Pg. 69: Vicki Delany's "Tea with Jam & Dread"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Tea with Jam & Dread (Tea by the Sea Mysteries) by Vicki Delany.

About the book, from the publisher:

Cape Cod tearoom owner Lily Roberts leaves New England for old England to attend a party for an aristocratic centenarian—but what goes on there is anything but noble...

Long ago, Lily’s grandmother Rose worked as a kitchen maid at Thornecroft Castle, and now Elizabeth, dowager countess of Frockmorton, is celebrating her one hundredth birthday. Rose still has fond feelings for her onetime employer, so a group trip to Yorkshire is planned. It’s also an opportunity for Lily to visit her boyfriend, who’s currently working in England—and to indulge in some British tea.

Much has changed, however, and the ancestral home is now a luxury hotel, which will be closed for a week to accommodate the big bash, much to the chagrin of Elizabeth’s grandson, Julien—leading Lily to overhear an argument among the younger generation about the fate of the family fortune. Little do they know that Elizabeth plans to sell the famous Frockmorton Sapphires out of the family for the first time in centuries...

The icing on the cake comes when the jewels suddenly vanish—and things really go nuts when a party guest dies from an allergic reaction to almonds that someone smuggled into Lily’s coronation chicken sandwiches. Now she’ll have to scour the property to find out who would commit murder in such a manor...

Visit Vicki Delany's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

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The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

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The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

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The Page 69 Test: The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany.

The Page 69 Test: Tea with Jam & Dread.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Erin Michaels's "Test, Measure, Punish"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Test, Measure, Punish: How the Threat of Closure Harms Students, Destroys Teachers, and Fails Schools by Erin Michaels.

About the book, from the publisher:

The risk of closure and repression in schools

In the last two decades, education officials have closed a rising number of public schools nationwide related to low performance. These schools are mainly located in neglected neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty. Despite this credible threat of closure, relatively few individual schools threatened with closure for low performance in the United States are actually shut down. Yet, as Erin Michaels argues, the looming threat is ever present. Test, Measure, Punish critically shifts the focus from school shutdowns to the more typical situation within these strained public schools: operating under persistent risk of closure.

Many K-12 schools today face escalating sanctions if they do not improve according to repressive state mandates, which, in turn, incentivize schools to put into place nonstop test drills and strict student conduct rules. Test, Measure, Punish traces how threats of school closure have distorted education to become more punitive which disproportionately impacts―even targets―Black and Latinx communities and substantially hurts student social development. This book addresses how these new punitive schooling conditions for troubled schools reproduce racial inequalities.

Michaels centers her research in a suburban upstate New York high school serving mainly working-class Black and Latinx students. She reveals a new model of schooling based on testing and security regimes that expands the carceral state, making the students feel dejected, criminalized, and suspicious of the system, their peers, and themselves. Test, Measure, Punish offers a new theory of schooling inequality and shows in vivid detail why state-led school reforms represent a new level of racialized citizenship in an already fragmented public education system.

Learn more about Test, Measure, Punish at the NYU Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Test, Measure, Punish.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top books that explore the myths of sirens

Kalie Cassidy was born and raised in Southern California and spent over a decade working in LA as a professional theater actor, coach, and acting teacher. She now lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her two children and husband. She spends most of her time dreaming up new stories in her library, gardening, walking the nearby woods, and learning about “real” weather.

Cassidy's new novel is In the Veins of the Drowning.

At Lit Hub she tagged seven titles that explore the myths of sirens. One novel on the list:

Rose Sutherland, A Sweet Sting of Salt

Beautifully windswept, with a touch of the gothic, this sapphic retelling of the selkie wife folktale is rife with yearning and features a slow-burn and tender romance. The setting—Nova Scotia in the 1800s—makes for a stunningly atmospheric backdrop, but the unabashed pining in A Sweet Sting of Salt is the real star of the show.

It follows a young midwife as she endeavors to uncover a dark secret about her neighbor and his mysterious new, pregnant wife. Now she’ll have to fight to keep herself—and the woman she’s come to love—safe. If you love historical fiction with a hint of magic, this one’s for you.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue