She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her debut book, The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and reported the following:Page 99 doesn't give a good picture of my book at all; it only contains the end material of a chapter. Interestingly, though, the end material I decided to include for each heroine/author pair (read this book when... and a list of a few of the heroine's literary sisters) has been one of the most successful aspects of the book. I think it's because it adds some context to an otherwise isolated story. Hopefully it reminds readers that even if an author only wrote one book, her heroine likely is in very good company. And that really gets to the heart of why I love reading so much...that treasure hunt trail from one book to another is almost as much fun as the reading itself.Visit Erin Blakemore's website and the official The Heroine's Bookshelf website.
I must admit that I love this point of the book. It is a short book, so Page 99 is very near the middle. Somewhere near this point is when I started feeling like it truly was a coherent book and not just a collection of essays. It's where I started to hit my stride. To me, there's a bittersweetness to the middle of a book...you're just far enough along to be in it, but drawn to the conclusion. And you can't help but notice the number of pages left is dwindling.
--Marshal Zeringue
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