Winter in Cannes, by Kay Pfaltz, publication date 2011, by Bywater Books

     What can one woman do when it’s not others but ourselves who persecute love? This is the theme of Winter in Cannes, a love story set in Paris, London, Cannes and New Mexico. It is a Bildungsroman, the coming of age story of American Brooke Alexander as she seeks first adventure, then understanding and fulfillment, believing she has found all in the human form of Logan Longley, a beautiful, but married English woman. As Brooke slowly realizes she is falling in love with a woman, and not just any woman at that, she is filled with wonder, then frustration then despair.
     
      Despair turns to ecstasy as Brooke realizes that Logan reciprocates her love and desire. But love, ever complicated, is not always enough to conquer all. Logan not only tells but shows Brooke that she loves her, and both women know that the love is for all the right reasons. But is their love enough to go against conventionality? Will Logan opt for the life she wants with Brooke or turn back to one of the men in her life?
     
      The novel is a study of passion, and nudges readers to relive these emotions, emotions that all women who have ever fallen in love have felt and in so feeling, have also felt unique in their love.

Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make, by Kay Pfaltz, publication date 2012

     A mute murderer and a prison psychologist.
     Can peace be found behind the bars of prison?
     Poised, professional and beautiful Eleanor Hartley is psychologist assigned to counsel a new inmate at the women’s penitentiary. There’s only one problem. Jane doesn’t talk. Not only must Eleanor coax Jane to speak, but she must satisfy her own overwhelming need to understand why Jane killed, and what really happened on that summer night.
     On the surface Eleanor’s life looks picture-perfect, but her best friend has betrayed her, her marriage is crumbling and along with it her self-control and esteem. To further confuse her, every time Eleanor sits across from Jane, the young, blonde murderer she feels something aflutter in her stomach and longs for their sessions together to last and last.
     Parallel stories within Stone Walls Do Not A Prison Make take the reader on a journey through prison life and the police academy and reveal a shocking ending.
     As Jane awakens, finding freedom of the mind behind the stone walls of prison, she shows us that sometimes our spiritual teacher is our suffering,

     Stone Walls is a psychological whodunit that reveals the importance not only of what people say and do, but also of what they think and feel. Events or images in a person’s mind can feel, or be, more real than actual occurrences. Intrinsically normal characters become interesting when thrown into choice situations. Therefore, the story is about people trying to be and do good in difficult or tempting situations, while simultaneously seeking their own personal happiness. The characters illustrate the fact that as humans we’re combinations of both good deeds and less good deeds performed usually in attempt to get events to go our own way. While there may exist few absolutes, attainment of the good or the absolute still remains a valid goal in human existence.
     The themes are many but simple, (failure of love, failure to live up to one’s ideals, the incompatibility of two individuals and compassion for all beings) with the predominant theme taken from Richard Lovelace’s To Althea from Prison from which the eponymous title comes. The last stanza contains the well-known lines:
                        Stone walls do not a prison make,
                        Nor iron bars a cage
And, like the poem, the manuscript maintains that true liberty, which comes from freedom of the soul, cannot be threatened by chains or fetters. The story is a study of this, as Jane the convicted murderer is revealed to be more free than the characters outside the prison walls, all caught in their small lives, consumed by petty problems, destructive patterns and various unhappinesses.
     Another theme is something which Eleanor struggles with throughout the story: that the pain of the past is important, for contained in that pain is memory. Sometimes the worst pain becomes the strongest and most life-giving force through memory. Memory has the power with time to comfort.
     There is also the theme of anticipatory happiness—the anticipating of events to come in place of actually living them in the moment—which Eleanor realizes sitting on the bench in the park beside her best friend. David also realizes this, without knowing that he does, in cooking his meal for, and dreaming about a future with Sylvie.
     There is the theme of compassion to all, be they humans (black, gay, the incarcerated) or animals (dogs, cats, but also spiders and mice.)
     And still another theme is that love frees us from our self-imposed prisons. Stone Walls is a study of love: love of dog, of spouse, love unrequited, or loving friendships. Whether one finds love in a neighbor or a friend, a gay or a straight person, in one’s work, from an animal, or within the state penitentiary, does not matter. What matters is that one love.
     The lovers (husband and wife, husband and mistress, best friend, etc.) all strive for some state of happiness, when they would do better to realize that the very moment is the closest they will come to perfection.
     Sexual tension is palpable, if misdirected, in all of the characters, many of whom mistake the sexual act for love itself.
     Finally, Stone Walls is composed of words, but it describes silence. The silence of no words, or perhaps the silences that fall between words.

Lauren’s Story, by Kay Pfaltz, by J.N. Townsend Publishing

     Lauren, a little stray beagle named for Lauren Bacall, is found unconscious and nearly dead from starvation. She spends three weeks in intensive care at the vets then is given back to Amy, the girl who found her. Amy gives her to her sister, Kay who is living in Paris, and from there a love story begins. Lauren learns to love the French capital, and who wouldn’t? She dines out in some of Paris’ best restaurants beside Kay as Kay reviews the food. But moments of joy in life are ephemeral, for Lauren is plagued with illnesses from aspirated pneumonia to laryngeal paralysis. Kay and Lauren return to Virginia. Then in late September Lauren is diagnosed with transitional cell carcinoma, one of the most difficult cancers to treat, and the vets tell Kay Lauren will never make it to Christmas. Kay must decide whether to put her to sleep or to attempt treatment. Lauren undergoes radiation and chemotherapy. She makes it to Christmas and to the New Year. She makes it to see the spring return, and with the spring, comes the promise of hope.

     Lauren’s Story is much more than just a rags to riches dog story. It’s a testimony to the power of laughter and love to get us through life, and ultimately the power of art as one of the most enduring forces in life. For Francophile’s or for anyone who has ever loved a dog, Lauren’s Story is a must.