The Paper Boy & The Winter War - Paperback

by R. E. Hengsterman (Author)

"Winter hangs heavy over these pages-where silence wounds, memory endures, and small wars are fought in kitchens, backyards, and broken hearts."

In West Lake, snow forts become battlements and a paper route turns into a theater of war.
Set in the feral 1980s and the fragile present, these stories give voice to half-wild kids, caregivers at the edge of exhaustion, grandmothers faithful to soap operas, and fathers sealed inside survival globes.

With sentences that land fast and leave a bruise, The Paper Boy & The Winter War maps the small wars we inherit and ignite-fought between love and duty, want and survival, memory and mercy. Sharpened and newly arranged, these stories form a ledger of ordinary lives tested by extraordinary circumstance-sentient, unflinching, and deeply human.

For readers who have carried secrets up snowy hills-or tried to build a better self from bent parts-these pages reckon with what a body can endure, what a mind can't forget, and the stubborn hope that sends us back into the cold to try again.