The bookstores I’m featuring on my site are as local as Kansas, as independent as I am, and as familiar to me as my friends. In fact, these bookstore owners are my friends. And no, I’m not getting a cut for promoting them here :)

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to introduce them to you in the order in which I met them:

Vivien Jennings

First up is the justifiably famous Rainy Day Books in Fairway, Ks., a store that’s about a 7-minute drive from my house. I held my first book signing there, but that’s not why it’s famous. (I say with a smile.) It’s famous because of its legendary owner, Vivien Jennings, a woman who works harder than practically anybody I have ever known–as hard as Nora Roberts!-- and who has earned her right to thrive, even during these years that have been so dark for so many other independent book stores.

If you’d like to read about how a stupendously successful bookstore owner does it, here’s a recent article about her:

I owe Vivien a very important and personal thank you. . .

After my first and second books, Generous Death and Say No to Murder, were published as Avon original paperbacks, Vivien–without even telling me–talked them up at a romance writers convention. Sitting in the audience was a young editor at Pocket Books–Linda Marrow, and her interest was piqued by what Vivien said about my books. Linda might have forgotten about it, however, if not for one of those happy coincidences in life. When she got back to her desk, there, right on top of it, was a copy of Generous Death, which my agent had sent to her, recommending that she read it. Remembering Vivien’s words, and knowing that Vivien was a bookseller whose instincts were highly regarded in the industry, Linda did read Generous Death. Then she got in contact with my agent, asking if she could talk to me, and one day out of the blue I got a call from Linda Marrow! She told me what had happened, and then she asked me if I would like to write another series, possibly under another name, for Pocket. I was tempted! For one thing, she was offering three times the money I was making for my Jenny Cain series. But in the end, I turned her down. I was just about to go into hardcover at Scribner’s, and I felt that I was on the track I needed to be on.

That, happily, was not the end of our story. Linda promptly bought up all of my paperback rights! And then, a few years later, as soon as Pocket started its own hardcover line, she brought me over to Pocket. And now, all these years and books later, I am still with her, only now at Ballantine Books. Ours has been a dream editor/writer relationship and friendship. I flounder without her! So thank you, Vivien Jennings, for helping to create the best thing that ever happened in my writing career.

And now, here are three other, wonderful local bookstores that I frequent. In the months to come, I’ll feature them, store by store and owner by owner, too.