Lonnie
Jennifer Roberson
Smashwords Edition
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and
events portrayed in this book are products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously.
LONNIE copyright 2012 by Jennifer Roberson
All Rights Reserved
Previously published as "Kansas Blood" under the pseudonym Jay
Mitchell
Cover design copyright 2012 by Jennifer Roberson
Cover image (c) Polka Dot Images /
www.fotosearch.com Stock Photography
First electronic edition 2012
Published by Jennifer Roberson
www.cheysuli.com
Digitizing, book design and copy editing by Antimatter ePress
http://www.antimatter-epress.com
Elizabeth K. Campbell, with copy editing by Jim Bailey and Nancy S.
Gilson.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Contents
Other Books by Jennifer Roberson
Why a Western? I’m best known for writing fantasy—the Cheysuli chronicles, Sword-Dancer saga, Karavans universe—and occasionally romantic historicals, such as my Robin Hood/Marian duology—Lady of the Forest, Lady of Sherwood—and my Scottish historical, Lady of the Glen. Well, before I ever tackled those genre, I loved reading Westerns, loved Western movies, loved watching Westerns on TV. (Had a major crush on Clint Eastwood as “Rowdy Yates” in Rawhide.) I had a horse. I was the Scottsdale Rodeo Queen in ’72, the Phoenix Rodeo Queen in ’74, and Miss Rodeo Arizona in 1975. It was kind of my “street cred” early on.
I’d written two girl-and-her-horse novels at 14 and 16 (never published), and decided, at 18, I wanted to write a Western. It was a bumpy beginning, until I let Lonnie, my protagonist, tell her own story. I did market it, but no publishers were interested. So I set it aside and started work on another novel, this time a romantic suspense, another genre I enjoyed reading.
After 15 years of marketing on my own, I went the agent route in 1982. Almost immediately he sold my first fantasy, Shapechangers, to DAW. He then asked if I had anything else, so I sent him a revised version of Lonnie, my Western. He sold it right away to Zebra Books. And Zebra promptly asked me to put a male pseudonym on it (I was told women don’t read Westerns, and men don’t read Westerns written by women) and to come up with another title. So “Jay Mitchell” was born, but I couldn’t come up with a good title, so Zebra called it Kansas Blood. Ugh!!! They also slapped a “stock” cover on it featuring a cowboy on horseback leading a pack animal. The back cover blurb described it as a regular western, no mention of the narrator being a 17-year-old girl. I've always had a vision of truckers buying it as a traditional western only to learn the hero was a heroine when Lonnie mentions flowers falling down the front of her dress. That, or he was a cross-dressing cowboy.
So. Here you have an early Roberson novel now returned to its proper title, to a story-appropriate cover, and my name is on it. It only took 26 years!
April 30th, 2012
Tucson, Arizona