Viet Nam, the hippie movement, Roe v. Wade, inflation, OPEC crisis, Watergate...the perceived loss of America's innocence provides the national stage for Into the Second Springtime. Meet Wesley Gallagher, a precocious young man who is prone to making mischief and scheming shenanigans. You'll laugh at Wesley's perceptions of the world and fall in love with the strong and steady influences in his life. With stormy issues facing the nation, you'll cheer at the bright beacons of light guiding Wesley, quietly instilling values that create a healthy and substantial anchor in this tender coming-of-age novel. Written with unpretentious messages of charity, forgiveness, hope, humor, love and respect, you will cheer Hurrah! for America again.

An 1876 Californian tale of a Coast Miwok Warrior named 'Quentin' AKA 'Naked Spurs'. In the present... a YOUNG ARTIST creates a Wild West diorama and tells the seriously tall tale of NAKED SPURS his great-great grandfather. As the streaking inmate of San Quentin penitentiary 'Naked Spurs' must run for his life along with other criminals; this is one story he can not run away from. NAKED SPURS is the plausible tale of the BEAT THE BOUNTY competition, a contest attracting the fastest guns in the west to the largest man-hunt in history.

Colt Horn was born on a pioneer trail to Scottish parents seeking new land they could call their own. But at the age of fifteen, he finds his parents murdered and is set adrift on the dangerous mission of vengeance. He grows to manhood surviving battles, hardships, and struggles, eventually becoming the owner of a large ranch. When he meets Liz Hanes, he wants to marry her and settle down. But none of his dreams can be realized until his parents' murderers are brought to justice. Colt learns that the man who killed his parents and is now leader of the Brazos River Marauders, wants him dead or alive and has posted a large bounty on his head. The attacks on neighboring ranches and on his life provoke him to leave his ranch and work full-time in an effort to eliminate the lawlessness in his valley. He will, at last, bring the leader of the Brazos River Marauders to justice-or die trying. Plenty of action brings the Old West to life in this tale filled with cowboys, love, revenge, and ultimately, redemption.

Fifteen Montana cowboys and five hundred longhorns are embarking on a one of a kind Wild West adventure: a cattle drive across a thousand miles of Siberia. The clash of cultures between East and West, American six shooter and Russian saber, begins immediately when a band of Cossacks arrives to escort them to their destination. Cowboys and Cossacks must work together or they?ll never survive the journey, which includes a meeting with the warrior, Genghis Kharlagawl, and his army of bloodthirsty Tartars. The code of the cowboy and the credo of the Cossack offer different measures of manhood ? but honor and courage are the same in any language when a common enemy must be faced. Book Lust Rediscoveries is a series devoted to reprinting some of the best (and now out of print) novels originally published from 1960 to 2000. Each book is personally selected by NPR commentator and Book Lust author Nancy Pearl and includes an introduction by her, as well as discussion questions for book groups and a list of recommended further reading.

Falling for someone who doesn't want to get married is soon to be the least of his concerns. While his brothers and their new wives search for who shot him, Wyatt Hunt is temporarily bedridden and completely miserable. Somehow Molly Garner's limited skills have made her the most qualified in their circle to care for Wyatt. But by the time he's healed, she's fed up with him and the whole ungrateful family. For even worse than his grumpiness were the few unguarded moments when he pulled at her heartstrings, and she has been long determined to never repeat her mother's mistakes. When alternate plans of finding her own independent life fall through, Molly volunteers to work for the Pinkertons and help investigate nearby ranch owner Oliver Hawkins. She signs on to be his housekeeper, hoping to find clues to prove his nefarious, and possibly murderous, past. Wyatt refuses to let her risk it alone and offers to act as Hawkins's new foreman. But when another Pinkerton agent gets shot, they realize Hawkins isn't the only danger. The Hunt brothers will have to band together to face all the troubles of life and love that suddenly surround them.

In a quiet corner of the stately little city of Wheeling, West Va., stands a monument on which is inscribed: By authority of the State of West Virginia to commemorate the siege of Fort Henry, Sept 11, 1782, the last battle of the American Revolution, this tablet is here placed. Had it not been for the heroism of a girl the foregoing inscription would never have been written, and the city of Wheeling would never have existed. From time to time I have read short stories and magazine articles which have been published about Elizabeth Zane and her famous exploit; but they are unreliable in some particulars, which is owing, no doubt, to the singularly meagre details available in histories of our western border.

Life isn't easy in the 1860s on the western frontier as the discovery of gold and silver beckons prospectors, and the promise of cheap land attracts ranchers and farmers from the East Coast. It is a time of greed, lawlessness, self-preservation, and opportunity. The wayward Tom Lawson seizes the moment when he discovers a cache of silver near the town of Ribera in southern Arizona, between El Paso and Tucson. When the Lawson family receives word of Tom's silver strike, his brother Ben must decide whether to begin his medical career as planned or assist his brother. Reluctant but enticed, Ben moves from Colorado to Arizona to help his sibling. On the stagecoach ride from El Paso to Ribera, he and the other passengers are robbed. It becomes all too evident that the territory is under constant threat by Indians, renegade discharged Confederate soldiers, and disenfranchised Mexicans. "Gold, Silver, and Guns" follows the stories of Ben and five others who migrate to Ribera seeking adventure and fortune. As they discover that life in this agitated small town may pose challenges and risks far greater than the rewards, they each must weigh the price of what it takes to survive and prosper.

"Eagle Shadow" tells of a half-Native American man caught in the midst of the conflict between his two peoples and his personal struggle with divided loyalties. His story is filled with action and romance set against the beautiful but unforgiving frontier.

Known for his tenacity in pursuing lawbreakers, U.S. Marshal Frank Marlin follows a dangerous mission to quell a brewing range war on the western frontier. He's told that Cottonwood Valley, a rich fertile land in the State of Texas, is the target of the trouble. The valley's large-ranch owners blame each other for the cattle rustling, ambush killings, and other acts of lawlessness. They threaten to wipe each other out; fury on the range seems unavoidable.

During his mission, Marlin learns that a wily outlaw boss, who strikes ranches and towns from his hideouts in the badlands, perpetrates the trouble in Cottonwood Valley. When the outlaw boss hears Marlin is on his way, he offers his henchmen a large cash bounty to anyone who kills the feared marshal. Marlin must always be on the lookout for those who want him dead.

Encountering life-threatening situations and suffering serious wounds, Marlin never loses sight of his intense desire to stop the killing and cattle rustling.

In February of 1851, when Royce Oatman makes the fatal decision to take his pregnant wife and seven children across the Arizona desert alone in his haste to get to California, they are attacked and slaughtered by Tonto Apaches. Two of the children, Olive, fourteen and Mary Ann, eight, are captured and taken to the Apache village where they endure a year of slavery and deprivation. They are purchased by the daughter of the Chief of the Mojaves and taken to the Mojave village where they receive somewhat better treatment but are still slaves. After Mary Ann dies in a famine, Olive, if she is to survive, must assimilate into the Mojave tribe. She witnesses scenes of torture and savagery that disparage any thoughts of escape. When, after five years of captivity, she is suddenly returned to civilization, she must re-learn the ways of white society and never reveal the secrets of her past. Although every attempt is made to portray her as 'the virgin captive, ' rumors persist until, in a dramatic climax, Olive reveals the shocking truth to her husband.