Kentucky Rich
Product Type: Book
Product Price: $7.99
Manufacturer: Zebra
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Description
The first in a trilogy involving the next generation of Colemans (of "Texas") and Thorntons (of "Vegas") in a story that has a Kentucky horse farm as its base. Nealy Coleman, aged 17, flees from her abusive father and finds a new home on Blue Diamond Farm.
Reviews
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2009-11-06
Summary: "Enjoyable to read"
Thoroughbred horse breeder Nealy Coleman Diamond returns to the deathbed of her estranged father, Josh, and discovers some secrets about her past. While she's back in her hometown, she seeks revenge on the man who conceived a child with her and then abandoned her, forcing her to raise her illegitimate daughter by herself.
I read this book while relaxing on a summer day sipping Ice Tea! Just an enjoyable story!
Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2009-07-26
Summary: "How many loose strings and plot holes can you find in this book?"
Ms Michaels is a good author so I hesitate to blame her for this awful book. I'm going to blame the editor instead. This book has so many loose strings and plot holes and ridiculous dialogue. I think bookstores better slip this book in the game section because it became a Where's Waldo task for me to find the errors in every chapter. At first it made me mad. Then it made me laugh. Every author has their writers block moments and this one must be Ms Michaels. A bitter heroine who might be stronger than her weak charactered brothers but is just as spiteful as her horrid father isn't what I look for in a romance novel. Save your money and your time and skip this one. She has better novels out there.
Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2007-06-12
Summary: "2 and a half not so shiny stars"
This was my first Fern Michaels book.
I have already bought a few others of hers on friend's recommendations. Having read Kentucky Rich, I am not
exactly raring to go to read the others.
The story itself is written in a very disjointed fashion.
The time periods are skipped over in big chunks, from one chapter to the next 2 or 20 years are passed over.
Relationships between the lead Nealy and others just happen like THAT
helped by some people and they are family forever.
I liked the horsey aspect, though I know zip about horses.
The book seemed to lack descriptives about people and the way they look.
The finish was really sluggish and the plot murky.
Seems a lot of things had been going on in the background and you don't learn of them till the end.
I read it all but was nodding my head by the end wondering how this was published without more stringent editing.
It wasn't a total waste of time, but it wasn't particularly
satisfying.
Buy it used if you want to try a Fern Michaels.
Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2004-01-23
Summary: "Started off good..."
I got this book, Kentucky Rich, along with its sequel, Kentucky Heat, a few days ago and just finished the first book. It took awhile to get through and I ended up skimming a lot of it.
The book starts off interesting, with a prologue about Nealy Coleman coming back to the home she was driven off of 30 years earlier to "dance" on her dying father's grave and to make him pay for mistreating her.
The novel then goes to "part 1," which goes back 30 years to talk about how 17 year old Nealy and her 2 year old daughter ran away from home (at the urgings of her two brothers, Pyne and Rhy) and ended up at Blue Diamond Farms, where the owners, Maud and Jess, take them in. It follows Nealy's growing up and eventually taking over the farm.
Part 2 is 30 years later, and starts with the prologue and Nealy's reunion with her brothers and dying father. This is where the book really starts to fall on its face. The plot here gets mind numbingly boring, even confusing at times when the author brings back dozens of characters from two of her other trilogies (which I have not read, so I am not familiar with them).
Nealy as a herione is rather unlikeable. She's immature, even at the end as a 50-something year old woman. She's often cold and heartless. I couldn't garner any sympathy for her and her actions often made me say "What the heck??"
The romance in this book is practically unmentioned. Nealy meets the hero in the first part of the book, barely interacts with him during the entire "part 1" and the two are married at the end. Part 2 opens with basically "Oh yeah, Hunt died and actually his and Nealy's relationship wasn't really love, he was having affairs and didn't deserve her." Uhh... what??!
It's also obvious that Fern Michaels knows practically nothing about horses. Being a horsewoman myself, I laughed out loud at some of the ridiculous scenes in this book. Some other reviewers have mentioned them as well - one of my favorite idiotic scenes is when Nealy wants the stallion to witness the birth of his colt and have the three of them (stallion, mare and colt) become a "family." Sorry, but horses are not people. While I believe they feel affection, they don't form "families" in the way that people do.
Also, the author seemed to have a lot of trouble putting the plot together. It jumped around so much it was jarring to read. One example is when Nealy meets a guy that some of her friends are trying to set her up with. He starts off by telling her that a woman's place is in the kitchen and not on a horse (which of course makes her mad). Eventually he apologizes and they make up. Cut, next chapter begins. It's several months later and Nealy hates his guts because they were supposed to have a date and he stood her up. What the heck??
She also makes a big deal out of certain events.. like a hundred pages leading up to a big race - a race so important because it was her promise to the dying Maud that the horse win - then spends one short paragraph on the race itself.
Overall, I wasn't very impressed with this book. The main character is unsympathetic, poorly written and unlikeable. There is practically no romance in the book - and what romance IS there is completely unrealistic. Research is important, and its obvious the author either didn't do her research on horses and racing, or just decided to disregard the facts. So I give it 2 stars.
Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2002-12-03
Summary: "Don't waste your time"
This has to be one of the worst books i have ever read. Her plot is seriously lacking in real content, her characters are shallow and one dimentional and her writing is crude and predictable. I found none of her characters well planned out, especially the focus Nealy, who comes of as cold, unknowledgable and arogant.
Fern Michaels reaseach is seriously lacking as well. There is no way of knowing the running ability of a newborn foal. And what happened to the prep races for the derby?? Plus the idea of breeding in a 'family' is not only 'unorthadox' it's absurd. Horses do not form families (ie mother, father, child) naturally, they form herds in which a stallion is dominant over several mares. After the colts are old enough to survive on their own, the stallion chases the off, as to eliminate compition. A stallion could care less whether his offsping did wells at the track or not. And there is not way that you would bring the parents of a three year old race horse to the track with it.
Racing fans:if you'd like a wonderfully written book that is well researched try Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley.