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Book Review of Kentucky Heat

Kentucky Heat
Kentucky Heat
Author: Fern Michaels
Book Type: Hardcover
reviewed on + 377 more book reviews


What a great continuation of a story. Looking forward to the next.

The indomitable Nealy Coleman Diamond Clay has her hands full: the foal that carries her hopes for the Triple Crown is born early while her grown children and helpmeets are away. When they return with news (her son has eloped with the family's cook and her daughter's husband abandoned her on a cruise) Nealy is furious as far as she's concerned, they were due home a week ago. "The horses always [come] first," sighs daughter Emmie. The multiple catastrophes strain plausibility, but the stalwart Michaels, whose plots are chock-full of dramatic tension, knows how to pull off the impossible. Nealy meets her match in her late husband's former law partner, Hatch Littletree, a larger-than-life Native American whose physical magnitude and considerable wealth is matched by his big heart and largess. The internecine family feuds, present and past not to mention the author's compulsion to fill in the blanks about the Thorntons and Colemans and their stormy histories takes away from the larger story about the developing relationship between Nealy and Hatch, and her endeavors toward a second Triple Crown sweep.

With Nealy, horses come first. So when her two grown children's irresponsible acts nearly cost her Shufly, the foal that carries all of her hopes for the Triple Crown, she throws them both off Blue Diamond Farm, an action that changes their future - and her own.

To the world, Nealy looks unbreakable. Inside, her heart has shattered. Estranged from her daughter Emmie and son Nick, she struggles alone to build her racing stables into the best in Kentucky - and Shufly into the horse of the century.

When Hatch Littletree, her ex-husband's law partner, pays an unexpected visit, he brings Nealy much-needed comfort. But he also brings turmoil. A tough Native American and a brilliant attorney, Hatch is determined to see Nealy heal the painful rift with her children. He's also a man Nealy cannot resist.

Raw with emotion, and yet filled with unstoppable energy, Nealy will stand strong in the face of bitter disappointments and one night of terror that could mean the end of her dreams...and maybe her life.