Customer Reviews

What the Heart Knows

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just finished WHAT THE HEART KNOWS. Wow! This is a great read. I've only read a couple of K. Eagle's books previously and enjoyed them, but this book is over the top. It's a great "secret baby" book, but the kicker is the baby is a 12-year-old boy who is almost as tall as Reese Blue Sky, his NBA all-star father. Reese is a Lakota Indian and one of the things I especially liked was looking at the world through his eyes. Prejudice and discrimination are all around us, but as a member of the white majority I find it hard to really understand (although I sympathize) with those who have to suffer it. Through this book, I got a close look at the way Indians see white people and how they feel about being stereotyped. But foremost, it's a great love story. Helen Ketterling is the mother of Reese's son and the way she tries to explain her decision to keep her baby a secret is a haunting tale of love gone wrong and opportunities for happiness lost. But maybe not forever. I won't give away the ending. See it for yourself. I plan on buying at least 2 more copies. One each for my niece and my office manager. A great way to "suck up" at work!

hmw

Kathleen Eagle is by far the best romance writer ever. Her stories have characters that you can identify with, and who are very likable. What the Heart Knows is no different. There is no pushing away and pulling back by the characters - it's a love story, without the typical head games characters play. Her male characters are always tender, compassionate, and understanding. They are men you can understand why the women love. Reese Blue Sky is fabulous. He knows what he wants - to do right by his father, to keep his newly found family, to hang on to his lost love - and you want that for him.

Mrs. Eagle - keep up the great work. There's only one book I haven't read and I can't wait to pick it up. I most especially can't wait for your next one.

While I enjoyed KE's last two books, I didn't find them up to the same caliber of her earler work. This book was a nice change. Both hero and heroine have secrets. Both have a Past with a capital "P." Their lives cross after twelve years of separation, and after a halting start, their relationship accelerates - only to take a detour when the secrets are finally revealed. As with her earlier novels, KE manages to impart some useful information about the culture in which she places her characters as she tells her story. It's been interesting to watch how the issues have evolved over time - like reading a little bit of history - and something that I've enjoyed immensely, and that I missed in her last two books. Additionally, she does a good job of telling the story from more than one point of view, without chopping it up or confusing the reader. I appreciated the fact that I didn't have to slog through the love-misunderstanding-fight-make up scenario that seems to be an obligatory part of the plot conflict in countless other works of this genre. KE's characters have depth, affection, sensuality, behave like adults and not spoiled adolescents, and make me want to meet them in person - an impossibility, of course, but a good measure of how well they were created! If you are a fan of her earlier novels, you will probably enjoy this story as well - I'm happy to recommend it.

At the Bad River Sioux Reservation, someone kills Roy True Star for loudly speaking to his tribe's council to not renew their casino contract with Ten Star. Roy's oldest son Reese, a former professional basketball superstar, returns home to take over his father's role on the council. Though a non-believer who was alienated with his father, Reese finds Roy's spirit guiding him.

Helen Ketterling works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She goes undercover, working as a dealer at the casino to confirm complaints of wrong doing. She never forgot the heated romance with Reese thirteen years ago that led to a son he does not know he sired. The spark between them remains strong, but their torrid past, her present secrets, and an uncertain future due to a powerful enemy make this couple seem doomed to failure again.

Best selling author Kathryn Eagle, renown for her poignant Native American tales, scribes an interesting second chance at love tale using gambling on an Indian Reservation as a backdrop. The story line consists of several intriguing subplots that blend into a cohesive and insightful look at the reservation casino business. The lead protagonists are a wonderful duo and the support cast provides depth and conflict, especially between the old ways and the Anglo ways. Ms. Eagle soars high with this angst-laden tale.

Harriet Klausner

Another great story from the pen of Kathleen Eagle! The characters were memorable and the plot is really nothing new but Eagle seems to make it work: the summer fling,the secret child that results but there's plenty of other stuff going on as well. WHERE THE HEART IS is a great lovestory, full of insight, passion and folklore. The book doesn't really grab you until your several chapters into the story. The sexual banter between the hero and heroine seems to be Ms. Eagle's trademark and you'll find it in almost all of her stories. I enjoy it. Her characters leap right off the page. There are no silly conflicts to keep the lovers apart and several scenes made me grin. Some readers may find the folklore boring but I found that it enriched the story. Also, the hero plays professional basketball! If your not familiar with Kathleen Eagle, I wish there were words that I could say to convince YOU to read her.<G> And if your already familiar with her work, you won't be disappointed. WHERE THE HEART IS, is simply one of the most beautiful lovestories of last year. I am eagerly looking forward to reading Ms. Eagles next masterpiece. And a note to Ms. Eagle: I hope we don't have to wait long! Ok, I've said all the nice things, now buy this book! <G> Also, I **highly** recommend REASON TO BELIEVE and SUNRISE SONG.

I must have read a different book than other reviewers! Because I found this to be one of the most boring books I have ever read! So much so, that I ended up skipping the last 50 pages, then reading the last chapter and didn't miss a thing.

This book was completely repetitive....so we know in the opening pages that Roy Blue Sky gets killed, and shortly after that we learn it is over the gambling casinos on his Indian reservations. His oldest son, Reese, a retired basketball player, returns to bury his father and find out what really happened. Reese's old flame, hellen, returns to work in the casino to spot crooked dealers, and her secret is that she kept Reese's son from him all these years. Reese's brother works for the casino and is in over his head.

For the next 300 pages, it goes on and on about Reese and Hellen's relationship and the gaming commission. Nearer to the end, Reese found out he had a son, and when you think there is some excitement due to the new "conflicts", it gets resolved much too easily and they become immediate "father and son". The investigations seem to get lost in the shuffle of the "romance". I personally think this book could have been cut in half and still gotten the point across.

I'm an avid reader of all kinds of fiction, but have read only about 8-10 books in the Romance genre. This is by far the best one I've read. It doesn't have the usual overwrought plot, characters with ridiculous names, and silly dialogue that are thin covers for a string of titillating sexual episodes. Yes, there is good sex in the book, but the novel features well-drawn, interesting, multi-dimensional characters struggling with realistic conflicts of family, love, work, politics, greed, and addiction. Set on a Lakota reservation in South Dakota where a casino is transforming lives for good or ill, the novel is as much a crime/mystery novel as a romance. The depiction of the relationship between a white woman and a Lakota man is straightforward, tender, and funny, with no patronizing goofy references to his dark savage nobility or her creamy white purity. And, the mystery plot brings in a lot of interesting material on Indian gaming, Lakota tradition, Federal Indian law, and the like. Hey, Romance readers: if you've only read grocery store novels, try some all-time great romance literature: Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' or Thomas Hardy's 'Far from the Madding Crowd.'

I started my voracious read for Romance with Kathleen Eagle's Reason to Believe and now with her compelling effort in WHAT THE HEART KNOWS, she has re-established herself as a master of this genre.

WHAT THE HEART KNOWS draws readers to Bad River Sioux reservation, where Roy Blue Sky is unexpectedly murdered with his recent railings with the local casino. This brings back Reese Blue Sky, an NBA player who has returned to pay respects to his demised father and Helen Ketterling, who is a retired teacher, now working undercover in the casino as a proficient card dealer. The two characters shared a brief but amorous relation in the past and now the torch is rekindled.

Kathleen Eagle embellishes the magnificent story plot set on the Indian territory with her sincere and rousing narrative. Helen Ketterling harbours a secret - she fears Reese would snatch away Sidney from her - the son that Reese had no knowledge of. But when she saw Reese battling with hypertension, Helen realizes that she has kept Sidney away from his diginified father. The emotional trauma they initially face to the eventual acceptance and redemption makes their love more majestic than the wild frontier. Their fears and vulnerability are too familiar in our daily lives.

WHAT THE HEART KNOWS is even more credible with the vivid portrayal of a prominent and authentic Indian culture besieged by development. The resonant human drama between Carter and Reese, a brotherly love threatened by Carter's disillusioned passion for wealth is poignant. Sidney's gradual development of an entrenching paternal bond with Reese brings up succinctly issues like racism and being true to one's heritage. WHAT THE HEART KNOWS defies categorization - it has been a long while since any contemporary romance could stir such emotions and realism.

WHAT THE HEART KNOWS is indeed a sweeping romance presented gloriously in the Indian territory; and with such a keen observation of culture and engaging moral dilemmas written with such commitment, it is undoubtedly the best that romance genre could ever offer.

Helen goes back home to the Bad River Lakota Reservation to go undercover as a dealer in the Pair-A-Dice gambling casino, when her boss mysteriously ends up dead, his son, famed basketball star Reese Blue Sky. After a thirteen year absence, how do you tell someone he fathered a son and you had to leave town when you were pregnant? But Reese takes the news in stride and accepts his son, but is disappointed that Helen didn't let him know before, as they start to fall in love all over again...as a family.

Kathleen Eagle writes the best contemporary modern romances with cross-cultural themes and crossover mainstream appeal. "What the Heart Knows" is no exception! If you like contemporary/modern romance. Get this book!

Kathleen Eagle is a good writer. This is a book that is simultaneously a romance, a story about cultural change and ethnicity, and a story about family and personal discovery. While there are certain points where all of this is hard to balance and handle with appropriate justice to the complexity of the issues, this is a book that rings true. The characters are strong and they deal realistically with with real feelings.

One of the things I liked very much about this book is that it is a serious story about adults slowly growing and finding their way along in love and feeling very real passion, but it doesn't slip into being gratuitous. This is one of the things that would make me put this in a "fiction" rather than "romance" category.