Snow Sizzling in Soleil is a published novel by elementa-selection.com and available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all e-formats. Below appear the storyline's opening paragraphs.

FEBRUARY

SNOWFLAKES FALLING FROM A WHITE SHY DRIFT INTO BRILLIANT band covering lawn and field. Forest floors and mountain peaks slumber beneath snow deep as an eiderdown quilt. Rooftops silently uphold white bunting like royal heads bearing ermine-trimmed crowns. Smoky puffs escaping hearths' inferno billow through chimneys to find swift relief in snowfall's embrace. Frozen sidewalks winding onward escort streets lying-in-state alongside wear their own shades of white. Even chevron tracks left by cars' winter tires differentiate contrasting high and low depths imprinted on roadways' snow luster leaving behind impressions resembling long sterling silver chain-link necklaces winding through the frosty-white neighborhood that is Soleil.

The horizon is probably white too, if I could only see it!

The word echoes in his cranium confine.

Horizon...ho...rizon...hor...iz...on...hor...I...z...ah...nnn

Christophe imagines how the horizon might look to his gaze now if he could only glimpse it through the crystal flakes swirling about him. His mind gives a short thought to the dictionary meaning of the word as being the line where land meets the sky and its philosophy as an understanding of one's interpretation and all that. But it is a certain truth that horizon is the defining line where hungry theatre happens; the sun is swallowed away at days' end, a sea burps sails into view above it, jet aircraft evaporate in thin air beyond, birds in flight soar through it, ships vanish over its edge, eyes peering through spyglasses spot land rising along it and the moon glides in orbit above for as long as it's able...until the sun rises.

And, well, the horizon is honest that way.

Horizon is the ultimate enigma concrete to my eye but elusive to my reach and for my memory to keep. It is the magnet luring iron-nerve navigators and astronauts from the heat of mattress and solace of sheet. Do explorers return from their chases with a piece of horizon in their hands?

"Of course not," Christophe answered his silent query aloud hearing words fall away to silence as snowflakes silently falling. "Only snacks and souvenirs gathered up along the way like hericots verts, peppers, silk cloth and gold thread for new clothes later, bits of moon rock celled in nitrogen and lunar dust-dunes sealed in tubes. Those guys stake flags in their wakes and leave footprints in ash. The they are home again somewhere pressing their noses against windowpanes, eyes looking out over lawns up roadways through valleys between hills at the horizon."

Snow protests as short squeaks under the crunching treads of Christophe's boots.

"Even the nights are white, just a quieter shade is all what with the moon's white glow and silver stars shining over Uncle's snow-banked yards." And the boy sees his words steaming from his hot lungs as sheer frosty puffs with every breath he speaks. "I'm even talking in white!" Words freeze as tiny crystal clouds floating over his head.

Then as in a silent movie playing forward in slow motion Christophe glimpsed the forms of two girls emerging on the edge of his invisible horizon. They walk side by side through swirling flakes upon the sidewalk crossing his line of vision. He watches large soft crystals fall softly on their caps and waft about their bodies.

ROLLINS OF STONE HOUSE arose as an answer to the question of why one character in my debut novel, SNOW SIZZLING IN SOLEIL has only one name. While some might think this novel a sequel, it is also a stand alone work.

back cover annotation~

Police are called to a dark home when neighbors spot an abandoned naked child banging his fists against the windowpane during a thunderstorm's lightning flash. The child known simply as Rollins by way of the police report is delivered to the stone fortress that is Holy Father's House of Lambs Found where he is settled into the shelter of young Sister Elizabeth's arms. The chief of police tries to reassure Monsignor Philippe the child's stay is only for the night until its parents are found and charged with child endangerment but Monsignor knows that closer to the truth is Rollins' stay will be far longer as he grows behind the walls among the orphans and salvaged abused discards until he cones of an age and is turned out...

ROLLINS OF STONE HOUSE is published by Wisehouse/elementa-selection.com and available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and all e-formats~

My second novel, ROLLINS OF STONE HOUSE spawned this work. In RSH, Rollins' father is author of mystery genre and Jaguar Ravenz King is nuanced as being part of a trilogy under similar titles. (Rollins is an orphaned child being raised in a shelter and comes to learn later in life of his birth father's identity through (aka pseudonym) Nils Belvoir's works)

JAGUAR RAVENZ KING (back cover annotation)

Anabaa, midwife to Queen Latezia delivers the chloroformed royal of a prince. Joy is cut short among the midwife and her attendants, Qiaona, Constance and Lizbett when a stillborn twin expels from the queen's womb. As Anabaa flees through secret passageways in panic with the tiny purplish-black corpse hidden in her apron events unfold and the infant miraculously revives. The surprised midwife swells with relief but before she can make her way back into the birthing chamber of heirs and replace the king's infant with its twin and their slumbering queen-mother she realizes with overwhelming horror King Breretyn has returned to the chamber and taken up his firstborn son and heir from his queen's arms. In this summer solstice hour the king holds forth the newborn prince above the balcony hand railing to the roaring cheers of his subjects. As the kingdom is launched into celebration Anabaa succumbs to darkness in the knowledge she harbors its royal twin outside the palace walls.