"Edge"

Tracy Clark is the author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery and Detective Harriet Foster series, award-winning books that feature tough, smart, Black female characters working the mean streets of the Windy City. Her debut novel, Broken Places, was CrimeReads’ Best New PI Book of 2018 and made Library Journal’s Best Crime Fiction list that same year.

A finalist for Anthony, Lefty, Macavity, Edgar, and Shamus Awards, Clark has won two G. P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Awards and one Sara Paretsky Award. She is a proud member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime and sits on boards at Bouchercon and the Midwest Mystery Conference.

When not writing, Clark watches old black-and-white movies, reads, or putters around. She roots equally for the Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Blackhawks, Sky, and Fire. As a proud Chicagoan, it’s deep-dish and hot dogs, no ketchup―vegan schmegan. And she can toss a (fictional) dead body anywhere and make it work. Dare her.

Clark applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Edge, and shared the following:

From page 69:

She turned back to look at the dead woman. The young mother. Accidental or on purpose? The pressure of the new baby too much to bear, or something else? Tragic either way, she knew.

Page 69 of my novel Edge, book four in my Det. Harriet Foster series, has “Harri” and her partner, Det. Vera Li, on scene at the discovery of a new victim. There’s already been one suspicious death, this victim, is victim number two, and it hits these two cops, these mothers, particularly hard. There’s a tainted drug out on the streets of Chicago called EDGE, and Harri and Vera haven’t pinpointed its source, but bodies keep falling.

Does the test work for my page 69? I kinda think it does. It shows my cops on the case, doing their jobs, working to figure it all out. It shows the impact of the young woman’s loss but also illustrates how her death affects the cops called to her ordinary bedroom in an ordinary home where a terrible, devastating thing has happened.

We see the interplay between partners on page 69. We witness the yin and yang as the two cop/mothers work in unison to process the scene and look for anything that might tell them what happened. Vera notices how small the woman looks in the bed. Harri picks up an infant’s hairbrush and wonders about the last time the young mother brushed her baby’s hair with it. Little things, along with the big things—points of entry, whether the contents of the room were displaced—cop things. We get police procedural on page 69, we also get a lot of character.

Page 69 illustrates to readers that there are people behind badges, which is the main thing I always want to convey in every Harri and Vera book. So, I think I nailed it this time out. Two hardworking female cops doing their thing with hearts open wide. Boom!

Visit Tracy Clark's website.

Q&A with Tracy Clark.

My Book, The Movie: What You Don’t See.

Writers Read: Tracy Clark (July 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Runner.

The Page 69 Test: Hide.

The Page 69 Test: Fall.

Writers Read: Tracy Clark (December 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Echo.

Writers Read: Tracy Clark (December 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"All My Bones"

P.J. Nelson is the pseudonym of an award-winning actor, dramatist, professor, and novelist (among other many other professions) who has done just about everything except run a bookstore. He lives in Decatur, Georgia.

The author applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, All My Bones, with the following results:

Page sixty-nine of All My Bones is, remarkably, the page on which the Reverend Gloria Coleman is arrested, an event which is the proverbial crux of the biscuit—to be specific, the crux of the buttermilk biscuit. (We are, after all, in the Deep South.) The narrator of this and all the Old Juniper Bookshop mysteries is Madeline Brimley, an Atlanta actor, who inherited the bookshop from her Aunt Rose, a New York actor. Gloria Coleman, one of Madeline’s best friends, is the Episcopal priest whose church is just across the road from the bookshop. She’s seen arguing with Idell Glassie, the richest woman in the small town of Enigma, Georgia. The problem is that Idell’s sister, Beatrice, had been missing for months when Madeline and Gloria find Bea’s bones. They were only digging up the front yard of the shop to plant azaleas, and there they were. Idell knows that sister Bea and Reverend Gloria were at odds over church affairs. Now Idell, only a little out of her mind, has decided that Gloria murdered Bea. Without a shred of proof. But since Idell has money, she also has influence, which she uses to force the GBI to arrest Gloria. For most of the rest of the book, Madeline works tirelessly to prove Gloria’s innocence. That work includes confronting other citizens of Enigma, all of whom disliked the deceased intensely, including a handyman whom Beatrice refused to pay and the owner of the town diner whom Beatrice tried to force out of business. Madeline’s investigations even take her to the allegedly haunted opera house in nearby Hawkinsville, and to Kell Brady, the wealthy ex-boyfriend of Bea Glassie, who spent a fortune restoring the old hall with Bea’s help. So, as it happens, page sixty-nine is the page upon which, to a great degree, the entire rest of the book depends!

Read more about All My Bones at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: All My Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fun City Heist"

Michael Kardos is the author of the novels Fun City Heist, Bluff, Before He Finds Her, and The Three-Day Affair. His story collection One Last Good Time won the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for fiction, and his book The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Writer’s Guide is taught at colleges and universities across the country. Kardos's short stories have appeared in One Story, The Southern Review, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and many other magazines and anthologies, and have won two Pushcart Prizes.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Fun City Heist and reported the following:

At one time, Mo Melnick was a half-successful musician, but these days he rents beach chairs and umbrellas for a living. By page 69, Mo is on board to commit a felony with his old band. They have this idea that they can pull a heist—robbing the beachfron amusement park where they’ve booked a gig—during the gig itself. A perfect alibi.

On page 69, while down on the beach doing his day job, Mo is approached by the woman he saved from drowning in the openingchapter. Turns out she’s quite pretty, and she offers to repay him (for saving her life) by taking him to dinner. She hands him her business card, at which point Mo learns that a) she’s a detective with the town’s police department and b) she’s already run a background check on him.

Here’s how the chapter ends:

“I had to make sure you weren’t a serial killer before I asked you to dinner,” she explains.

I stare at the card some more. “You’re a detective?”

“Don’t worry—your record is squeaky clean.”

“It is,” I tell her, feeling the sudden urge to sit down. “I’m totally law abiding.”

She laughs a high C-sharp. “I can tell cops make you nervous. Don’t worry. I’m used to it. Unless you have reason to be nervous.” Her eyes narrow. “Do you have a reason to be nervous?” After a long beat, she smiles. “I’m kidding,” she says. “Cop humor.”

My heart can’t take this. Death is imminent.

“How’s seven?” she asks.

I think page 69 conveys a decent sense of the universe throwing things at Mo that he doesn’t expect. The cop is a new complication: Let no good deed go unpunished, right? In Chapter One he saves her from drowning—which isn’t even his job, but the lifeguards were being inattentive. Now his good deed comes back to haunt him. The page also includes a quick bit about Mo’s perfect pitch—a recurring motif. (Mo believes his perfect pitch is more of a cosmic joke than a useful talent: after all, he’s the drummer.)

So life/death, music, the prospect of a crime, an uneasy relationship…I suppose that page has a lot of the novel baked into it. But I recommend readers start with Chapter One.

Visit Michael Kardos's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Three Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: The Three-Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Bluff.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay"

Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman have been great friends for more than twenty-five years. Their debut novel, Girls with Bright Futures, was a suspenseful journey into the cutthroat world of college admissions that earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, was named a Book Club Winner by Real Simple, and was selected as an Apple Best Book. Dobmeier holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and a JD from UC Berkeley and worked in biotechnology law and nonprofit leadership. Dobmeier was a nationally ranked youth tennis player and went on to play at the University of Michigan, where she earned her undergraduate degree before pursuing a career in medical marketing. Dobmeier and Dobmeier both live in Seattle with their husbands. They enjoy sports, reading (obviously), civic engagement, and spending time with their amazing families and friends. You can often find them together brainstorming and walking their dogs, Shadow and Josie.

The authors applied the Page 69 Test to their new novel, Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay, and shared the following:

From page 69:

Chapter 9

As we pulled up to the café where the book launch party was being held, I prayed I wasn’t on the precipice of hell once again. I reminded myself for the billionth time that I’d written a happily-ever-after romance. Yet my body was frozen in place. Rebecca must have sensed my apprehension, because she reached behind her seat to pat my knee. In the weeks leading up to my book’s publication, Rebecca and I had tiptoed around each other, but I was touched by all her support, despite her misgivings. She’d called in a favor from a client to let my publisher host the launch party here after-hours, and had even hired a stylist to come over and do my makeup and battle my thick hair into submission. But my hair was less of an issue than my nerves. Because four hours from now it would be midnight on the East Coast and my new book would be launched into the wild.

As William held open the door and Lucy and I walked across the threshold hand in hand, I felt like Cinderella arriving at the ball, minus the glass slippers. We’d opted for matching white sneakers and light-pink shift dresses similar to the one worn by the main character on the cover of the book as she gazed up at Mars in the night sky.

As I took in the beautifully decorated space, my mind traveled back to the launch event for my debut novel, which had been held at a swanky rooftop restaurant in New York. I’d been so naive as I sipped champagne and my prepregnancy hair complied with my every wish. With Sam by my side for that one night only, having stopped in on his...

We have to admit we were a bit skeptical of this test when we first heard about it, but it’s uncanny how well it works for Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay! Page 69 is the start of Chapter 9, and a pivotal moment in the protagonist’s story. From the back cover copy, readers would know that the book is about Thea, a young, widowed and still-grieving writer whose husband died shortly after her debut novel was published in a manner that was eerily similar to the protagonist’s husband in her book. Page 69 picks up as Thea is arriving at the launch party for the first novel she’s worked up the nerve to publish since that tragic event turned her life upside down. This time, she’s written a happily-ever-after romance as a way to hedge her bets, just in case what she writes comes true again. But as she prepares to enter the launch party, she can’t help but reflect on her state of mind at the launch of her debut novel, and how she had absolutely no clue that night how dramatically her life was about to change. We love that page 69 at once captures her terror that she could be standing “on the precipice of hell once again,” but also the simmering excitement and anxiety that comes with counting down the hours to a book’s official launch, a feeling that every author no doubt innately understands.

Interestingly, page 69 also mentions five of the novel’s six most important characters - Thea’s in-laws, her daughter Lucy, and her beloved late husband Sam. The only major character not on this page is Thea’s best friend, Frannie, but Frannie more than makes up for that as the book unfolds! Finally, the first paragraph of this page does an excellent job of capturing the essence of Thea’s relationship with her mother-in-law, Rebecca. There are obvious hints of tension between Thea and Rebecca, but also a clear sense that Rebecca’s love and support of Thea wins the day. The intricacies of their complex relationship-–with both of them intensely grieving the loss of the same man (Thea’s husband and Rebecca’s son) but with incompatible styles—is a central theme of the book. All in all, we honestly don’t think we could have picked a better page for readers to engage with our book than page 69!

Visit Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter"

Brionni Nwosu is a writer, educator, and joyful creative based in the vibrant city of Nashville, where she lives with her husband and their three children. After more than a decade teaching students and mentoring teachers, she shifted her storytelling craft from a side passion to center stage. A 2021 We Need Diverse Books mentee under Rajani LaRocca, Nwosu writes bold, heartfelt fiction that explores connection, purpose, and what it means to live a life well.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, The Wondrous Lives and Loves of Nella Carter, with the following results:

Page 69 opens with Nella meeting James, an early love, and details their growing attraction. I feel it speaks to the wonder of the premise of the novel, as she would have been long dead had she met her natural end.

Jacques didn’t read the books, seemingly satisfied to have me recount the contents to him. I felt important as I shared the ideas and the conversation the books sparked. I didn’t question why he spent sums on books, only to give them away. I was only interested only in growing my own collection as I read deep into the night, learning of lands far beyond this one, grateful for Death’s gift of being able to read and speak any language I heard.

Some Sundays, we broke off and walked alone, his hand lingering over mine. It felt good to be the center of his attention. It wasn’t the red-hot love Eugène had for Eulalie. I didn’t know if I was even capable of those kinds of feelings, but it was a warm, pleasant glow.

In September, Eulalie and Eugène moved into a large two-story home on Rampart Street. They hosted a masked ball at their house to celebrate their commitment, a celebration open to all who understood the nature of their relationship.

For the occasion, I had chosen a blue cotton dress with marigold petticoats, a white shawl tucked around my shoulders and into the neckline, and a marigold tignon to match.

Eulalie bustled by me. “Is that a new dress? Quite fetching.”

I nodded, fluffing the cream cotton skirts with the dark-blue trim.

She gave me a long look. “Anyone you’re hoping you’ll see tonight?

“Possibly.” I blushed and straightened the row of extra masks meant for guests. The steady stream of guests soon consumed my attention as a quartet began to play. The sound of stringed instruments mingled with lively conversation as a pair of dancers swept about the room, waltzing to the sprightly fiddle. Other couples joined them on the dance floor, and the room became an atmospheric swirl, colored with the flicker of candlelight, the spin of vibrant cotton and patterned silk, the spice of tobacco, and the titters of laughter from tongues loosened by wine and champagne. The scene was a wonder, and my place in it would have been unthinkable before Death had given me this chance.

I think page 69 gives a good sense of the emotional heart of the book, even if it doesn’t show the full scale of it. On this page, Nella is learning, exploring, and slowly opening herself up to connection, as she determines what love looks like for someone like her during this point in time.

What readers won’t get from this page is the larger premise — the deal with Death, the centuries she moves through, or the bigger questions the book wrestles with. So the Page 69 Test is only partially accurate: it shows the tone, the wonder, and the warmth, but not the full sweep of her journey. I think the chapters from Death’s perspective give it an interesting structure and a POV we don’t often see in literature.

