Rating: 
Summary: Love Wins the Race
Review: This is my first Fern Michaels book and it won't be my last. Hailing originally from Baltimore, the home of the Preakness, I grew up loving the sport but from afar. I know nothing about the intracacies of training or racing a horse. What I do know is that Ms. Michaels captured the love an owner, trainer and jockey has for his horses and how that love is returned by the animal. Nealy Coleman Diamond and her daughter Emmie leave a disastrous home situation and are lovingly embraced and adopted by Maud and Jess Diamond. These 4 main characters share so much love, wealth and fame. The book evolves over a 30 year span and the later chapters reunite Nealy with her estranged family who once again triumph over much adversity and manipulation. The story is wholesome without much profanity, violence and sex, which is refreshing to say the least in this day and age. Pure race enthusiasts rate this low, but if the reader can forget the facts of racing and concentrate on the love emanating from the story, I think it will be a rewarding read. Kentucky Heat is on my book shelf beckoning.
Rating: 
Summary: overwhelmingly shallow
Review: When I picked up this book I must admit I was excited to read it as this author was new to me, and I always enjoy getting to know different authors. However, I was tragically disappointed.
I found the book severely lacking in any form of talented writing style, and was baffled throughout the book as to why the 52-year-old main character (Nealy) consistently acted like a squealy teenager ("oh my god! He's so hot."). All writing faux pas aside, I was disgusted by the fact that the book had no semblance of a tangible plot, and the vague one in it was predictable, poorly drawn, confusing, very rushed, and not even remotely interesting. Michaels (the author) tries to make the connection between Nealy and her horses magical but I found it highly unrealistic and inconsistent. She was going way too many places at once with this and failed in each venture. Overall I found this book starkly juvenile, and were I her publisher/editor I would have handed it to her and suggested she have another go at it. Sadly not worth the read or the money.
| 
