REVIEW: Something Worth Keeping by Kathleen Eagle

Some­thing Worth Keep­ing (#39) by Kath­leen Eagle, copy­right 1986, apart of the “Men at Work” series pub­lished by Sil­hou­ette, price $4.99 and out of print.

I am a big Kath­leen Eagle fan. She is one of the best con­tem­po­rary writ­ers of romance fic­tion today. I’ve read most of her back list made up of sin­gle con­tem­po­rary titles but very few of her series romances. After read­ing, Some­thing Worth Keep­ing, I see that her tal­ent for sto­ry­telling was honed pretty early in her career.

The story is a sim­ple one that hit on all the right but­tons for me. Read­ing this story, I did rec­og­nize a few of the romance cliches of the 80’s that in another author’s hands wouldn’t have worked as well but Eagle man­ages to make this story a mem­o­rable one that I won’t soon for­get. I’m happy to report that this novel seems to stand the test of time, too.

Twenty-six year old Brenna Sin­clair has just inher­ited some prop­erty in South Dakota. When the story opens, she’s dri­ving there to check it out because she has to decide if she’s going to keep it or sell it. There’s just one prob­lem: her estranged father stays on the land that she now owns.

Hank Sin­clair is a breeder of Ara­bian horses and he has never owned the prop­erty that he has sweated over for x-amount of years. It’s a com­pli­cated sit­u­a­tion to say the least. Father and daugh­ter are estranged. To fill read­ers in on Brenna’s back­ground, she had a crappy child­hood and pent up anger at her father’s aban­don­ment. Brenna’s mother was a jet-setter who felt weighed down by her responsibilities.

Brenna arrives at Pheas­ant Run to the sur­prise of her father. They have an awk­ward meet­ing, as most peo­ple who are related by blood but who are com­plete strangers to each other, often do. Brenna tells him that she’s there to check out the prop­erty and noth­ing more.

For the reader, Brenna’s trip is more than just apprais­ing the prop­erty but pleas­ing her father and secretly hop­ing for his approval despite her resent­ment of his past actions. She also learns that she has a half-brother named Kyle, who seems set on gain­ing her approval and respect.

Her father’s far­rier, Cord O’Brien, drops in while Hank’s giv­ing Brenna the grand tour of the ranch and land. The attrac­tion between the two is imme­di­ate. It’s more of a friendly inter­est that slowly and nat­u­rally changes into some­thing more.

Their romance is nice set against the back­drop of horse rac­ing. If you love horses then you would really enjoy this book, since the sub­plot of the story sur­rounds an Endurance race that serves as the cli­matic arc of the story and brings every­thing and every­one together.

You see, Brenna and Hank make a bet with each other and there’s a lot at stake. If she loses, she must sell him the deed to the house at fair price. What sparked it was Brenna cham­pi­oning an Ara­bian horse named Valiant who every­one says is a cull. She’s deter­mined to train him and race him in the Rocky Top Endurance Race. A kind of “I will show you” type of deal.

Back home, Brenna is an respected horse trainer. Her meth­ods are unortho­dox but sci­en­tif­i­cally sound. Brenna is com­pet­i­tive and as far as first impres­sions go, she comes off rather uppity. She is some­what arro­gant, hav­ing had arti­cles pub­lished by her and about her in respected mag­a­zines of her pro­fes­sion. She learns that her father has been secretly fol­low­ing her career and we know that he is proud of her. The prob­lem is that both of them don’t know how to bridge the gap that has yawned between them, that will allow for the heal­ing process to begin.

The romance is cen­ter stage and it is a nice one. There is the sex­ual ban­ter that can some­times get pretty steamy. That’s Ms. Eagle’s trade­mark and she does a damn good of it in here as well. I love her sex­ual ban­ter. Often times, it is much steamier than the gym­nas­tics in the bedroom.

How­ever, this novel rates about a PG as there are love scenes but there is noth­ing graphic about them. There is plenty of inti­macy and inti­mate con­ver­sa­tions that I really enjoyed. I really liked Cord as he tries to get Brenna out of her shell. We can see that Brenna and Cord have a lot in com­mon. Cord is half-Sioux and half white. His mother left him when he was a child. He was raised by Jessie, a man whom his mother loved but who ended up leav­ing them both.

Cord comes from the Rocky Moun­tains of Wyoming. He trains Span­ish mus­tangs and has a bad back. He’s stub­born when it comes to med­ical atten­tion for his aches and pains but he man­ages to make Brenna less skit­tish and gives her what she needs most: for him to believe in her.

Cord has never asked a woman to stay for fear that she’ll up and leave him. How­ever, Cord falls hard for a lady born with a sil­ver spoon in her mouth. It was nice watch­ing him ask her to stay after know­ing how hard it was for him say it. What­ever con­flicts they had occurred nat­u­rally within the story and was not con­trived. These are adults who know how to com­mu­ni­cate with each other and I cer­tainly appre­ci­ated that aspect of their relationship.

This is a long review for a short book so let me wrap it up. I liked Brenna and Cord both as a cou­ple and the end­ing left me with a stu­pid grin and a feel­ing that is all is right in the world. For a novel that engaged me and man­aged to make me care about these char­ac­ters and the out­come of this race at the end deserves a good grade, don’t you think? My grade, A. This was a keeper. I am so happy to have found this book and hope to read many more of her series books in future.

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This review is apart of the TBR Day chal­lenge where my fel­low read­ers and I are meet­ing the chal­lenge of read­ing books out of TBR piles. Please make sure to check out the other par­tic­i­pants of this chal­lenge. Enjoy and thank you all for participating!

And here are some other titles that I’ve enjoyed by Kath­leen Eagle: Rea­son to Believe,What the Heart Knows, This Time For­ever, Fire and Rain, and The Last Good Man. Jayne reviewed her lat­est novel and I’m sure it’s good. I have it TBR and will read it soon.