"Shadow Creek"

Joy Fielding is the New York Times bestselling author of Now You See Her, The Wild Zone, Still Life, Charley’s Web, Heartstopper, Mad River Road, Puppet, Lost, Whispers and Lies, Grand Avenue, The First Time, See Jane Run, and other acclaimed novels.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Shadow Creek, and reported the following:

What an interesting concept! I just read over page 69 and it's a really good one! I think any reader who turned to that page would definitely want to read more. Shadow Creek is about an unlikely group of campers who find themselves in the Adirondacks at the same time as a pair of murderous psychopaths. Page 69 takes you right into the killers' warped minds. Here we have the female half of the murderous duo talking about her male lover and accomplice, giving some horrifying details of his past as well as a glimpse into the way her mind works, and what prompts them to do the horrible things they do. It's a look into their twisted psyches and motives, and I think it's both compelling and insightful. It's both representative of the book as a whole, and not. Because it's a multiple person point of view, we get to see the plot unfolding from a variety of perspectives, and I like to delve as deeply into all the minds of the characters as I can while continuing to advance the plot. (Character, after all, is what drives the action.) Since Nikki, the psychopath in question, is only one of four points of view, hers is not the normal perspective. But it was very important to me to represent her fairly, and to make her believable, as well as frightening. And maybe all the more frightening because she is so believable.

Learn more about the book and author at Joy Fielding's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Eleven Pipers Piping"

C.C. Benison is the writer most recently of the crime novel, Eleven Pipers Piping. He has worked as a writer and editor for newspapers and magazines, as a book editor, and as a contributor to nonfiction books. A graduate of the University of Manitoba and Carleton University, he is the author of five previous novels, including Twelve Drummers Drumming and Death at Buckingham Palace. He lives in Winnipeg, where he is at work on his next Father Christmas mystery, Ten Lords A-Leaping.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Eleven Pipers Piping and reported the following:

Page 69 of Eleven Pipers Piping nudges one of the themes of the novel, that of marital love and protection and their (sometimes perilous) limits, and illustrates one of the arcs of the Father Christmas series, that of finding and committing to new love. In the first novel in the series, Twelve Drummers Drumming, readers meet the Reverend Tom Christmas, an Anglican priest and recent widower, still coping with his loss. In this sequel, he begins to move on with his life, denoted on this page by his dilemma of what to do with his wedding ring, still on his left hand.

Page 69:

“But you’re a young man …” She didn’t need to say more. The implication was clear: You could marry again.

“Odd,” he said. “You’re the first person to remark on this. At least in my hearing.”

“I don’t mean to offend.”

“Don’t apologize. I have wondered from time to time what I should do with it … the ring. I expect in some way, I’m not really quite ready …” To let go, to move on, he thought, which removing the ring would imply. “I wonder for instance what my daughter will think…”

“You do have your own life.”

“Yes … yes, of course.”

“Don’t mind me. I’m being intrusive.” Judith laughed lightly. “You have other family, I’m sure.”

“Yes, at Gravesend. Shall we?” He gestured in the vicinity of the private dining room toward which the other guests were drifting. “They were all down at Christmas,” he continued happing to abandon the topic of rings. “My wife’s parents live in London and dote on their granddaughter. We were up to London at half-term. And then there’s my wife’s sister—she used to live here in the village, but she moved to Exeter in the summer, which is a pity, but, still, she’s near enough. So, on the whole, I’m not … ill commoded when it comes to rellies.

“And you?” he added conversationally, “do you have children?”

“I have a son,” she said as they passed into the dining room where Kerra was finishing setting out the coffee service.

“And where does he live?”

“My son? Oh! In Shanghai.”

“So far away. That’s a pity. What does he do?”

“Oh, what do they call it? I. T.?”

“Ah, computers.”

“I’m afraid he’s not able to come home very often.” Judith resumed her seat.

