Born in Fire
Grade : A

It has always been easier for me to name my favorite actor or author rather than my favorite movie or book of all time. Nora Roberts wins my vote for all-time-favorite Romance novelist and her first installation of the Born In trilogy, Born In Fire, is a spellbinding adventure through the passion, loyalty, independence and creativity that consumes the main character, Maggie Concannon.

Roberts hooked me with a line of stubbornness that I recognize within myself and carried me through the novel with Maggie's sheer determination to make a better life for her family and herself overcoming a formidable, unhappy childhood, defeating an obstinate desire to be alone and surrendering to Rogan Sweeney, a stubborn passionate businessman, who shows her that her dreams and desires don't have to stay trapped in a glass orb of swirling color.

Roberts writes a character that far exceeds her normal heroine with inner-strength and bravery. Maggie is the kind of woman that every wife, mother, daughter and sister yearns to be. Rogan describes Maggie perfectly during an argument when he states, "...simple is exactly what you are not...Canny, obstinate, brilliant, bad-tempered and beautiful you are...But simple, never."

I envy Maggie's passion for life and her talent. Maggie realizes her gift as an artist. "I learned the craft [in a Venice glass house], but not the art...Because the art is in me," she explains to Rogan early on. She is tied to her craft, admitting that she "pulls something out of [herself] and creates it, makes it solid, tangible, real..." These two statements explain her stubbornness to allow herself to be controlled and managed by Rogan professionally and hint at the barriers that stand between them personally.

Roberts brings all of Maggie's passions to a head in a scene of searing intensity. All Maggie's emotions, creativity and sexuality pour out of her after Rogan delivers the check of her share of the profits from her first showing. You feel the responsibility lift off her shoulders and suddenly you want to run through the meadows with her toward release -- sexually, professionally and emotionally. The beauty of Born In Fire, not-withstanding the Irish country backdrop and the explicit description Roberts contributes to the overall story, is that it makes you want more. I ran out the day after I read it the first time and bought the rest of the series to satiate my curiosity about the happily-ever-after endings of the rest of the Concannon family. Born In Ice and Born In Shame did not disappoint, either. It had been a long time since I read a satisfying, hopelessly romantic trilogy in two days time!

Buy it at Amazon/iBooks/Barnes and Noble/Kobo

Reviewed by Other
Grade : A

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : September 3, 1998

Publication Date: 1994

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