"Forever, Interrupted"

Taylor Jenkins Reid is from Acton, Massachusetts. She graduated from Emerson College in Boston in 2005. She worked in entertainment and education before becoming a writer, and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alex, and their dog, Rabbit.

Reid applied the Page 69 Test to her first novel, Forever, Interrupted, and reported the following:

Forever, Interrupted follows two storylines: The first is the story of how a woman, Elsie, reacts when she loses her newlywed husband, Ben, and has to meet her mother-in-law for the first time at the hospital. The second, is the story of how Elsie came to marry Ben in the first place. Page 69 falls during the second storyline, at the end of Elsie and Ben’s first date.

They have spent an entire day together and are infatuated with each other. Elsie and Ben decide that they are going to sleep next to each other, but Elsie tells Ben she absolutely will not sleep with him on their first date. Elsie’s best friend, Ana, is desperate for information on who this new guy is and keeps texting to find out info.

It was pitch dark as our eyes slowly adjusted, and then there was a buzz and small flash of light. It was my phone.

“He’s still there?” Ana had texted.

I turned off my phone.

“Ana, I presume,” Ben said, and I confirmed. “She must be wondering who the hell I am.”

“She’ll know soon enough,” I said. He put his finger under my chin and lifted my head toward his. I kissed him. Then I kissed him again. I kissed him harder. Within seconds our hands, arms, and pieces of clothing went flying. His skin felt warm and soft, but his body felt sturdy.

“Oh!” I said. “The parking meter. Did you put enough money in? What if you get a ticket?”

He pulled me back to him. “I’ll take the ticket,” he said. “I don’t want to stop touching you.”

As we rolled around each other, I somehow kept to my word. I did not sleep with him that night. I wanted to. It was difficult not to. Both of our bodies pleaded with me to change my mind, but I didn’t. I’m not sure how I didn’t. But I didn’t.

Admittedly, this is perhaps one of the steamier moments in the book. The rest of it is a bit more...clothed. But I do think it’s emblematic of the book as a whole. The story is full of happy, joyful, exciting times juxtaposed with dark, challenging ones. This just happens to be one of the more lighthearted scenes in the story.

On Page 69, we see two people begin to fall in love. And ultimately, that’s what is at the very heart of Forever, Interrupted: those precious moments when you let go and fall in love.

Learn more about the book and author at Taylor Jenkins Reid's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Midnight"

Kevin Egan graduated with a B.A. in English from Cornell University, where he studied creative writing under Dan McCall (Jack the Bear) and Robert Morgan (Gap Creek). He is the author of six novels, including the newly released Midnight.

Egan applied the Page 69 Test to Midnight and reported the following:

Page 69 of Midnight ends a chapter and has only seven lines of text. It depicts Tom Carroway entering the New York County Courthouse at dusk and riding the elevator to the fifth floor, where he works as law clerk to Judge Alvin Canter. Carol Scilingo, the judge’s secretary, is waiting in chambers with the judge’s coat on her lap. Even for a short passage, the scene has a quiet feel, with Tom uttering the only two words of dialog: “All clear.”

The situation is this: Earlier that day, which is New Year’s Eve, Judge Canter died while napping in his chambers. Court rules stipulate that when a judge dies his immediate staff retain their jobs until the end of that calendar year. Neither Tom nor Carol can afford to lose their jobs, as will occur at close of business. So they decide to take advantage of the largely deserted courthouse and smuggle the judge’s body to his apartment where, they hope, it will be assumed that he died after midnight in the new year.

On page 69, Tom is returning from staging the judge’s car outside the courthouse. Carol waits in chambers with the judge’s coat on her lap, while the judge himself is rolled up in a rug.

Midnight is constructed in four parts and covers a 72 hour period between December 31 and January 3. Page 69 is representative of the first part of the book, which maintains a tight focus on Tom, Carol, and their execution of what at first appears to be a successful plan to save their jobs. However, the mood of the book changes in Part 2 as the camera pulls back to reveal sinister characters and unforeseen consequences.

Learn more about the book and author at Kevin Egan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Letters from Skye"

Jessica Brockmole's new novel is Letters from Skye. When she's not writing, Brockmole can be found reviewing historical fiction as part of the Historical Novels Review's editorial team.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Letters from Skye and reported the following:

Oh, page 69 is a good one. Elspeth, my reclusive poet, had been trying to overcome her fear of water to leave her native Skye and meet David, her correspondent of two years. “Eight weeks ago,” she writes to him, “I stood on the pier, trying to find the nerve to step on that ferry. I kept my eyes on that horizon, knowing that if I went to meet it, to meet you, everything would change. Not necessarily in the going, but in the leaving.”

