finger was tracing a two-foot long crack in the wall as both of them frowned.

She was going to have to wait. On the other side of the basement, Dare was putting a leash on Spearmint. She was oddly pleased he wasn’t walking the dogs in the same order as the day before. It seemed only fair a different dog got to be first.

So that initial half sentence is teenage Willow debating what adult she could share her disturbing find with. After picking up a camera card from the sidewalk, she had thought she could find its owner by looking at the photos. But she was alarmed to find hundreds of photos of teenage girls, and instinctively feels something bad might have happened to at least some of them.

Willow volunteers as a photographer at a small private animal shelter run by the elderly Mrs. Palmerstein. What Willow doesn’t know is that Mrs. P, as she calls her, is keeping a secret from her. And there’s a new volunteer, Dare, who also has a secret. Both secrets threaten to push Willow away and/or break her heart.

Page 69 captures the lighter side of the book: Willow’s work with these unwanted animals, whom she loves completely and unreservedly (unlike many of the humans she knows). But with that half sentence at the top, it also hints at the darkness in the book, which was loosely inspired by the serial killer Rodney Alcala, also known as the Dating Game Killer. He posed as a professional photographer, and hundreds of his photos of teenage girls were discovered in a Seattle locker years ago. Despite periodic media appeals, most have never been identified.

Since I write for teens, I try to imply rather than describe in brutal detail. When We Go Missing was a really challenge to that delicate balancing act.

Learn more about the book and author at April Henry's website.

My Book, The Movie: Girl, Stolen.

The Page 69 Test: The Body in the Woods.

The Page 69 Test: Blood Will Tell.

The Page 69 Test: Run, Hide, Fight Back.

The Page 69 Test: The Girl in the White Van.

The Page 69 Test: Girl Forgotten.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Isolation Ward"

Martine Bailey studied English Literature while playing in bands on the Manchester music scene. She qualified in psychometric testing and over her career, assessed staff for a top security psychiatric hospital and dealt with cases of sexual abuse and violence. Having written historical crime fiction, Bailey's writing has jumped to a modern setting.

Bailey applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Isolation Ward, with the following results:

If a random reader opens Isolation Ward on page 69 they’ll get a good idea of what the book is about. Psychometrics expert Lorraine Quick is at Windwell Hospital, about to give a team-building workshop to a group of hostile strangers, including the new Director, Doctor Voss, and a bulldog of a Chief Nurse, Brian. Just minutes earlier, Lorraine and Doctor Voss discovered the hospital Administrator murdered in a seclusion cell. And now, Lorraine reaches for her session notes and finds they’ve gone missing:

…she always used her notes as a prop, a prompt to speak lucidly to a group. And now, with Kevin’s corpse at the forefront of her mind, she couldn’t remember a single word of what she’d prepared.

‘And so, it’s over to you, Lorraine.’ Voss was eyeing her with an encouraging, though rather strained, expression.

The room fell silent. Brian’s small eyes fixed on her, in anticipation of sport. She smiled and nodded, wondering if she looked as hideously nervous as she felt. The silence continued…

Lorraine’s work is based on my own experience in the UK’s National Health Service. In Lorraine’s first book, Sharp Scratch, she identifies a killer at her hospital using personality testing. The most hostile groups I faced were often in Psychiatry, including senior consultants and psychologists. To have faced them without my session notes might well have set off a panic attack, if not a cardiac arrest!

Lorraine is made of stronger stuff. She realizes that a crafty psychopathic inmate must have pickpocketed her notes. So, using intuition rather than logic, she dredges up an idea based on the real crisis they are all facing – the tragic loss of the hospital’s Administrator. She makes an off-the-cuff proposal that:

…while the police begin their preliminary investigation, we use this session to discuss the impact of Kevin’s death on the hospital.

To Lorraine’s relief another member of the team responds by unloading her shock and emotions. Now Lorraine can guide the group from hostile paralysis towards a shaky plan for the hospital to cope.

So, the Page 69 Test shows how Isolation Ward takes the psychological thriller a stage further by using the tools of psychology – group work, psychometric profiling, and dealing with grief – to work with different personalities and ultimately, to solve crimes.

Visit Martine Bailey's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: An Appetite for Violets.

The Page 69 Test: An Appetite for Violets.

My Book, The Movie: A Taste for Nightshade.

My Book, The Movie: The Almanack.

My Book, The Movie: The Prophet.

