What the Heart Knows

Rating:
Summary: Kathleen Eagle is THE veteran in modern romance!
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Fun to read, with no reservations!
Review: I enjoyed this look at contemporary life on an Indian reservation, as well as an inside look at the casino business. The characters are real and appealing. As a mother and author myself, of NEW PSALMS FOR NEW MOMS: A KEEPSAKE JOURNAL, I especially appreciated the interaction between Helen and her son, Sidney.

Rating:
Summary: Well, color me bored!
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I must say I was incredibly disappointed in this book. Kathleen Eagle used to be a good author but lately her books have become rambling and predictable. This is very disappointing because I liked her writing in books like Sunrise Song and Reason to Believe. I don't know why her writing has changed so much but this was not a good book.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT THE HEART KNOWS IS SPECTACULAR
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: GOOD GRIEF - DEFINITELY A MINUS - A SHAME!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the story - the characters - the plot and always anything of the American culture and beliefs.
But to have to put up with the gutter language was almost too much. Just because it is used so commonly used today it is a shame to invade a wonderful romance with such tripe. I haven't crossed out so many words [except for one author that I refuse to buy now]before I pass it on [or burn it].
Mrs. Eagle sure ruined my enjoyment of a good story.
Ho! Hum! live and learn.

Rating:
Summary: Emotionally accurate and real
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended but.....
Review: Kathleen Eagle is by far one of the most sensitive, talented romance writers of today. But this new book, What the Heart Knows ,left me with mixed feelings. It was almost as if the novel was divided: Fabulous and Boring. The sections I found boring and where I often skimmed (or skipped) pages were during the Casino parts and the folklore. But the heartwarming romance and the parent-child scenes were like magic: sooooo beautifully written that I often re-read them. Reese and Helen were wonderful characters and absolutely perfect for each other. So - yes! I do recommend this book but try reading my ultimate Eagle favourites: Sunrise Song and The Night Remembers.

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Summary: MRS. EAGLE AT HER FINEST!
Review: Mrs. Eagle: I just read What the Heart Knows again and am reminded why I became so addicted to your books! This book was the reason. The first I read of yours - and the reason I went backwards looking for them ALL! I know you know, but NO ONE builds the characters like you do... so close you feel you know them as your personal friends. This book is the reason I have 31 of yours. You have an amazing talent! The way you characterized Reese is what fed the addiction. I wanted to hate Helen, but, as in real life, without the struggles, the love would be taken for granted. I have loved all your books, but this one is #1 - tied with The Night Remembers! Aren't you writing a sequel to The Night Remembers!?? I want to make sure I've got it on pre-order! Write faster!

Rating:
Summary: A nice return to a familiar setting
Review: 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.