But life interrupts her indecision. “Four days before, Great Britain declared war on Germany. While I had sat alone in my cottage, reading through old letters and fortifying my heart, the world went to war.” Up on Skye, isolated from the rumblings that had had brought Europe to the brink of war that hot summer of 1914, Elspeth doesn’t know how the war will change things, whether it will touch her and her family. That hesitation on the pier, and her chance is gone.

It’s a good little sample of Letters from Skye, especially as it comes at a crossroads for my cautious heroine. Her flash of regret at missing that chance to travel across the water, her worry at the onset of war, her guilty stab of irritation at having the world’s battles interfere with her own. The moment the war begins, so do many things for my characters.

Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Brockmole's website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Life List"

Lori Nelson Spielman lives in East Lansing, Michigan. A former speech pathologist and guidance counselor, she currently works as a homebound teacher for inner-city students. Spielman enjoys fitness running, traveling, and reading, though writing is her true passion. She and her husband spend their winters cursing the god-awful Michigan weather, and their summers sailing the glorious shores of Lake Michigan.

Spielman applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Life List, and reported the following:

My protagonist, Brett Bohlinger, received one last order from her deceased mother: to complete the life list of goals she wrote as a teen. Problem is, these goals don’t resemble her current dreams in the slightest. In fact, some of them are nothing short of impossible. How can she possibly have a relationship with a father who’s been dead seven years? Or get a horse when she lives in downtown Chicago?

On page 69, Brett stews over goal number one: Have a baby, maybe two. She and her friend, Megan, sit together at a coffee shop, where Megan asks Brett some pointed questions. Brett is forced to admit that the reason she no longer wants children is because her boyfriend, Andrew, doesn’t want kids. She has morphed into the person he wants her to be, rather than staying true to her own dreams. And she still hasn’t told Andrew about the life list she’s expected to complete.

“…But he’ll go ballistic. He wants to buy a plane someday, not a horse! Kids aren’t part of his plan. He made that perfectly clear early on.”

“And that was okay with you?”

I look out the window, my mind stretching back to another time. “I convinced myself it was. Things were different back then. We traveled a lot…he’d join me on business trips. Our lives were so full it was hard to imagine having a child.”

“And now?”

She’s asking for the updated version of my life. The version where I eat alone most nights in front of the television and the last trip we took was to his sister’s wedding in Boston two years ago. “I’ve just lost my mother and my job. I can’t deal with more loss. Not yet.”

Midway through the page, the story shifts to Megan’s dilemma. She caught her boyfriend cheating…again.

Big surprises are in store for both Brett and Megan if the reader chooses to continue reading. Kirkus Reviews claims, “Spielman’s debut charms.” I certainly hope page 69 displays some of that charm!

Learn more about the book and author at Lori Nelson Spielman's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Curiosity"

Stephen Kiernan's nonfiction books are Last Rights and Authentic Patriotism.

He applied the Page 69 Test to The Curiosity, his debut novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Curiosity contains a moment that presented two challenges for me as a writer. That page is the midway point of a two hour long scientific experiment, led by a character named Thomas, which unexpectedly succeeds.

The first challenge was to maintain tension for a long time. My response was to use pacing – periods of lesser and greater intensity – so the situation can build. Page 69 is a moment of relief.

The second challenge was to teach the reader the science of what was happening, without being dull, to make the moment believable and to provide information that will be useful later.

The answer to both problems came in the form of David Gerber. He is a polymath, a computer savant, and a devout Deadhead. While everyone around him believes this experiment could redefine the idea of human mortality, Gerber may possibly be stoned.

Page 69 is narrated by Daniel Dixon, reporter with the fictional science magazine Intrepid:

“Procedure forty-five.” Thomas is grinning like a jack-o’-lantern. “Commence magnetic field.

A technician near Gerber turns a large black dial. “Done,” he tells Thomas.

Gerber turns to me. “Remember magnets when you were a kid?”

“Excuse me?” I say. For nearly two hours, no one has been speaking but Thomas.

“Remember?” Gerber says. “How you’d try to force the ends that didn’t like each other to touch anyway? My family had these colorful letters of the alphabet, for the fridge, right? Those little suckers had surprisingly strong aversion to one end of the other letters. That’s what we’re doing now with the electrons in this guy’s body. Pushing the magnetic dislike.” He sniffs.
“I know it’s complicated science, but I keep thinking about those fridge letters.”

