Kentucky Rich [Paperback]

Fern Michaels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2002

On his deathbed, racing horse magnate Josh Coleman has unfinished business--his long-lost daughter has come back to settle an old score. It's been 30 years since Nealy Coleman Diamond slipped away with her illegitimate daughter. In that time, Nealy has become a woman to be reckoned with. When the truth about her father and a family's troubled past are revealed, Nealy finds herself faced with the greatest challenge of her life.

Editorial Reviews

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Zebra (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821772341
• ISBN-13: 978-0821772348
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Romance > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Michaels, Fern

More About the Author

Fern Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Fool Me Once, Sweet Revenge, The Nosy Neighbor, Pretty Woman, and dozens of other novels and novellas. There are over seventy million copies of her books in print. Fern Michaels has built and funded several large day-care centers in her hometown, and is a passionate animal lover who has outfitted police dogs across the country with special bulletproof vests. She shares her home in South Carolina with her four dogs and a resident ghost named Mary Margaret.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Kentucky Rich, May 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Kentucky Rich (Audio Cassette)

As a professional in the thoroughbred racing and breeding industry, I was horrified at the inaccuracies and absurdities portrayed in this book. Ms. Michaels has the ability to tell a tale, but displays a serious lack of knowledge about racing and breeding. The story line is totally implausible from a racing perspective, and in fact violates the rules of racing in more than one aspect. True, this is a work of fiction, but more sophisticated readers expect real research on the part of the author, not Disneyesque fairy tales. More than once, scenes describing interactions between horses and humans were absurd and dangerous, particularly one where the heroine mounts a loose filly (a horse unknown to the rider) that is not wearing tack, and then proceeds to place a 2 year old child on the horse in front of her. Anyone in the horse business, racing or not, would have to cringe while reading this scene. There are numerous other scenes that display the author's lack of knowledge about the business. I have never read this author's work before,and was drawn to it because of its connections to the racing industry. I won't read any more of her work, because she obviously doesn't research her subjects.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Started off good..., January 22, 2004

By 

Kala (Ft Lauderdale, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kentucky Rich (Paperback)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars 2 and a half not so shiny stars, June 11, 2007

By 

Judith Agee (SmallTown, Indiana USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kentucky Rich (Paperback)

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<snap>. She meets someone and ten minutes later they are best friends forever. <snap> She is
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.