99th page feature

[Cindi Lee]

It's safe to say that every page of your novel should be engaging and draw in a reader. What does the 99th page of your novel say about your work and what readers can expect? No, not the 12th page, not the 1st, but 99--that ever so important number keeping you in limbo before page 100. But be sure to check out...

 

The 99th page of  The Mirrors of Fate: Out of the Past

 

 

 

Create and post your 99th page feature in this discussion as well!

[Aaron Paul Lazar]

Hi, Cindi. Great topic. Here's the 99th page of FireSong, my soon to be released book in the LeGarde Mystery series.

 

A puff of black smoke billowed from Nahum’s Pontiac. He pulled out of the prison parking lot, bumping over the ruts and potholes. Fiddling with the radio knob, he found WXXI FM, where Les Mélodies du Japon, a haunting Saint-Saëns cello and piano duet, laced the air between us. We drove for at least five minutes without talking before reentering Goodland Station and passing the Stones’ farmhouse.

I readjusted the seatbelt strap that dug into my neck and turned to face Nahum. “What do you think Slim was talking about?”
He spun the wheel to the right and started up Barker Hill Road, frowning. The old car chugged up the hill. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
I sensed that Slim’s words of warning had been consuming his thoughts like they had mine.
Nahum swerved to avoid a pothole. “I just can’t make sense of it.” The car ascended the first rise, belching smoke. He reached over and turned off the radio, as if the melodies softening the air were too much competition for the turmoil of his thoughts.
“Has Slim confided in you?” I asked. “Maybe he said too much? Told you about a crime he should’ve kept quiet about?”
He thought for a moment, shaking his head. We pulled up behind a red tractor and Nahum slowed to twenty miles per hour. Grassy clods of earth pelted Nahum’s rusty front bumper and one splatted against the windshield. An attempt to pass would be dangerous and probably outside of the realm of possibility for his old vehicle. We sputtered up the steep hill in low gear.
“Slim has ‘confessed’ his crimes to me many times. Nothing that wasn’t in the public record, though.”
My morbid curiosity got the better of me. “What did he do, Nahum?” Shame filled me the minute I opened my mouth.
99

[Cindi Lee]

Thanks for posting Aaron! Others should do the same! It's a great bit of exposure and a really interesting idea.

[Gary Val Tenuta]

Aaron, I noticed the conversation on page 99 of your novel and my novel, The Ezekiel Code, are really similar. They both involve conversations about a previous conversation with a third party. The question in the present conversation (on your page 99 and on mine) is what did the information from the third party mean? :-)

 

Here's page 99 from The Ezekiel Code, a Kindle "Best Seller" in the categories of "Occult" and "Religious Fiction" for over 57 weeks. (Also available in paperback)

 

Angela laughed. “So that would be the answer to my question of
what was before the Big Bang. It was God playing with a really big
stick of dynamite.”

“I guess anything’s possible,” he said with a smile, holding his
glass up for a toast. “So here’s to anything possible.”

“I’ll drink to that,” she said, clinking her glass against his.

Banyon prepared a cracker with a slice of cheese and handed it to
her. “So,” he asked, “what’d you think of our new friend, professor
Kline?”

Angela took a bite of the cracker and thought for a moment. “Well,
to tell you the truth, that whole story freaked me out. That business
about the French guy getting murdered and us being watched and all. I
mean, come on. Didn’t you think that was a little scary?”

“Yeah, it was a little unnerving all right.”

“A little unnerving?”

“Okay,” Banyon confessed, “a lot unnerving.”

Angela slowly swirled the wine around in her glass for a moment
and then looked directly at Banyon. “Do you think we’re in danger?” 

Banyon lit up a cigarette and sat back in the couch. He had to
admit that the information from Kline did put a whole new light on the
situation.

“Well?” she prodded.

“I don’t know. Maybe not. Kline did say he didn’t think we were
in the same kind of danger that McClintock was in.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t exactly say why.”

“I know. Apparently that’s what he’s going to explain to us
tomorrow night.”

For the next couple of hours they rehashed the conversation they’d
had with the professor. They went round and round trying to put
together the many pieces of the strange mystery they had so innocently
stumbled into. But there were too many unanswered questions and the
bigger picture, as Kline put it, didn’t seem to be coming into focus. 

After a while, and having had a couple more glasses of wine,
Angela found herself getting sleepy. “All I know right now,” she said,
“is I’m tired and it’s really late and I have an early class in the
morning.”

She got up and walked over to the window and stood looking out
into the rainy night. She could see a few house lights in the distance,
reflecting on the surface of the lake just a couple blocks away.