“Gerber,” I reply, “sometimes you are one spacey dude.”

He laughs, then sings quietly. “Friend of the devil is a friend of mine.”

“Procedures forty-six and forty-seven,” Thomas continues as if he hasn’t heard us. “Commence electric signal and initiate reanimation clock.”

Perhaps this is a rule of science writing in fiction: The more complicated the technology, the simpler the explanation ought to be.

Learn more about the book and author at Stephen Kiernan's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: The Curiosity.

Writers Read: Stephen Kiernan.

--Marshal Zeringue

"On the Floor"

Aifric Campbell spent thirteen years at Morgan Stanley, where she became the first woman managing director on the London trading floor. She left to earn a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Campbell’s writing has won awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, a Thayer Fellowship at the University of California at Los Angeles and writing residencies at Yaddo in New York.

She teaches at Imperial College, London and has previously taught at the University of East Anglia, University of Sussex.

Campbell applied the Page 69 Test to her novel On the Floor, and reported the following:

A hard-living investment banker has three days to decide her destiny: 28-year-old Geri Molloy has a rare mathematical gift that has made a huge success on the trading floor. On the surface she looks likes a woman in control of her future. In reality she remains in thrall to the three men who control her destiny: her ex lover, her boss and her reclusive hedge fund client who feed on her success. When she finds herself caught up in a high-stakes takeover, Geri’s life is plunged into chaos and she is heading towards a crisis that will alter the course of her life.

Page 69: It’s 07:29 on January 14 1991 and war in the Middle East is about to shake up the markets. Geri has just stepped into the morning meeting where management is briefing the trading floor on their strategy for war.

I stand up on tippy toes and peek over Al’s shoulder to see Zanna speed-scan the conference room but her professional half-smile includes the whole audience and doesn’t linger on me. Tucking her papers decisively under her arm, she touches the blue Hermès twist draped over her collarbone and takes a step towards the management huddle. I know she is desperate to have a word but I also know that she won’t be given the chance. This is a big day for big boys and heavy weapons and deep voices and the switch to a female frequency might just break the spell. The heavyweight cluster breaks apart and the Grope turns to survey the room, arranging his face into the shape of a beginning. The crowd babble fades to mute. We wait, all eyes on the Grope who nods to his right, ‘Go ahead, Dick.’

‘Well I can tell you one thing. We’re not expecting many sell orders in the oil market the next few days,’ the Head of Commodities breaks the surface tension with a bit of humour.

‘As you know, we’ve seen a steady decline from the $41 peak in October when Saddam threatened to start shooting missiles at Israel.’ He rattles through a retrospective chart summary of where crude prices have traded, tapping a finger on the lingering end point of the line as the screen fades into the dull heartbeat of GOLD.

‘Don’t expect a rally, guys. Except amongst the Swiss of course, who’ll be busy stockpiling in their underground bunkers.’ He grins to signal it’s time for another laugh, before assuring us that the only safe haven will be the dollar. This is a cue to the Head of Foreign Exchange and the screen fades to two charts marked $/YEN and $/DM, both dotting into an upward slope. I lower my head into a discreet yawn, so close to Al’s back that I have to be careful not to get lipstick on his shirt.

I spent 13 years on a trading floor at Morgan Stanley, so I really wanted to bring the reader right onto the trading floor and tell the story from inside the closed and very male world of high finance. This page is very typical of the way in which I write about the markets. But On the Floor is a story about love and money so although we see Geri’s world on this page, we don’t get much of a feel for her character. We do catch a glimpse of Zanna, her “most effective friend” and later in the book Geri will discover something important about their relationship. What really fuels this book is the story of a woman growing up and taking charge of her own life.

Learn more about the book and author at Aifric Campbell's website.

See Aifric Campbell's top 10 list of portrayals of working life in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Execution of Noa P. Singleton"

Elizabeth L. Silver grew up in New Orleans and Dallas and currently lives in Los Angeles. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in England, and a JD from Temple University Beasley School of Law. She has taught ESL in Costa Rica, writing and literature at several universities in Philadelphia, and worked as a research attorney for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, her first novel, and reported the following:

I love this idea of a page test. Here is page 69 from The Execution of Noa P. Singleton:

“I’ve changed my life, Noa. I’m a different person now, and I want you to be a part of it.”

The door to the bar opened and closed, losing a handful of patrons. He looked over, a bit melancholic, as if losing them were somehow as painful as losing me.

