The Last Good Man [Mass Market Paperback]

I've long been a Kathleen Eagle fan, and The Last Good Man is one of her best. Savannah returns to her small Wyoming hometown, looking for a place to heal, or maybe a place to hide. But she can't hide in a town where everyone remembers her, especially Clay, who'd long carried a torch for her. And she learns that sometimes, the best way to heal is to stop hiding. Eagle fashions a love story that's mature, believable and deeply felt.

In response to the reviewer who thinks Savanah is pitiful, fortunately you haven"t walked in her shoes. Kathleen Eagle has done it again. This story of Savanah, a beautiful model with breast canser will help us all to empathise with victims of cancer. It is also a great love story between Savanah and Clay. My description of the story will not do it justice. The varied relationships are handeled so well you feel as though you have visited with real people. Do yourself and every friend or sister you know and highly reccomend this book. The only problem with Kathleens books are they leave you wanting the same degree of talent and you find most other writers are lacking. If you haven"t read her other books, pick up "SUNRISE SONG" be ready to be higly entertained educated,(without preaching), and totally blown away.

Kathleen Eagle is a superb storyteller who creates compelling, complex characters, and The Last Good Man is one of her best books. It has lost none of its power in the dozen years since it was first published. Eagle's gift for characterization can be seen in the secondary characters such as Clay's mother, his ex-wife, Savannah's aunt, and Savannah's hairdresser friend--credible mixes of strengths and weaknesses with pieces of the lives that make them who they are revealed. Even characters who never actually appear in the book such as Kole Kills Crow and Savannah's New York friend Heather emerge as real, believable personalities. Claudia may seem improbably mature to some readers, but anyone who has ever watched a small child of a single parent caught in physical or mental illness will recognize the fierce protectiveness and caretaking that can become part of the child's nature.

Clay is wonderful, one of my all-time favorite heroes. Hardworking, competent, sexy, and nurturing with an always tender touch for the wounded and needy, human or animal, he is the man the title evokes. But he is no impossible dream. He can be angry and impatient, he can make foolish choices, and he can find it difficult to articulate his feelings. Eagle reveals enough about his past for the reader to understand that his need to take care of others is an essential and innate part of the person Clay is. Like many natural givers, Clay must learn to accept the gifts of others.

Savannah, despite her illness, is a difficult character to like for the first part of the book. She is totally self-absorbed, even to the point of avoiding her responsibilities to her child. But as the reader learns more about her and realizes why appearance is so important to her, why the changes cancer surgery have wrought in her body have so devastated her, and why she is convinced that she holds death within her, she becomes more sympathetic. Watching her grow and take responsibility for herself and others becomes a joy.

Kathleen Eagle is a gifted, intelligent writer. I highly recommend her books. If you are an Eagle fan, you know her books are definitely worth a reread. If you've never read her, The Last Good Man is a great place to start. I suggest you also look for You Never Can Tell, the story of Kole Kills Crow and Savannah's friend, New York journalist Heather Reardon, which Bell Bridge Books also plans to reissue. And I'm hoping for reissues including electronic editions of my favorites by Eagle--Reason to Believe and What the Heart Knows.