Kentucky Heat Book

In the second book of the powerful new series that reunites the beloved Coleman and Thornton families, New York Times bestselling author Fern Michaels brings readers into the turbulent lives of a Kentucky horseracing clan headed by the incomparable Nealy Coleman Diamond. A woman of substance, Nealy rides fast, loves hard, and lives with an appetite for winning no one can match. Now in Kentucky Heat, she tests her deepest beliefs with one shocking decision and one daring last race....

Kentucky Heat

With Nealy, horses come first. So when her two grown children's irresponsible acts nearly cost her Shufly, the foal that carries all her hopes for the Triple Crown, she throws them both off Blue Diamond Farm, a decision 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 an unstoppable energy, Nealy will face bitter disappointments, exhilarating triumphs, and a night of bloodcurdling terror—one that could mean the end of her dreams and maybe her life.

In Kentucky Heat Fern Michaels keeps readers enthralled, as the power of a woman's indomitable spirit leaps off the page...and rushes like a thoroughbred toward a finish you will never forget.

About the Author: Fern Michaels is the New York Times bestselling author of Kentucky Rich, Plain Jane, Finders Keepers, Yesterday, and many other novels. Surrounded by five children, three grandchildren, and six dogs, she shares her 300-year-old South Carolina plantation home with a resident ghost named Mary Margaret who leaves messages on her computer.

Publishers Weekly

Building on the success of her Vegas and Texas series, Michaels (Kentucky Rich) enlarges the Coleman and Thornton family legacies in her second novel set in bluegrass country. 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. In addition, a subplot involving a potential movie about Nealy's life (introduced in a rambling prologue and inexplicably ignored for over 200 pages) fails miserably. The brisk narrative also goes awry when a sudden cataclysm following a thrilling race victory robs the climax of its punch, dragging out the final section of the book to its inevitable happy conclusion. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.