What I love about this page is that it shows Nella at the very beginning of becoming who she’ll be. She’s discovering books, love, friendship, and a world she never imagined she’d get to see. Those small moments — learning a new idea, being noticed by someone, feeling joy that once felt impossible — end up shaping the whole novel.

Throughout the book, Nella travels across cities and centuries, meeting people who challenge her, surprise her, and sometimes break her heart. Page 69 catches her right at the start of that process. She’s standing inside a new life and realizing, almost for the first time, that she has the chance to experience true romantic love.

Visit Brionni Nwosu's website.

Writers Read: Brionni Nwosu.

--Marshal Zeringue

"NYPD Red #8"

Marshall Karp co-created and co-authored the first six books in the #1 bestselling NYPD Red series with James Patterson. Starting with NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority, Karp became the sole author of the series, which features Detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan as members of an of an elite squad sworn to "protect and serve New York's rich and famous." Karp is also the author of five books in the critically acclaimed Lomax and Biggs mystery series, featuring LAPD Detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs, who work homicide out of the famed Los Angeles Hollywood Division. For over twenty years Karp has worked closely with the international charity Vitamin Angels, providing tens of millions of mothers and children around the globe with lifesaving vitamins and nutrients.

Karp applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, NYPD Red 8: The 11:59 Bomber, and reported the following:

When you're writing a book about a mad bomber who's running around New York blowing up iconic places every day at 11:59 AM, you better be sure you give the reader what they came for.

So I was happy to see that on page 69 my two hero NYPD detectives, Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan, have just arrived on the scene of the second bombing — a major department store. The bomb, like the one in the Wall Street subway station the previous day, went off at precisely 11:59 a.m. It’s now clear to the cops (and the reader) that the entire city now knows exactly when the next bomb will explode. They just don’t know where.

It’s not difficult to imagine that millions of people will hunker down at home, and the economic impact on the city will be monumental.

Even though the bomb has already decimated a wide area of the first floor of the store, Page 69 shows the detectives studying the security footage from minutes before the 11:59 explosion. As the time clock in the corner of the screen goes from 11:57 to 11:58, and the seconds slowly tick off to 11:59, the cops see the bomber leave his knapsack near a luggage display and head for the exit. They stand there helpless, knowing that the impending blast will kill everyone in the vicinity. But who? The man admiring a display of crystal bottles? The saleswoman behind a glass counter, a mirrored wall behind her? The little girl who walks into the frame, no mother or father in sight?

Re-reading what I had written, I was confident that page 69 had done exactly what page 69 is supposed to do. Get the reader to turn to page 70.

Visit Marshall Karp's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe"

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of more than fifty published and forthcoming books.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe, and shared the following:

From page 69:

Then Wendy said, “Is this about those two kids?”

“Yes and no,” Addie said with her mouth half full. “It’s more about this guy who hangs out in the warehouse with them. Comes and goes. He’s got a bad habit of trying to sexually assault anybody he thinks he can take. Which is pretty much everybody, because he’s a huge guy. It’s starting to get under my skin. And it’s even worse than it normally would be in my brain—like it’s not already bad enough in there—because I’m writing about my father, who never sexually assaulted anybody as far as I know, but who used my brother for a punching bag until he got to be a near size match. And the two situations are coming together in my head, because he’s tried it on both those kids, the boy and girl both, and it’s bugging me a lot. I just can’t seem to keep my mind focused. I think I’m going to have to do something about it.”

She was afraid Wendy would ask her what she planned to do, but fortunately it never came to pass. Probably Wendy would just think Addie was talking about a call to the police. That’s what most people would think. Especially if they didn’t know Addie all that well.

“What do your two new friends think about that?” Wendy asked.

“Not sure,” she said, which was not entirely true, because she knew Jeannie thought she should kill him. “They haven’t been around for a couple of days.”

“Well, I hope they’re somewhere indoors. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy to be sleeping outdoors during this.”

Addie stopped eating and gazed out the window for a moment. As if there were something to see out there. A firestorm or a tornado she had somehow missed. But it was just a night like any other.

“During what?”

Wendy raised an already high and arched eyebrow.

“You don’t watch the news?”

“Sometimes. Not lately.”

“Or look at weather reports?”

“Not usually. I figure I’ll see what the weather is when it gets here.”

“Every now and then there’s weather you might want to see coming.”

I’m very happy and excited about this, because I’ve done quite a few of these Page 69 Tests, and this is my absolute favorite page 69 text yet. I’m probably more enthusiastic about it than the situation even warrants.

