From Publishers Weekly
Continuing the saga of the Colemans and the Thorntons as recounted in Texas and Vegas, this latest novel puts the next generation center stage and is the first in a projected new trilogy. Thirty years after escaping her father's repressive Virginia home with her illegitimate daughter, Nealy Coleman Diamond returns to his deathbed, scrabbling to find answers to why Josh Coleman was so hateful and abusive. In the intervening period, she's become a woman of means, succeeding in the man's world of thoroughbred racing in Kentucky. Once all the secrets have been revealed and she's taken revenge on the scoundrel who impregnated her, will Nealy be free to find true love at last? As usual with Michaels's sagas, the characters range from the kindhearted to the blackhearted, with scarcely any halftones between. The plot verges on the melodramatic, but it moves too quickly to pall. It helps for readers to be interested in racing, since Michaels knows her Secretariat from her Man O'War. The audience for her previous works is probably waiting at the starting gate for this one. Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Clubs featured alternate; Literary Guild alternate; author tour; Brilliance Audio. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Following her popular "Texas" and "Vegas" trilogies (e.g., Vegas Heat), Michaels draws the same families into a new series, bringing readers another family saga. Moving from oil and casinos to the world of thoroughbred racing, she introduces Nealy Coleman Diamond, daughter of another branch of the Colemans. Once again, a downtrodden but feisty young woman finds her way to riches through a combination of incredibly lucky circumstances and hard work. Nealy's life improves, but her troubles are set up to continue into the next volume. The plot is straightforward until the end, when the rapid introduction of multiple characters from Texas and Las Vegas creates confusion, especially for readers unfamiliar with the previous novels. Michaels tends to skimp on character development and skim over long passages of time, but her plucky heroines in the world of the rich and famous obviously entertain many. Public libraries will need to buy where there is demand. [Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Rhapsody Book Club alternate selection.] Barbara E. Kemp, Univ. of Houston Libs.- Barbara E. Kemp, Univ. of Houston Libs. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Michaels adds to her popular Texas and Vegas series with a new branch of the Coleman family. Nealy Coleman is forced to leave her home in Virginia by her cruel father. Sick with fever, she and her daughter, Emmie, travel until she collapses at the Diamond horse farm in Kentucky. The owner, Maud, recognizes Nealy's rare gift with horses, ends up adopting her, and believes that Nealy can pick another Kentucky Derby winner for the prestigious farm. For Nealy, working on the Diamond farm is a dream come true, and when Maud dies, she leaves Nealy the farm and all her wealth. But Nealy is still haunted by her past. When Nealy hears that her father is dying thirty years after he drove her away, she goes back to confront him but finds that even more secrets and battles lay ahead. Michaels' Danielle Steel-like fun read has more plot twists than a soap opera, and will keep readers on tenterhooks for the next in the series. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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￯﾿ﾽand 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.

FROM THE CRITICS

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.

Library Journal

Continuing the saga begun in Kentucky Rich

AudioFile