Happy Friday, fellow readers!

This week for my Friday Book Snippets (hosted by Anne @ My Head is Full of Books and Olivia @ Bemused and Bookish), I’m featuring the 1932 Western novel Fighting Blood by Gordon Young (1886-1948). While browsing for books at my local library, I received a tip that they had more Westerns available in the large-print section, which led me to discover Fighting Blood. I recognized the author’s name, and upon researching for this write-up, I was surprised to find that Gordon Young was born in the same county where I live.

Happy Friday Saturday, fellow readers!

I apologize for being a day late with this post, but I have a good reason. I initially had a Friday Book Snippets (hosted by Anne @ My Head is Full of Books and Olivia @ Bemused and Bookish) post ready featuring a library loan title, so I decided to delay it for a week because I knew I would be receiving a review copy of Dolph Lundgren's new memoir, Fights Worth Fighting: Finding Strength in Struggle, courtesy of Harper Horizon. The book arrived late on Friday afternoon. To my surprise, the publicist also included an unrequested copy of Idle in Provence: A History of Thyme by Eric Idle.

For those who may not know, Dolph Lundgren is an actor best known for his roles as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV (1985) and Creed II (2018), as well as He-Man in 1987's Masters of the Universe and Gunner Jensen in The Expendables franchise. Lundgren announced in 2023 that he has been battling kidney cancer since 2015, which is the inspiration for the memoir's title and likely its main subject. According to the blurb on the book's jacket, Lundgren discusses his upbringing in Sweden, his journey from a chemical engineering student to a martial arts champion, and his eventual transformation into an international movie star.

Happy Friday, fellow readers!

I'm featuring the 1984 horror novel Nathaniel by John Saul for this week's Friday Book Snippets, hosted by Anne @ My Head is Full of Books and Olivia @ Bemused and Bookish. Although it’s not my current read, I wanted to highlight it because it ties into my answer for this week's Book Blogger Hop.

To keep it brief, I was heavily bullied by both classmates and teachers throughout my high school years in the late '90s. To cope, I immersed myself in horror books, and that’s where I discovered John Saul. The first book I read by him was Second Child, a hardcover edition I found on a shelf in my closet. That’s a whole other story: my grandmother moved to South Missouri after my grandfather's death, and the few possessions that survived the '93 flood—ones she didn’t take with her—ended up crammed in my small childhood home. This explains why I had a bookcase in my closet filled with her books. Most were romances, except for a few like Second Child.

Later on, I found more John Saul books at a "book exchange or sell" store, including Nathaniel, which became my favorite by the author. I still have that paperback copy, even though I also own it twice in hardcover.

One of these days, hopefully next year, I plan to take a trip down memory lane and reread Nathaniel and some of John Saul's other books.

Hello, fellow Friday 56ers! 

You might be wondering where this week's Friday 56 is. Here’s what happened: Anne @ My Head is Full of Books, the usual host of Friday 56, has teamed up with Olivia @ Bemused and Bookish, who has taken over the weekly meme, The Book Beginnings. They have combined the two memes into what is now called Friday Book Snippets. The rules remain basically the same: feature a snippet from the beginning of a book for Book Beginnings and share a line or lines from page 56 or any other page for the Friday 56.

I'm featuring my current read, The Gunsmith: Skinwalker by J.R. Roberts. This book is the latest installment in the series, number 497 to be exact. The Gunsmith is the last of the adult Westerns from the 1980s that is still ongoing. J.R. Roberts was a pen name for the late author Robert J. Randisi. After Randisi died in 2024, his stepson Marcus Pelegrimas took over to finish the series. The protagonist, ex-lawman Clint Adams, often finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s skilled with a gun, feared by villains, and adored by saloon women. You could think of him as James Bond in the Wild West.

In this book, Clint encounters an injured man who claims to have been attacked by a large wolf. After helping the man, Clint returns to the scene of the crime to hunt the beast but ends up being attacked himself. It soon becomes clear that the creature is not a wolf at all. A local Navajo medicine man identifies it as a shapeshifting creature known as a skinwalker. Clint agrees to help track down the monster before it can claim more victims.