So… yes. I think this is a great representation of the novel, and gives the reader reason to believe they would enjoy the complete work.

They say “no conflict, no story,” but a big reason I’ll keep reading is a foreshadowing of conflict. And a lot of foreshadowing happens to fall on page 69 this time. There’s a dark hint that Addie is going to do something dramatic to the abuser, and then on top of that we have ominous thoughts about the weather, which is more of an issue when two of the characters are homeless teens.

Not only do I think it makes a person want to read more, but there’s more drama in Other Gifts than in some of my novels, so I think it paints a good picture of what the reader will find in the full read.

Visit Catherine Ryan Hyde's website.

Q&A with Catherine Ryan Hyde.

The Page 69 Test: Brave Girl, Quiet Girl.

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The Page 69 Test: Seven Perfect Things.

The Page 69 Test: Boy Underground.

The Page 69 Test: Dreaming of Flight.

The Page 69 Test: So Long, Chester Wheeler.

The Page 69 Test: A Different Kind of Gone.

The Page 69 Test: Life, Loss, and Puffins.

The Page 69 Test: Rolling Toward Clear Skies.

The Page 69 Test: Michael Without Apology.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hemlock Lane"

Minneapolis native Marshall Fine’s career as an award-winning journalist, critic, and filmmaker has spanned fifty years. Before his bestselling 2024 fiction debut, The Autumn of Ruth Winters, Fine wrote biographies of filmmakers John Cassavetes and Sam Peckinpah, directed documentaries about film critic Rex Reed and comedian Robert Klein, conducted the Playboy interview with Howard Stern, and chaired the New York Film Critics Circle four times.

Fine applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Hemlock Lane, with the following results:

Here is page 69 of Hemlock Lane in its entirety:

Sol hadn’t always been afraid of his wife. There was a time when her sharp wit had been applied without a coating of acid. He remembered her being genuinely funny when they were first married, someone who could unleash a laugh that tickled his soul. Lillian could do impressions of radio stars like Fanny Brice and Gracie Allen, though only when the two of them were alone; she was too self-conscious to ever be a performer.

Something had changed in her after Amelia was born, he believed, though she had returned to her old self—mostly—after Clara arrived to help with the housework and childcare. But after Nora was born, the old Lillian disappeared for good, replaced by a sour, angrier version. In that iteration, the threat of self-destruction seemed to lurk just beneath the surface, at least in Sol’s mind.

He couldn’t confide those fears about his wife to anyone—not even Stan, his closest friend, because Stan would tell his wife Delia, who would inevitably say something to Lillian. Sol knew what a betrayal that would be in Lillian’s eyes.

No matter how he felt about his wife at that point, he couldn’t even think about divorce. In Sol’s world, divorce was a word whispered in shame, almost as shameful as marrying out of the faith. It was a nonstarter, not even to be considered. “Till death do us part.” No other options were available. It didn’t matter how unhappy you were; your only escape from a miserable marriage was death—yours or your spouse’s. No one cared if you wanted to stab each other in the neck with butcher knives. There simply was no way out.

But after her “accidental” overdose, Lillian became moodier in every way. That included sharp-edged comments—not just to him but to the girls and Clara. At those moments, he tried to focus on the things about her that had first attracted him: her humor, but also her insecurity, which always seemed so close to the surface, and her vulnerability, which she tried to mask with an all-encompassing sense of authority. Though they seldom made an appearance, Sol knew that her vulnerable qualities were there, deeply hidden beneath the haughty surface.

I was surprised how well page 69 encapsulates the emotional dynamics of my novel, Hemlock Lane. If you dip into my book at that point, you get an illuminating snapshot of the way one family has learned to accommodate its most volatile member.

Hemlock Lane looks at a flashpoint weekend in the life of a suburban New York family in the summer of 1967. The story takes place over the course of four days, with each day told from the viewpoint of one of the four central characters: mother, father, daughter, housekeeper. All of the characters figure in each day’s present tense, as well as the flashbacks from that person’s point of view. My goal was to create moments in which new information changed the readers’ perspective on something they thought they knew.

Page 69 puts the reader directly into the center of the emotional conflict: a family in which the father—and everyone else—lives in fear of triggering the mother’s bad moods, and spends their time walking on eggshells around her. It provides a glimpse of the father’s past and present with his wife, and the way he sees her effect on everyone else in the household.

Hopefully, the long-burning fuse on the novel’s central conflict sizzles all the way through this page—and this section.

Visit Marshall Fine's website, and follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

My Book, The Movie: The Autumn of Ruth Winters.