Tom resumed his and glanced around the table as the other guests returned to the room, now chilled slightly in the absence of human bodies and the

Learn more about the book and author at C. C. Benison's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Edge of Black"

J.T. Ellison is the bestselling author of eight critically acclaimed novels and multiple short stories. She has been published in over twenty countries. Her novel The Cold Room won the ITW Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original of 2010, and Where All The Dead Lie was a RITA® Award nominee for Best Romantic Suspense in 2012.

Ellison's Dr. Samantha Owens Series includes A Deeper Darkness and the recently released Edge of Black.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Edge of Black and reported the following:

I happen to have both the mass-market paperback and trade paperback versions of Edge of Black to hand, and thought I’d play a game to see how the format affects the Page 69 Test. I didn’t look until I began writing this, just now. And…

Ah. They are bookends of the same scene – the trade paperback the beginning, the mass-market the meat. Washington D.C. homicide detective Darren Fletcher is investigating the murder of Congressman Peter Leighton, a victim of an apparent biological terrorist attack on the D.C. Metro. Fletcher is a no-nonsense cop, and after being kept waiting at the Congressman’s office to interview his Chief of Staff, he finally decides to throw his weight around.

From the mass market paperback:

He went back to the intern sitting at the front desk. She was a timorous thing, eyes wide and staring, probably wondering what she was going to do next. Most likely be sent back home to Indiana, if she’d been from Leighton’s district. If she were local, she might be reassigned, or be out of luck entirely. When he said, “Excuse me,” she jumped a mile.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’m going to have to insist on seeing the chief of staff immediately.”

“I’m sorry, sir. They’re in a meeting, and they said they weren’t to be disturbed. For anyone. He told me that you need to wait outside.”

Fletcher gave her his most charming smile. “You go in there and let him know he has one minute to open the doors or I’ll kick them in.”

Her rabbit eyes grew wide and she made a beeline for the doors. Fletcher didn’t wait, he followed right behind her, and when she opened the door, he touched her on the shoulder.

“Thanks. I’ll take it from here.”

“But, but…” Fletcher left her stammering in the doorway and stepped through into the congressman’s office. He didn’t make a habit of interrupting meetings—he had no right to do so—but there were exigent circumstances at play.

A thin man with precisely cut brown hair and a pristine gray pin-striped suit was sitting behind the desk, with three less dressed people facing him—two men and a woman. If Fletcher hadn’t known the congressman was dead, he would have assumed the man behind the desk held the power. Which, in many ways, he did.

From the Trade Paperback:

“Did the congressman take the Metro this morning?”

Temple sniffed once, hard, then faced Fletcher again. “He takes it every morning. Part of his job, he says, to be with the people, be a part of the populace. Of course, he has security on him, and he only rides it one stop, from Eastern Market to Capitol South. You know. Kisses his wife goodbye, hops on the subway. It makes him feel normal, like a regular guy. Joe six-pack, he liked to say. So yes, he was on the subway today.”

“Where’s his wife now?”

“Gretchen? Flying in from Terre Haute. She’d gone home to get one of their… charities settled. She is devastated.”

“I’ll need to speak to her as soon as she arrives. And I need to speak to his detail. I’ll also need the names of all the supporters who were here this morning.”

“I will have the detail get in touch immediately, and the list of people sent to you.”

“The detail weren’t here, in the office?”

“Not at his time of death. In the building, yes. More than likely. They were scheduled to go out with him at two. The congressman had a meeting this afternoon at the University Club. He was scheduled to speak to the Daughters of the American Revolution, of all things.”

Fletcher appreciated the irony—speaking to a group whose membership could trace their lineage to the first attempts of the country to gain their freedom on the day the most important city in the world was attacked by terrorists was rich.

Two scenes, which in the grand spectrum, look unimportant. And yet, they are vital to the story, and to what happens down the road.

Learn more about the book and author at J.T. Ellison's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: A Deeper Darkness.

Writers Read: J.T. Ellison (April 2012).

My Book, The Movie: A Deeper Darkness.