Q&A with Martine Bailey.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wedding"

Gurjinder Basran is the award-winning author of four novels: Everything Was Goodbye, winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and a Chatelaine Magazine Book Club pick; Someone You Love Is Gone; Help! I’m Alive!; and The Wedding. A Simon Fraser University Writer’s Studio alumna hailed by the CBC as one of “Ten Canadian women writers you need to read,” Basran lives in Delta, BC, with her family.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Wedding and shared the following:

On page 69 of The Wedding, the wealthy and entitled bride to be, Devi Dosanjh is at her make-up artist’s salon to review her wedding look and reception styling. She has asked her stylist to make a last-minute change to her original look since her “old Hollywood glam” idea has been stolen by another bride to be. As Devi sits in the salon chair, her mind wanders to social media, and the recent “Dear Auntie” advice giving influencer she’d anonymously contacted about her marital misgivings. While chatting with the stylist, she admires herself from every angle, happily noting that she looks nothing like herself and takes a selfie.

Surprisingly this page does an amazing job of capturing the essence of the book. As the novel outlines the lead up to a wedding from fifteen different perspectives, the reader quickly sees that nothing is as it seems yet perceptions are everything. In a tight knit traditional Punjabi community where friends, relatives, and distant relations are constantly gossiping, watching, commenting, and criticizing each other’s lives, “what will people say?” is a common refrain and all the characters go to great lengths to hide their secrets lives to preserve tradition and honor cultural expectations. Long standing familial resentments, half-truths and personal compromises threaten the carefully curated lives of all involved. In a world of social comparison has perception become reality and is perception enough to build a life on? These are just some of the questions that page 69 asks, and that The Wedding answers.

Visit Gurjinder Basran's website.

Q&A with Gurjinder Basran.

My Book, The Movie: The Wedding.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Claire Casey's Had Enough"

Liz Alterman lives in New Jersey with her husband, three sons, and two cats. She spends most days repeatedly microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms.

Alterman applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Claire Casey's Had Enough, and reported the following:

On page 69 of the novel we see the main character, Claire Casey, asking her friend’s mom, Bea (who has moved in down the street while recuperating from a fall), for advice. Claire’s dilemma? Should she meet Alex, her former boyfriend, at a hotel bar for a drink?

Claire is 46 and recently separated from her husband, Paul. Bea, a widow, is 78. The women have struck up an unexpected friendship and confide in and inspire one another.

Here’s a bit from page 69:

Worn out from pacing, Claire collapsed to the floor and lay on her back. ‘What do I tell him? Do I go? What happens if I do?’

‘How will you feel if you don’t?’ Bea asked. ‘Nobody knows this...’ Bea’s brown eyes, magnified by her glasses, grew wider ‘...but I have a “what if” suitor in my past.’

‘You do?’ Claire sat up and folded her legs criss-cross applesauce.

If a reader opened to this page, they would absolutely get a good feel for the story as it follows Claire, a mom of three, who reconnects with Alex, an old boyfriend, at her college reunion and must decide if he's a fond memory or her future.

While nothing has happened between them at this point in the novel— beyond exchanging flirty and nostalgic messages—when Alex invites Claire to meet him at a hotel bar for a drink, she realizes if she goes it will mean more than just a cocktail—it will spell the end of her marriage.

Both women in this scene grapple with the “what if”s that can haunt us at any point in our lives. The novel also focuses on the importance of friendship and not losing sight of the people who truly matter amid the endless tasks that often consume our days.

For these reasons, I believe the Page 69 Test works well.

Visit Liz Alterman's website.

Q&A with Liz Alterman.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Neighborhood.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Neighborhood.

The Page 69 Test: The House on Cold Creek Lane.

My Book, The Movie: The House on Cold Creek Lane.

Writers Read: Liz Alterman (August 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Claire Casey's Had Enough.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Expat Affair"

Kimberly Belle is the Edgar Award winning, USA Today & internationally bestselling author with over one million copies sold worldwide. Her titles include The Paris Widow, The Marriage Lie, a Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist for Best Mystery & Thriller, and the co-authored #1 Audible Original, Young Rich Widows series. Belle’s novels have been optioned for film and television and selected by LibraryReads and Amazon & Apple Books Editors as Best Books of the Month, and the International Thriller Writers as nominee for best book of the year. She divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.

Belle applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Expat Affair, with the following results:

Page 69 of The Expat Affair opens with Rayna being interviewed by a detective after discovering last night’s date, murdered on the floor of his shower. The picture she’s referencing below is one she posted to her Instagram, wearing his priceless diamond necklace. The next morning, a man is dead and the necklace missing—and Rayna claims to have slept through it all. From page 69:

“That picture was a joke. I already took it down.” Though apparently, not quickly enough.