Q&A with Marshall Fine.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Sunshine Man"

Emma Stonex is the author of The Lamplighters, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into twenty-five languages. Before becoming a writer, she worked as an editor at a major publishing house. She lives in Bristol with her family.

Stonex applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Sunshine Man, and shared the following:

From page 69:

‘He’d grown accustomed to seeing the change in the weather from an up-high window in his flowery dell, a postage-stamp square of cloud and sun and pale white light, deep purple at night, but to be in it and feel it and smell it were things he’d forgot, not forgot exactly for the detail was still there, still in him, buried beneath the thickets of the years, delayed but not lost, rising notes he recognized from when he’d been a boy and the rain had smelt the same then, of a ha’penny kept too long in his pocket, but Donna said it wasn’t ha’pennies any more, it was pounds and fivers, and he wasn’t a boy now, he was a man.

It was true what they said, that you didn’t know up from down, left from right, spin him around and tell him which way and he wouldn’t know still, not a fegging clue, would likely go stumbling out into the road and that would be curtains, day one and then done, and sure they’d say after it was destined that way, he’d had a dent in him right from the start, stupid too, gone in the head, evil and dumb (what it was to be both), as evil and dumb as they come. But he’d been banged up an eight-stretch in a cell it took five seconds to circuit, five point five to be precise, two steps down one side, three down the other, back to the door where the voices came in – “Open up, Walsh! Open up, Parker! Open up, Maguire!” – then slop-out in the troughs and back to his bunk for a diet can of porridge, an ounce of sugar if he was lucky, trapped in the walls and the hours and the fug of his brain, in the haze of weed and the waste of his life, slow and slack and forever stopped still, yet out here it was everything everywhere, all in a hurry in a place too busy, too many, lights changing and rain chucking and the world tremendous and too much.’

The Page 69 Test works eerily well for The Sunshine Man. Page 69 is the first time we get our male protagonist, Jimmy Maguire’s, perspective, on the day he’s released from prison; from this point on the plot deepens and becomes more complex. It’s uncanny how the gear of the book shifts from page 69 and readers are invited into the dual narrative.

The Sunshine Man is a revenge thriller about a woman, Birdie Keller, who hunts down her sister’s killer after he’s freed from jail. Up to page 69 we receive Birdie’s viewpoint only, and side with her radical mission: she’s an ordinary wife and mother, sending her children off to school and seeing her husband off to work, then she puts a gun in her handbag and heads off to London to meet and pursue her adversary. We’d imagined the picture was clear – Birdie’s in the right, Jimmy’s in the wrong – but page 69 changes everything. We see inside Jimmy’s head, and, as the novel progresses, we start to question all we’ve been told.

Although page 69 is written in the third person, it’s an involved third person because it taps into Jimmy’s train of thought and manner of speaking (in other chapters we hear from him in the first). This gives the reader a fine idea of the tone of the book and the significance of this unreliable narration: neither Jimmy nor Birdie are trustworthy protagonists and their ‘truths’ shouldn’t always be believed; their pasts are inextricably entwined and each one has an agenda.

My greatest hope with The Sunshine Man was to complicate the idea of a villain – is anyone ever a hundred percent evil? Can a villain also be a victim? Is it possible to retain, every time, those binaries of right and wrong, good and bad, or can there be an in-between? Jimmy’s entrance on page 69 captures this element for me, because Birdie has portrayed him thus far as an out-and-out devil, yet here we see somebody human, vulnerable and overwhelmed. From here Jimmy is unknowingly chased down to the south coast of England by his shadowy predator, and soon he and Birdie will meet again. Who will walk away from their confrontation, and which will win out – forgiveness or revenge?

Follow Emma Stonex on Instagram.

Q&A with Emma Stonex.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Bleeding Woods"

Brittany Amara is an author, screenwriter, actress, and model with a passion for science fiction and fantasy that ventures beyond space and time. She loves writing about curious aliens, morally gray protagonists, other dimensions, rifts in reality, and all things playfully wicked. When she’s not working on something new, Amara can be found stargazing, collecting stuffed animals, and baking pumpkin bread. She grew up in Bronx, New York, and graduated summa cum laude from SUNY New Paltz in 2021 with a degree in digital media production, creative writing, and theater arts. In 2024 she furthered her storytelling journey at Queen’s University Belfast. Since then, her work in various genres has been recognized by film festivals and writing competitions across the globe.

Amara applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Bleeding Woods, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Thanks, guys,” he whispers.

“Good night, Joey,” we reply in choral synchronicity.