“Do you know the owner?” I asked. “We’re practically the only ones here. Did you plan it that way?”

He grinned with undulating pride. “You’re looking at him. And of course not.”

“Okay.”

Nothing else came out, despite his necessitous expectations. Nothing else was planned. He was the one who called this little meeting. My life’s goal up until that point was far from tracking down a missing parent. It’s not like I walked around blaming the world for my problems merely because a one-night stand with my mother twenty-three years earlier resulted in my sitting at this wooden booth in North Philadelphia across from a man with a water bottle on his side like a colostomy bag, clearly on his Twelfth Step toward making sure that water bottler remained a water bottle. Still, he needed some sort of recognition for his evolution. That ridiculous scar over this hip was starting to dance into a pitiful expression of desperation and didn’t seem to stop no matter how many expression of acknowledged understanding I tossed his way.

“Well done, then, Caleb,” I said. “Is that the proper response? You turned your life around…then what? You called me? Congratulations. You did it. You’re, what, a businessmen now or just an alcoholic who owns a bar? Because that’s an effective strategy for reform.”

His brows swam together, constructing a moat of protective lines. Sarcasm clearly hadn’t made its way down the evolutionary track just yet in Dive Bar, Bar Dive. I wanted to say I was sorry, but I wasn’t.

“I just want to know you,” he said. “That’s why I called. That’s all. I want to know my daughter. I made a lot of mistakes, and now I want to fix them. It’s not a unique story. It’s just mine.”

I’m not sure if this page is entirely representative of the book, particularly as the novel is divided into multiple voices and times. The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is about a young woman on death row in Pennsylvania and her relationship with her victim’s mother, an attorney, who initiates a clemency petition on Noa’s behalf six months before her execution date in order to commute Noa’s death sentence to a life sentence.

The novel is told primarily from the perspective of Noa Singleton, the young woman on death row in Pennsylvania, in present day prison observations, reflections, and conversations with her lawyers, as well as via flashbacks to her past, exploring her path to prison. This is a scene in a bar in which Noa is attempting to reconcile with her estranged father. It is a significant relationship, but the style isn’t indicative of the entire book and is quite dialogue heavy.

The novel is broken down into six parts, representing the six months before Noa’s execution, or “X-day,” as she calls it. Interspersed between each of the sections is a letter from Marlene Dixon to her dead daughter, Noa’s victim, in which she reconciles her evolving views on the death penalty and comes to terms with her daughter’s death.

Page 69, although not indicative of the novel in full, may be representative of the flashback scenes to Noa’s life, in which we, as readers, begin to piece together the puzzle of what happened on January 1, 2003, the day that placed her behind bars.

Learn more about the book and author at Elizabeth L. Silver's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You Look Different in Real Life"

Jennifer Castle's first novel, The Beginning of After, was named an American Library Association Best Fiction for Young Adults selection and a Chicago Public Library "Best of the Best" Book.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, You Look Different in Real Life, and reported the following:

From Page 69:

"Justine," says Leslie. Her voice catches and sounds froggy. She clears it and tries again. "Tell me about a typical day for you."

"A typical day for me would be..." I pause, glad I remembered to start it off like that, so it will sound better when edited. "I get up. I go to school. After school I come home, or go to my dad's, or walk around Main Street, or hang out at the bakery with Felix." What else do I do? "I go online or watch movies in my room. Homework, of course." Wow. In other words, a typical day for me is a staggeringly boring pile of crap.

Leslie pauses, glancing at her notebook. I can't read her face. "Are you doing any afterschool activities?"

"Not at the moment."

"I thought you played guitar." She's tried to frame that softly, curious and floating, but it still hits hard.

An image jump-cuts into my head. I'm thirteen, seated on a small stage in a church basement without windows, sweating and suffocating from heat and all-over body panic. I'm holding a guitar There are dozens of faces fixed on me, including my parents and sister in the a back row. I'm playing "Scarborough Fair" and although I've been practicing this song for weeks and I know the chords by heart, my fingers aren't doing what they're supposed to. My voice is soft and scratchy, and the ages-old air inside the church seems to be swallowing it up.

I was pleasantly surprised to apply The Page 69 Test to You Look Different in Real Life, and see that, hey, this passage is quiet, but important! In subtle ways, it captures the essence of our main character and one of the book's big issues.