Writers Read: J.T. Ellison (November 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Crashed"

Timothy Hallinan is the Edgar- and Macavity-nominated author of numerous widely praised books—twelve novels and a work of nonfiction—including the Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers and the Junior Bender mysteries.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Crashed, the first Junior Bender novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 is perfect for this. At the very top, centered, is the number 9, and below that the chapter's title, Thistle.

My hero, a highly skilled burglar named Junior Bender works, on occasion, as a private eye for crooks. (Crooks are less likely than the rest of us to call the cops.) In Crashed, Junior is being forced to identify the person who's been sabotaging a movie and also to prevent future sabotage.

Problem Number One is, it's an adult movie. Problem Number Two is that it's being produced by Trey Annunziato, the beautiful and effortlessly lethal head of the San Fernando Valley's biggest crime operation, a job she got by having someone kill the outfit's previous leader, Deuce. Deuce Annunziato was her father.

Problem Number Three is that the movie stars someone named Thistle Downing, now a drug-addled, impoverished depressive living in a borderline squat in Hollywood, but once America's favorite TV child star, a young actress of incandescent comedy talent who slowly, over the course of years, lost her ability and all her confidence in view of the entire American public. Thistle is so out of it she doesn't even know what kind of a movie she's signed up for. She's thinking art house, an audience made up of guys who go to the movies wearing sandals.

Chapter Nine is the one in which Junior, who never watches TV, learns who Thistle is, and why he's going to have to risk his neck to get her out of the movie while apparently making sure everything moves forward. (Junior's moral code may be improvised and paper-thin, but he lives by it.)

Junior learns all this from his friend Louie the Lost, a former getaway driver with a bad sense of direction. Here's a bit from the page:

Life is definitely not fair. First I had to watch Hacker throw food at his mouth, miss with about half of it, and chew openmouthed on the stuff that found its way in. Then I had to watch Louie cough and spit and pull long dark shreds of wet tobacco off his tongue. When he was finished, he had brown lips and there was a pile of something in front of him that looked like used carnitas.

I decided to skip dinner.

“Thistle Downing?” he finally said. Louie looked at the remnants of his cigar and dropped it, with a surprising concentration of disgust, into the salad bowl. “But ... but ...” His head was shaking back and forth and he was practically spluttering. “They can’t put Thistle into that kind of movie. They can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s—it’s sick. Diseased, perverted, just wrong.” Louie is a short, stout guy who has a fat, cheerful little face that’s mostly forehead, and a dark Mediterranean complexion, and he generally looks like a happy olive. But he was actually flushed with indignation, and his lower lip was quivering. “They can't.”

“Louie,” I said. “You’re acting like she’s your kid sister.”

“She is,” Louie said. “She’s everybody’s kid sister."

And that's what sets the rest of the book into motion.

Learn more about the book and author at Timothy Hallinan's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Stockholm Octavo"

Karen Engelmann is a writer and designer. She was born and raised in the American Midwest, then moved to Sweden after completing university studies in drawing and design. The city of Malmö was home base for eight years, but she now lives just north of New York City.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Stockholm Octavo, and reported the following:

The covers of The Stockholm Octavo might clap shut with a bang if it was subjected to the page 69 test — a scene between the narrator Emil Larsson and Mrs. Sparrow, a cartomancer who has a primary role in the novel. Unless, of course, the reader is intrigued by the notion of the Octavo, the fortunetelling spread at the center of their conversation. Emil and Mrs. Sparrow are laying a card and talking of romance, which might also be appealing to some, and there is the added bonus of an illustration: a beautiful card from the unique deck used in the process. But the Octavo itself is not the heart of the story, although it provides the narrative structure, and TSO is not a romance novel. The protagonist is on a journey that leads to love and connection in a larger sense, but he also encounters politics, poison, runaways, rivalry, refugees, revolution, obsessed collectors, cross-dressers, folding fans and a killer masquerade ball at the Stockholm Opera house in 1792. I really hope the reader looks at the front flap first!

Learn more about the book and author at Karen Engelmann's website.