An exchange of goodnights circles through the space. Finally, we fall quiet, but it’s obvious our internal monologues are ripe with terror. To look outside the windows would be to face fear incarnate. The light of the moon effuses only a feeble stream of light, and that stream illuminates a minuscule fraction of our surroundings. The rest is pure, inky darkness. Chthonic chaos. Shadows and silhouettes.

Eventually, Grayson’s and Jade’s breath patterns turn slow and cyclic. They were able to drift off, even with something so caliginous watching from between the gaps in the trees. Every hair on my body stands at attention, antennae detecting danger. Still, the most unnerving aspect of this impromptu sleepover is the fact that I am not nearly as afraid as I should be. I can’t stop replaying the way Jasper called to me. It claws at every corner of my consciousness, creating a sensation similar to when one first allows alcohol past their lips. Intoxication. Euphoria. A welcome loss of control.

I should be as scared as Joey. I should be masking my fear like Grayson and Jade are. I should be upset by the possibility that we may never see bars on our phones again. I should feel something, just like I should have felt something when my parents’ eyes stared lifelessly into mine.

“I saw it.” Joey’s voice shakes me from my thoughts, as tiny and timid as a mouse’s squeak.

“The thing you were hearing. I saw it.”

“What did you see?” I whisper.

“It. I didn’t say anything because I—I didn’t want it to hear me.” His breathing turns ragged.

I pause too long for any of my incoming reassurances to be reassuring. “Nothing is going to happen, Joey.”

“You don’t know that,” he whimpers.

“I know not all scary things are bad. What if he’s just lost like us?”

He stays silent, and after fifteen or so minutes pass, I turn to face my window.

As though I’d given some sort of nonverbal consent, something squirms within the abyss.

I'm delighted to say that I believe the Page 69 Test works well for my book! By some uncanny magic, it actually feels like exactly the kind of scene I'd hope to see in a teaser trailer if it ever gets adapted for film. Horror stories rely so heavily on tense, atmospheric build-up to their most terrifying moments. In The Bleeding Woods's case, much of the opening is designed to set the stage for exactly what we arrive at beyond this very page. Fear hangs in the air. A monster waits beyond a car window. The main character cannot help but empathize with him, even though her travel companions think otherwise. Is there more to him than meets the eye? More to this forest altogether? The essence of the story lives in the flavor of fear, trepidation and internal conflict woven through this brief section. Needless to say, I'm positively mystified by Marshall McLuhan's advice to book browsers.

Page 69 of The Bleeding Woods has revealed itself to be special for another reason. In rereading it, I can see how this is precisely when I discovered a sense of rhythm and confidence in my writing. At the cusp of when everything begins to go downhill for the characters, I felt a flare of bravery in me. I realized that, though The Bleeding Woods is a horror story, it was mine. There was nothing to be afraid of, especially not the chaotic joy of experimenting with my own unique voice. Right before making the world terrifying for Clara and her companions, I became fearless.

Visit Brittany Amara's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Bleeding Woods.

Writers Read: Brittany Amara.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Daughters"

Corinne Demas is the author of 39 books including two collections of short stories, seven novels, a memoir, a collection of poetry, two plays, and numerous books for children. She is a professor emeritus of English at Mount Holyoke College and a fiction editor of the Massachusetts Review.

She grew up in New York City, in Stuyvesant Town, the subject of her memoir, Eleven Stories High, Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948-1968. She attended Hunter College High School, graduated from Tufts University, and completed a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She lived in Pittsburgh for a number of years, teaching at the University of Pittsburgh and at Chatham College.

Demas applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Daughters, with the following results:

From page 69:

Meredith hadn’t seen Wylie for several years, but even with his hair cut shorter (and by the looks of it, done by a barber rather than himself) and some grey in his mustache, he still looked like the gawky teenager who hadn’t gotten used to his newly acquired height, his arms too long for his sleeves.

“How’ve you been, Merry?” he asked.

“Not bad, and you?” She’d come out to the driveway after Wylie’s truck had pulled up. He always used to drive disreputable pickups, their bumpers plastered with so many stickers it looked as if that’s what held them together, but this was a new truck, clean enough to drive into the city.

“She prefers Meredith, now,” said Evan, then he added, “but around here, with family, she’s still Merry.”

“Do I count as family?” asked Wylie, and he gave her a smile that seemed a little sad too.

“Sure, why not?” she said. She stepped behind Eloise, put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, and gave her a little nudge forward. “And this is Eloise.”

“Hi, Eloise,” said Wylie. “I heard about you from your uncle.”

“What did he say?”

“He said you were, let me see . . . ten years old?” He winked at Meredith.