“Ms. Dumont, I don’t know if you’re aware, but Xander van der Vos was something of a celebrity here in Amsterdam. His death is all over the news, and so is that picture of you wearing his necklace. The legitimate news sites are one thing, but people are posting to X and Reddit and TikTok, and they’re jumping to their own conclusions. I’d advise you not to go searching for those comment threads, but here’s the basic gist: they say as the last person to see Xander alive—”

“I’m pretty sure the last person to see him alive was his killer.”

“Exactly my point. People are talking about you. They’re identifying you by name, and they’re wondering if you took that necklace. If you have it in your possession right now.”

The diamonds that disappear the night Xander is murdered are at the heart of The Expat Affair. Rayna doesn’t have them, of course, but that doesn’t matter. The search for them is what drives the story forward and pulls Rayna deeper into a dangerous world she doesn’t understand. And how do you give up something you don’t have? This is the question that chases Rayna throughout the whole of the book—so yes. The Expat Affair passes the Page 69 Test with plenty of sparkle.

Visit Kimberly Belle's website and follow her on Facebook, Instagram & TikTok (@KimberlyBelleBooks).

The Page 69 Test: Dear Wife.

Q&A with Kimberly Belle.

The Page 69 Test: My Darling Husband.

Writers Read: Kimberly Belle (December 2021).

The Page 69 Test: The Paris Widow.

Writers Read: Kimberly Belle (June 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ceylon Sapphires"

Mailan Doquang is an academic turned novelist with a PhD in architectural history from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. Her debut thriller, Blood Rubies, is a Globe 100 Best Book of 2024, an Amazon Editor's Pick, and a Strand Pick of the Month. Mailan enjoys traveling, photography, and running. She is a Canadian transplant and longtime resident of New York City.

Doquang applied the Page 69 Test to Ceylon Sapphires, the follow-up to Blood Rubies, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Ceylon Sapphires catches jewel thief Rune Sarasin on the tail end of a job in the affluent resort town of Deauville, France. She hears strange noises coming from the back of the mansion that is serving as her staging site. The tension builds as she moves closer to the source, ending with a revelation (no spoilers!) that foreshadows the life-threatening troubles ahead.

Page 69 provides an excellent snapshot of the book. First, it acquaints readers with the protagonist, Rune, a half American, half Thai jewel thief working to repay Charles Lemaire, the ruthless crime lord she robbed in Blood Rubies (Book 1 of the series). Second, it captures the dangerous situations Rune finds herself in throughout the book as she strives to dodge Lemaire and the police. And third, it provides a strong sense of place, which is a salient feature of my writing.

As an historian of architecture, I’ve spent my career researching, writing about, and teaching the history of places, including buildings, neighborhoods, and more broadly, cities. Ceylon Sapphires transports readers to some of my favorite places in Europe. It opens with a heist at the Louvre in Paris, where I lived and worked during graduate school, before moving on to other European hotspots, such as the southern French city of Marseille, the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, and the wealthy enclave of Deauville, colloquially known as Paris’s 21 arrondissement. Page 69 is the last time Rune is in Deauville, but the town remains central to the book. Not only is it the setting of the burglary that sets Rune on her dangerous path, but it is also home to one of her greatest adversaries, and of a powerful ally.

Visit Mailan Doquang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Baker of Lost Memories"

Shirley Russak Wachtel is the author of A Castle in Brooklyn. She is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Wachtel holds a doctor of letters degree from Drew University and for the past thirty-five years has taught English literature at Middlesex College in Edison, New Jersey. Her podcast, EXTRAordinary People, features inspiring individuals who have overcome obstacles to make a difference. The mother of three grown sons and grandmother to three precocious granddaughters, she currently resides in East Brunswick, New Jersey, with her husband, Arthur.

Wachtel applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Baker of Lost Memories, and reported the following:

Here is an excerpt which begins on page 69 of The Baker of Lost Memories. Lena is considering her college major.

