Sensuality Rating: 7
Popular romance author Kathleen Eagle visits familiar hunting grounds in What the Heart Knows. Returning to the Bad River Lakota Reservation after a 13-year absence, Helen Ketterling has a secret--two of them, in fact. As an undercover investigator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she's posing as a blackjack dealer in the reservation casino, The Pair-a-Dice City, to determine whether there's anything illegal going on behind the scenes. When her boss's brother, the former professional basketball player Reese Blue Sky, returns to the reservation to bury his father, Helen's biggest secret of all--her 12-year-old son by Reese--is exposed, while feelings thought long forgotten reignite between the two.
Eagle paints an intriguing portrait of contemporary life on the reservation and its unique issues, with a little mystery thrown in for good measure. In addition, her handling of the understandably turbulent emotions of the former lovers who now share a child is sensitive and astute. All in all, this contemporary draws its audience in, investing them inextricably in the outcome; it's impossible to put this book down. --Alison Trinkle