The Page 69 Test works beautifully for Daughters. It gives readers a taste of the novel, and it’s the enticing opening page of Chapter 8 where Wylie first makes his entrance. Hints about him earlier in the novel suggest he will influence the course of the story.

Daughters centers on the relationship between Delia, a Suzuki violin teacher on the cusp of retirement, and her adult daughter, Meredith, an artist, who gave up playing the violin as a teenager, a sore point between them. Meredith has fled her home in L.A. and her marriage, and she turns up at her old home in New England—where Meredith’s mother and step-father still live--with her seven- year-old daughter, Eloise in tow.

Wylie is Meredith’s older brother Evan’s best friend, and she had a crush on him when she was younger. We suspect there might be something still going on between them. Earlier in the novel (page 16) when Eloise discovers a “good luck” rabbits foot on a key chain in her mother’s old bureau, Meredith reveals it was given to her by Wylie. Meredith “wasn’t ready to think about Wylie, but now that was impossible. She hadn’t let him know she was back, but he’d find out from Evan soon enough. And then what?”

The “then what?” is what fiction is all about. And here, on page 69, we see how things begin to unfold in Daughters.

In the chapter preceding page 69 we learn that Wylie is a controversial figure from Meredith’s past. When Delia hears that he’s coming over she “felt a little stirring of fear.” She wonders if Wylie has anything to do with Meredith’s leaving her husband, and is anxious about the possibility they could have a relationship now. One of the questions that fuels Daughters is how do mother/daughter dynamics change—or need to change- -when the daughter in question is now an adult.

Dialogue is an essential ingredient in Daughters, and page 69 is primarily dialogue. In this scene we get to witness the subtle sexual tension between Wylie and Meredith, and we also get to see Wylie meet Eloise for the first time. Wylie’s interactions with Eloise are crucial to the plot of the novel and influence whether he and Meredith have a chance for a future together. Of course we hope they do.

Visit Corinne Demas's website.

Q&A with Corinne Demas.

The Page 69 Test: The Road Towards Home.

My Book, The Movie: The Road Towards Home.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Deeper than the Ocean"

Born in Havana, Mirta Ojito is a journalist, professor, and author who has worked at the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and the New York Times. The recipient of an Emmy for the documentary Harvest of Misery as well as a shared Pulitzer for national reporting in 2001 for a series of articles about race in America for the New York Times, Ojito was an assistant professor of journalism at Columbia University for almost nine years. She is the author of two award-winning nonfiction books: Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus and Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town. Currently, Ojito is a senior director on the NBC News Standards team working at Telemundo Network.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Deeper than the Ocean, her debut novel, and shared the following:

From page 69:

[My senses were on high alert as if I was covering a] protest or a revolution. I felt cold but was sweating. My mouth tasted like copper, and I realized I was chewing the inside of my cheek. I tried to bring my attention back to the phone now that I could finally hear my mother clearly.

“I was asking if you had found the place with the mulberry trees? I know what they are for,” my mother was saying.

The trees! Yes, of course. I had forgotten to google them.

“And what are they for?” I asked impatiently. It seemed somehow important, though I wasn’t sure why.

“They’re the only food silkworms eat. Apparently, they used to weave silk on the islands. Maybe that’s something to investigate, right?”

The answer both surprised and deflated me a little. Worms? Really? I was confused and my clothes were thoroughly drenched. Beyond the lobby windows, I could see the timid rays of the sun pushing through the dark clouds. The storm had passed as quickly as it had come. All was calm outside, but inside I felt strangely agitated.

Although page 69 in my book begins mid-sentence and continues for just a few more paragraphs of dialogue, the test works because it gives readers a sense of foreboding and a sense of the dynamic between two important characters. The page comes at the end of an intense and important scene in what, if the chapters were numbered, would be chapter 9.

My book is written in two voices -a contemporary one, the voice of Mara Denis, a 55-year-old freelance journalist who is searching for her family history in Spain’s Canary Islands- and that of Catalina Quintana, her elusive great grandmother who carries a secret that has haunted and altered the story of the family.

Chapter 9 is crucial because it describes the moment when Mara begins to uncover the clues that will eventually unravel the mystery of her grandmother. The scene described on page 69 gives the reader a glimpse of Mara’s relationship with her mother, and it alludes, somewhat, to her phobia of the sea. In this case, she is drenched because of a passing rainstorm, but she is agitated -a state that refers both to her reporter’s sense that she is about to discover something important (the sun pushing through the dark clouds) and to her ancestral fear of the water.

Visit Mirta Ojito's website.

My Book, The Movie: Deeper than the Ocean.

--Marshal Zeringue