Deciding on her major proved to be trickier. Somewhere in her head floated the idea that she would become a lawyer. It wasn’t that she had any particular interest in law, but devoting her life to the pursuit of social justice seemed like a noble calling… Of course, her true passion, the thing she wanted to spend her days doing, was baking. Since the honey cake fiasco years earlier, Lena had continued to keep a watchful eye on her mother whenever she baked her rugelach for the Jewish New Year or the hamantaschen when Purim came around. Between those occasions, Lena would make versions of her own baked goods, even creating a few original recipes like a chocolate layer cake with strawberries or peanut butter nougats. Sometimes, if the finished product was good enough, she would share it with her friends and even her parents. If, however, the dish lacked the right amount of flavoring or was oversalted, before anyone could see it, she would secretly toss it into the garbage with the other failures. For their part, Anya and Josef largely ignored her efforts, deeming some of her creations “very good,” holding back their praise as they cautioned her to pursue a more solid, profitable career. And even though Lena wished that baking could possibly become a full-time career, and even though when she was a girl, she had coveted the idea of owning a bakery just as her parents had prior to the war, she knew the real reason they discouraged her. There were too many memories. Memories of another daughter who had been a baker, possibly the best baker in the world. As a result, for Lena, baking remained a hobby.

This excerpt offers a glimpse into what motivates Lena, the only child of Holocaust survivors, Anya and Josef. She is about to begin college and must consider a major. While she thinks of becoming a lawyer, in her heart she struggles with the need to pursue another occupation. Her parents and a sister she never knew were bakers in Lodz, Poland before the war. Ruby was a darling girl with a club foot, but perfect in every other way. According to her parents, she had become a master baker in their small shop. But when war intervenes and they lose their beautiful child, Anya and Josef begin a new life in America with their daughter, Lena. Yet the loss they endured is never far from their mind, and Lena senses this. Her efforts at baking are met with only modest approval as her attempts stir up memories of happier times with their beloved Ruby. Lena wants to prove that she too can be the perfect daughter so that she can earn her parents’ love.

This is indeed a pivotal scene as it reveals Lena’s feelings of inferiority, never being good enough, never being like Ruby. As the novel continues, she embarks on a new plan to gain their favor, as she marries and becomes a baker in her own right. But there is more to Lena than meets the eye, and her obsession with being the best has serious consequences. It is only when another unexpected tragedy occurs that Lena finds the resolution she has always yearned for.

Visit Shirley Wachtel's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Castle in Brooklyn.

My Book, The Movie: A Castle in Brooklyn.

Q&A with Shirley Russak Wachtel.

My Book, The Movie: The Baker of Lost Memories.

Writers Read: Shirley Russak Wachtel.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Sky Full of Love"

Lorna Lewis is gifted in turning characters’ dreams into drama and crafting stories rich with emotion while exploring the complexities of real-life situations such as marriage, infidelity, fertility struggles, betrayal, and the power of forgiveness. In addition to being an author, Lewis is also an educator. She believes in using her creativity to inspire and teach others both in the classroom and through her writing.

A native of Varnado, Louisiana, a small town much like the ones she loves bringing to life in her stories, Lewis’s southern roots influence the sense of community, culture, and warmth in her work. When she’s not writing her next novel, Lewis enjoys spending quality time with her husband and their two beautiful children, finding joy in family life, and drawing inspiration from her own experiences to enrich her writing.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, A Sky Full of Love, with the following results:

Page 69 brings readers inside an emotional moment between Nova and her mother. Nova has survived fifteen years in captivity, and now, for the first time in a long time, she’s safe, but her mind and body haven’t caught up to that reality. She lies in a hospital bed, watching her mother sleep nearby. Nova’s both comforted and unsettled by how surreal it all feels. When her mom wakes and calls her “Sweet Pea”, a nickname Nova once hated but now clings to, it’s a tender reminder of the girl she used to be. Beneath the surface, though, Nova is carrying the weight of deep trauma. She reflects on the torment she endured, particularly at night when Adam, her captor, had nothing but time to focus on her. Nova finds it hard to share even a small part of her story with her mom for fear of the hurt it may cause.

The Page 69 Test works for this book because it’s a snapshot of what the book is about. It isn’t just about Nova and what happened to her during those missing years. Most of the book is about her return and all the different emotions and situations she has to face now that she’s reunited with her family. This page captures her emotional struggle, the disconnect between safety and peace, and the tension of wanting to protect her family from the full weight of her truth. I believe this page reflects the heart of the story, which is recovery, complicated love, and the invisible scars that keep Nova's mind captive even though her body is free.

A Sky Full of Love is about Nova Lefleur’s journey to healing after being kidnapped and held hostage for fifteen years. This story explores what it looks like coming home to so many changes, not only in the world but also in your family. The story is told from Nova and her sister Leah’s points of view. Both women face some unimaginable challenges that neither ever dreamed they’d have to endure.

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--Marshal Zeringue