Our narrator Justine is one of five child subjects of a documentary film series that revisits their lives every five years, starting when they were in kindergarten. In the first two films, feisty, creative, big-dream-talking Justine was a breakout star. Now 16, she feels disconnected from her 11-year-old self; she feels disconnected with herself overall...and this is her journey. For me, You Look Different in Real Life is mainly a story about identity, and the various ways we can look at ourselves -- as well as the people around us -- and try to figure out who, exactly, we see. In this scene, filmmakers Lance and Leslie Rogers have arrived at Justine's house to shoot their first interview for the new film, and Justine must face the reality that in the last five years, something has smothered her spark. Justine has an "official" way of creating a then-and-now moment, but my hope is that readers will be inspired to ask themselves, "Am I the person I wanted to be five years ago? And if not, why not, and what can I do about it now?"

Learn more about the book and author at Jennifer Castle's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Redemption Mountain"

Gerry FitzGerald has been in advertising for nearly thirty years and owns an advertising agency in Springfield, Massachusetts. He holds a master’s in journalism from the Medill School at Northwestern University and is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He lives in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts with his wife, Robin.

FitzGerald applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Redemption Mountain, and reported the following:

Page 69 is the first page of Chapter 8, making it a shorter page than normal.

Chapter 8 is an important chapter for Charlie Burden, one of the principal characters of the story. At a meeting with his company’s managing partner, Lucien Mackey, Charlie learns that the company and its largest client, the OntAmex Energy Company, want Charlie to take over the construction of a “backwoods coal burner” in southern West Virginia. Expecting to be assigned his dream job managing the construction of a huge hydroelectric dam in China, Charlie’s disappointment is amplified when he also learns that one of the challenges he’ll be faced with in West Virginia, is helping to secure a variance for a mountaintop removal coal mining permit on Redemption Mountain.

Page 69:

Chapter 8

The door to Lucien Mackey’s corner office was open, as it usually was. Charlie Burden rapped a knuckle as he walked in. The senior partner of Dietrich Delahunt & Mackey was hunched over a large conference table that dominated one end of the massive office.

“We fucked this up pretty good Charlie.” He was peering intently at a set of charts that covered every inch of the worn mahogany tabletop that had seen its share of blueprints and maps over the years. His jacket was off, a troubled look on his face that Charlie recognized as the warning sign that this was going to be a bad day for someone at Dietrich Delahunt & Mackey.

Moving closer to the table, Charlie recognized the layout of the CanAmex plant in West Virginia. “What’s the problem down there?”

“It’s pretty simple. The goddamn pond is in the wrong spot. Can you believe that? After all this time? Two years we’ve been building this thing down there, with Paxton and a battalion of contractors, surveyors, engineers and environmental people crawling all over it and nobody notices that the cooling pond is situated on a hundred foot thick ledge of solid bedrock that a fucking nuclear bomb couldn’t blast through. . .” Lucien stopped and took a deep breath to control his anger. He tossed a pencil down on the chart and stood erect, offering his hand to Charlie, smiling thinly, embarrassed that he’d forgotten his manners. “Good morning Charlie. Thanks for coming in early.”

Mackey gestured toward the black leather couch with two matching chairs, separated by a massive glass coffee table. “Come on Charlie, sit down, we need to talk and we don’t have a lot of time.” Charlie sunk uncomfortably into the center of the couch as Mackey took one of the chairs.

“Terry Summers will be along in a few minutes and, well, we need to come to an agreement here, you and I Charlie, before he gets here.”

Charlie had known his boss long enough to know when he was having trouble getting to the point. “Lucien, what’s up, what is it you want me to do? You know we’ll come to an agreement. We always agree on whatever it is you want.”

Later in Chapter 8, Charlie and the readers will meet Vernon Yarbrough, a Charleston, WV lawyer who will play a pivotal role in the machinations and subterfuge at work in the utility company’s efforts to displace a “disagreeable old pig farmer” from Redemption Mountain.

Learn more about the book and author at Gerry FitzGerald's website.

Writers Read: Gerry FitzGerald.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Witch Fire"

Laura Powell grew up in the Brecon Beacons and spent most of her childhood with her nose in a book. She went on to study classics at Bristol and Oxford, then spent five years working in the editorial departments of both adult and children's publishers. She now lives in West London.

Powell applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Witch Fire, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Witch Fire is fairly short, as it’s the end of a chapter. It’s describing the set-up of Wildings Academy, an elite Swiss boarding school where teen witches are sent to keep them out of trouble – and away from the clutches of the Inquisition. My heroes, Lucas and Glory, have been sent there by the WICA, the witch-kind division of the UK secret service, to investigate rumours that the terrorist group Endor has infiltrated the school.

The final line of the chapter is: “Once Lucas and Glory were at the academy, the only people they could trust were each other.” This is a key theme of the book, which builds on the relationship between the two that began in Burn Mark. Lucas comes from a famous witch-hunting family while Glory comes from an equally famous line of witch-criminals. When they first met each other they were mutually hostile and suspicious. Now they’re professional partners-in-espionage, they’ve grown much closer but are still grappling with their own demons, as well as secrets from their families’ pasts. They don’t know it yet, but their undercover mission in Wildings is going to test them like they’ve never been tested before…

Read more about the book and author at Laura Powell's website.

Learn about Laura Powell's top ten heroes in disguise.

My Book, The Movie: Witch Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Longings of Wayward Girls"

Karen Brown is the author of a novel The Longings of Wayward Girls (July 2013), and two short story collections, Pins & Needles (July 2013) and Little Sinners and Other Stories, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, and named a Best Book of 2012 by Publishers Weekly. Her work has been featured in The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, the New York Times, and Good Housekeeping, and in many literary journals.

Brown applied the Page 69 Test to The Longings of Wayward Girls and reported the following:

Page 69 opens the second part of the novel with a newspaper account of the search for Laura Loomis, a young girl who went missing five years before the events in the book take place—a disappearance that remains unsolved, and haunts the book’s suburban Connecticut landscape. The woods and fields seem safe. They are places where Sadie and her friends set their games and explorations as children, and yet the newspaper article recounts how searchers scoured these places for Laura just years before. Soon, Laura’s disappearance will mirror one triggered by a prank Sadie and her friends play on a girl from their neighborhood. The mystery surrounding the two missing girls has its effect on Sadie as she marries and becomes a mother who still lives in the area, and who must confront her role in the second girl’s disappearance.

These newspaper articles about Laura Loomis appear at the start of each section, and become a separate thread of the story. I felt that their spare language and the simplified account of events they narrate capture the fear and confusion that occurs when a child goes missing. In the book, they chronicle a family’s gradual acceptance and continuing longing for closure.

PART TWO

SEARCH RESUMES TODAY FOR MISSING 9-YEAR OLD

WINTONBURY – June 15, 1974

A massive search for missing 9-year old Laura Loomis was called off by State Police Friday, but will resume at dawn today. The search by more than 800 volunteers was called off about 30 hours after the 9-year old was last seen walking home from a friend’s. Laura, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Loomis, was given permission to visit a friend who lived on her street. When she did not return by dinner time, Mrs. Loomis became concerned, and called the friend, who claimed Laura had left her house right at 4:30, as instructed by her mother. By this time Mr. Loomis, home from work, began a search of the neighborhood with his wife, both calling their daughter’s name. State police were notified at 6:00 PM., and volunteer firemen quickly began a search of the surrounding woods and fields, until dark, when a house to house search was conducted. No leads have developed, says State Police Lt. William Reed. “Foul play is not suspected,” reports police spokesman Dan Fontaine, “but it has not been ruled out.” Late Friday he said that state police are proceeding with the theory that the girl is “missing and lost.”

Learn more about the book and author at Karen Brown's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Karen Brown.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Death of a Dyer"

In Death of a Dyer, Eleanor Kuhns's second Will Rees mystery,

Will Rees feels at home. It’s been a long time since he last felt this way—not since before his wife died years ago and he took to the road as a traveling weaver. Now, in 1796, Rees is back on his Maine farm, living with his teenaged son, David, and his housekeeper, Lydia—whose presence contributes more towards his happiness than he’s ready to admit. But his domestic bliss is shattered the morning a visitor brings news of an old friend’s murder.

Kuhns applied the Page 69 Test to the new novel and reported the following:

Wow, what an interesting choice. Page 69 is representative of Death of a Dyer and reveals several of the primary conflicts in the story.

First, Rees's difficulty in readjusting to his home town is clearly delineated. So much of what he remembers about the Dugard community is different now.

He is shocked to realize how his childhood friend Nate (and whose murder he is investigating) has changed. Nate has not only become very wealthy but also a friend of the Carletons, the largest landowners in town. As boys, Rees and Nate had nothing but contempt for James Carleton. But Nate and James became business partners and good friends. And Rees will now have to reacquaint himself with his former nemesis.

And finally, Richard, the prime suspect for his father's murder, is revealed to be courting James' Carleton's daughter Elizabeth and has a notoriety of his own in the town.

Learn more about the book and author at Eleanor Kuhns's blog and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Death of a Dyer.

--Marshal Zeringue