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.

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.

...not for those who have not read the previous series -- the Texas and Vegas series. I haven't read those books, and I suddenly felt that there were all these unknown characters thrown in the mix more than half-way through. It was very confusing!

The other problem I had with this book was the multiple plots and climaxes. Nealy's young, the Kentucky Derby is a big deal, that whole story line climaxes and is resolved in a few pages. On to the next, and the next, and the next. All the characters end up being underdeveloped and shallow, sometimes doing things you wouldn't expect (would her daughter REALLY have hidden out for a week after the problem on the cruise? It just doesn't fit the character!).

The story was interesting, but there were just too many flaws. I won't be returning for the rest of this trilogy.

Despite enjoying some of Michaels' other books, I found this to be very disappointing. The entire plot is just too goody-goody and predictable. The caliber of writing is at about the 8th grade level, and the overall quality of this book in terms of plot, depth, and style is best for teenage readers.

I haven't read any of her books before so it might have counted against it but I didn't really enjoy this book. The plot is quite cliched and I thought way too much of the plot was carried off in conversations. Overall, there wasn't much fluency and the writing wasn't that good. I thought it was a bit unbelievable from being able to adopt Nealy and Emmie right down to winning the races. I guess that's what you calll fiction. Anyway, I have read better books. I can safely say it was a waste.