Writers Read: Karen Engelmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Right Hand"

Derek Haas is the co-writer of the films The Double, Wanted, and 3:10 to Yuma, and author of The Assassin Trilogy: The Silver Bear, Columbus and Dark Men.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Right Hand, and reported the following:

I love the page 69 test! In The Right Hand, page 69 focuses on the backstory of a supporting character, the head of one of the CIA's top districts. This character becomes extremely important to the plot, so while the main character, Austin Clay, is not even mentioned on this page, 69 is an important one. The page speaks to writing three-dimensional characters. You have to lay the groundwork for these supporting roles, so that as their importance increases throughout the book, readers will feel like they are that much closer to them, that they understand where these characters came from, and they become either characters worth pulling for or rooting against. Of course, I hope you'll read the first 68 and every page after!

Learn more about the book and author at Derek Haas's website.

Writers Read: Derek Haas (November 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Poison Shy"

Stacey Madden holds a BA from the University of Toronto and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph. He lives in Toronto.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Poison Shy, his first novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Poison Shy marks the beginning of chapter seven. It opens with a bang, and plunges right into the mystery, angst, and corruption – both physical and moral – that drift through the whole book like poison gas.

“I woke the next morning in a tangle of bloodstained sheets.”

Brandon Galloway, the loser-hero of the novel, has just survived a night of “sexual aerobics” with the sassy and vulgar Melanie Blaxley, his femme fatale, only to wake and find her gone. This abandonment is nothing new for Brandon, who was frequently abandoned by his father as a child, and who is mentally and emotionally detached from his schizophrenic mother.

He calls out “Hello?”, and the only reply comes from the plumbing in the walls. Isolation is a theme that runs through the novel like the undoing of a zipper.

Brandon then realizes he’s late for work – also nothing new, as he’s always scrambling and fumbling about. He’d had quite a bit to drink the night before, which leaves him with blurry vision and a mouth “dry as cement mix”. As he dresses, he’s overwhelmed with “the vinegary scent of [his] armpits.”

The emphasis on alcohol, blood, and body odour in this scene is representative of both preceding and forthcoming scenes of violence and depravity, not to mention the recurring motif of the ugliness and frailty of the human body. Brandon’s blurry vision is also symbolic of his extremely poor judgement.

All in all, I’d say page 69 provides a brief but powerful taste of what Poison Shy is all about, like a drop of hot sauce on the tongue when your glass of water is empty and your tap isn’t working.

Learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and Stacey Madden's Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cassandra Project"

Jack McDevitt is a former naval officer, taxi driver, customs officer and motivational trainer. He is a multiple Nebula Award finalist who lives in Georgia with his wife Maureen.

Mike Resnick has won five Hugos (from a record 35 nominations), a Nebula, and other major awards in the USA, France, Japan, Spain, Croatia, and Poland.

They applied the Page 69 Test to their new novel, The Cassandra Project, and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Cassandra Project is basically a transition between scenes. If you read nothing else, it wouldn't tell you what the book was about -- but you'd know that at least part of it was set in Washington, D.C., involved the government, and was written by two guys who knew how to push a noun up against a verb with some grace.

Learn more about the book and authors at Jack McDevitt's website and Mike Resnick's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Prosperous Friends"

Christine Schutt is the author of two short story collections and two novels, Florida (National Book Award finalist) and All Souls (Pulitzer Prize finalist).

Schutt applied the Page 69 Test to her newest novel, Prosperous Friends, and this is what she found:

What I had hoped to find on page sixty-nine of Prosperous Friends was a recurring note in the novel’s song about love and marriage and ambition, and here it was then: together on a first date, Clive Harris and Isabel Bourne, met at a wedding a year before where Clive first kissed her. Here is part of the melody: the easy, unwise seduction of an uncertain woman by a practiced, dangerous man.

Isabel’s hand was all lily of the valley and clean; her nails were shell. “You are inspiring,” he said, “but this restaurant we’ve found...”

“Is silly,” she said.

