"Becoming Bonnie"

Jenni L. Walsh spent her early years chasing around cats, dogs, and chickens in Philadelphia's countryside, before dividing time between a soccer field and a classroom at Villanova University. She put her marketing degree to good use as an advertising copywriter, zip-code hopping with her husband to DC, NYC, NJ, and not surprisingly, back to Philly. There, Walsh's passion for words continued, adding author to her resume.

Becoming Bonnie, her debut novel, tells the untold story of how church-going Bonnelyn Parker becomes half of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde duo during the 1920s. The sequel Being Bonnie will be released in the summer of 2018.

Walsh applied the Page 69 Test to Becoming Bonnie and reported the following:

From page 69:

That bootleg run is coming soon. Who knows when Mary will tap me on the shoulder? For the past few days, I’ve been trying to keep myself distracted, falling into a routine: work at Doc’s, work on the house, work at Doc’s, work on the house. In between, worry wedges itself in.

Becoming Bonnie is the untold story of how Bonnelyn Parker becomes half of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde duo. The summer of 1927 might be the height of the Roaring Twenties, but Bonnelyn is more likely to belt out a church hymn than sling drinks at an illicit juice joint. But when financial woes jeopardize her ambitions, Bonnelyn finds salvation in an unlikely place: Dallas's newest speakeasy, Doc's. That is, until her life --- like her country --- is headed for a crash. Bonnie Parker is about to meet Clyde Barrow.

Page 69 above is an example of “becoming” that is shown throughout my coming-of-age story. As an author, I kept putting Bonnie in situations where she’d have to make decisions, and develop further as a character, even if that meant the loosening of her morals. Of course, along the way, she stumbles, fumbles, and wrestles with her decisions, along with the outcome of those decisions. Here, Bonnie succumbs to working at a speakeasy, only for the ante to be upped when Bonnie agrees to go on a bootleg run for Doc’s. This scene is ultimately representative of the overall storyline, where the ante is continuously upped for Bonnie, especially after she meets Clyde Barrow.

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--Marshal Zeringue