(Criminally late update? Let’s brush that under the carpet, shall we?)
Back in 2010, the Guardian suggested the page-99 test to find out if you want to read a book. In short, you read page 99 of the book in question to decide if it’s worth your time.
Since my new book, Hit for a Six, is a slim 148 pages long, I fear a page-99 test might be too much of a spoiler. Thus, here’s a middle-of-the-book test:
Chapter 8
“I’m not very interesting, I don’t know why you want do a biography of me,” said Laila.
“We are supposed to pick someone ordinary,” replied Samir. His eyes widened in shock immediately as he realized what he’d said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that you were boring or anything!”
“It’s fine.” But she was slightly stung anyway.
She had agreed to meet him in Chandnisarai’s new coffee shop called Conversations. It was not a very apt name because the music was so loud, you could barely hear yourself think. Also, everything was very expensive. Laila had ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, which turned out to be black coffee and was revolting, even after emptying four sachets of sugar in it.
Sorry it’s such a short excerpt (chapter opening page), but what did you think? Would you buy this book? (Hint: You can get it here.)
~PD