Clive smelled her hand once again, and the restaurant turned buoyant, and the service, the service was, well here came the waiter with dessert already: the eight-layer cake, white with red filling, wedding-like and flouncy on a tablecloth scraped so clean that the dinner seemed to be starting again, and Isabel was saying she would like it to start again. “And I’m not fond of Wednesdays.”

“Ah, hah.”

“Would there be anything else?”

“No thank you.”

“I’m baffled,” she said once the waiter had left. “You baffle me.”

And so Clive Harris will continue to baffle her. Thirty-five years older, he will invite her to Maine to live in a second house he owns not far from where he lives and paints with his wife, his second wife, Dinah Harris, a poet. In Maine, Isabel will serve as temporary muse and baffled mistress.

Not a remark to answer, but Clive smiled at the small hook Isabel used to catch him. He, a ravaged carp, practiced in taking advantage of the stunned or wounded, although his appetite, of late, had dulled. And why cloak his intentions so darkly? He wanted to be kind if only Isabel would hold still and let him look at her: bark-brown hair and eyes; eyes wide apart, pale face.

Clive will take advantage of her just as he predicts on page sixty-nine.

Learn more about the book and author at Christine Schutt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Small Hours"

Susie Boyt is the author of several acclaimed novels and a memoir, My Judy Garland Life, which was serialised on Radio 4 and will be staged at the Nottingham Playhouse in spring 2013. Since 2002 she has written a weekly column about art and life for the Financial Times. She lives in London with her family.

Boyt applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Small Hours, and reported the following:

Page 69 is probably the most daring page of The Small Hours. It is a few freak paragraphs set twenty years after the book ends, and consists of a conversation between two women who, in the rest of the book, we only see as four year old girls. By chance they find themselves in the same maternity ward, after giving birth to their first babies, and begin to reminisce about their amazing kindergarten teacher. Her extreme kindness they have not forgotten, nor her sudden demise, although they don’t remember exactly what occurred.

The teacher in question, Harriet Mansfield, is the brilliant and disturbed heroine of The Small Hours. The school she creates is designed to be like a little Eden for her precious pupils, filled with the very best that life has to offer. There are chickens in the garden and a Shetland pony, there are picnics and a doll’s hospital and a real street market and a café where the girls are actually allowed to assist the indulgent owners. For her precious pupils who are rich in everything but care there is nothing that Harriet will not do. But what affect will this stunning new venture have on the fact that her real family despises her? How literal can you be about repairing the damage of the past?

From page 69 of The Small Hours:

‘Almost. What was she called again? Margaret?’

‘Harriet! How could you forget?’

‘Because I was like, four?’

‘I remember everything. I remember that big pink room filled with toys. I remember that whatever I said I wanted to do she always said ‘Absolutely!’ I remember when it was Halloween that time she covered the whole place in woolly cobwebs and pom-pom spiders and there were like a thousand pumpkins all flickering, and pink iced buns hanging from the ceiling on strings and we knelt on the floor and tried to eat them wearing black cat costumes. And apple bobbing and then all the parents going Oh my God! Everything’s so amazing. I think I’ve still got a picture of you and me standing next to a gingerbread house we made there. It’s so elaborate. It even has windows. D’you remember? She melted clear mints in a double boiler and left them to cool. I thought if someone is prepared to go to all that trouble on my account, then I can't be that bad.

‘She was really inspired.’

‘I’ll never forget that time I drew all over the piano with green felt tip. I knew I wasn’t meant to, and she didn’t even tell me off. It was one of those indelible markers as well and some guy came a from a piano shop and took half the keys away for a couple of days and brought them back perfect again. And she wasn’t even cross. All she said, was, “I shouldn’t really have left that pen lying about.” I was so moved.’

‘I can’t even remember what happened in the end.’

‘I just remember seeing her face and thinking that her heart had broken. I remember saying that to my mum.’

‘And what did your mum say?’

She just said, ‘Don’t be so idiotic, or something along those lines.’

‘Nice.’

‘I know, but you know, with my mum, I don’t mean anything nasty by it, but even her biggest fan would say that she’s a total sadist. I mean - Oh hello! I think he’s waking up now. Time to open the milk factory.

Learn more about the book and author at Susie Boyt's website.

The Page 99 Test: My Judy Garland Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Flame of Sevenwaters"

Juliet Marillier’s Flame of Sevenwaters is the sixth book in the Sevenwaters series, a historical fantasy set in early medieval Ireland.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Flame of Sevenwaters and reported the following:

On page 69, seven-year-old Finbar, a budding seer, has just told his older sister Maeve about a terrible event that happened when he was a baby. Maeve has just returned to Sevenwaters after ten years away, and she’s finding this brother she has never met before both unusually gifted and strangely troubled. With them is Finbar’s druid tutor, Luachan.

“Finbar,” said Luachan, “the other baby was not all burned up. Remember? It was not a human baby, and after it was scorched in the fire, your sister mended it and breathed life into it, and then gave it back to its mother. That part of the story had a good ending.” His tone was gentle. It sounded as if they had been through this explanation many times before.

“So you know the whole story too,” I said.

Luachan gave me a crooked smile. “It was deemed appropriate in view of my current duties. Of course, the bare bones of it are common knowledge: the abduction of a chieftain’s son does not go unnoticed. The details I had from Ciarán, who heard Clodagh’s account after her return from the Otherworld.”

“That baby was hurt,” Finbar insisted. “He went all black and shrivelled, and one of his eyes fell out into the flames. Clodagh burned her hand picking it up. And when Cathal poured wine on him to put out the fire, smoke came out of the baby’s mouth.”

“Perhaps you did see it, Finbar,” I told him, and I put my arm around his shoulders. He did not shrink from my touch, but under it he was strung tight. “But you couldn’t remember it. People don’t remember what they saw as little babies.”

“I see it in the water. I see it in the smoke. I can’t help it. It’s there waiting for me.”

Page 69 is quite a representative sample of the earlier part of the book. The later Sevenwaters novels contain an epic over-arching story about a power struggle between Lord Sean (chieftain of Sevenwaters and father of Clodagh, Maeve and Finbar) and Mac Dara, a malevolent prince of the Otherworld. Each novel also has its own story, focusing on individuals within the family. In Flame, Maeve’s relationship with her little brother is critical to the unfolding of both the epic and the personal story – the two will later find themselves on a grand and terrifying quest. This excerpt shows Maeve’s concern for Finbar and the way his visions colour his thinking.

Learn more about the book and author at Juliet Marillier's website.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara.

The Page 69 Test: Seer of Sevenwaters.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Roots of the Olive Tree"

Courtney Miller Santo grasped the importance of stories from listening to her great-grandmother. She learned to write stories in the journalism program at Washington and Lee University and then discovered the limits of true stories working as a reporter in Virginia. She teaches creative writing at the University of Memphis, where she earned her MFA. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Irreantum, Sunstone, and Segullah.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, The Roots of the Olive Tree, and reported the following:

There can be loveliness in the arbitrary. At its core, The Roots of the Olive Tree, is about complicated and fraught relationships of five generations of women. The book is divided into five sections—each told from the point of view of a different one of the Keller women. This structure reveals the truth of their lives by weaving together all the ways in which the women see themselves and each other.

However, page 69 doesn’t deal primarily with this aspect of the novel and instead focuses on Erin (the youngest character) and her decision to leave her job and her life in Rome and return to the small town in Northern California where she grew up. As she’s leaving for the airport, she has a conversation with a cab driver and he uses the phrase “women of my heart” to describe how he loves and misses his own family. For me and for Erin, this is the moment where the arbitrary becomes lovely.

These women are Erin’s heart and they are my own heart. I hope that as the readers work through the year of incredible change with the Keller women that they also become close to their own hearts.

Learn more about the book and author at Courtney Miller Santo's website.

--Marshal Zeringue