Narrated by Fiacre Douglas

When I read the Born In trilogy, some years back, I decided I didn’t like Maggie (Born in Fire) very much – too brash, too undisciplined – but I loved both Brianna  (Born in Ice) and their half-sister Shannon (Born in Shame). Hearing it read in an Irish brogue by male narrator Fiacre Douglas brought a new depth to the books as well.

This is Brianna’s story. Brianna is the second daughter of Maeve and Tom, and she was Born In Ice – born in duty, because Maeve not only didn’t love Tom, she didn’t love marital duties either. She did it one more time (after her shameful first child, conceived before marriage) just to get her Catholic duty of bearing children over with. And she never let either daughter forget it.

Where older sister Maggie is temperamental and loud, Brie is all about control. Her dream is to just run a quiet B&B in their family home, providing motherly care for her guests – feeding and housing them, doing laundry, gardening. Years ago she was almost married to Rory – until Maeve told Rory a lie about Brie’s fidelity to him. He left her at the altar, and left her battered and bruised and alone.

Grayson Thane is a famous American murder mystery author who is spending a few months in the west counties of Ireland while researching for and writing his latest bestseller. He had a loveless upbringing as well – a classic Nora background, prostitute/drug addict mom, no clue who dad was, kid put through public system and learned life on the streets (Quinn Brothers, anyone?). Now he compensates by never having a family, never loving anyone enough to stay anywhere for long – until he meets Brianna. He fashions his mystery heroine after her, and his hero after himself – and when he ends the book, the hero walks away without looking back.

Fiacre Douglas is an interesting narrator. Brilliance Audio describes him as a native of Monaghan, Ireland, currently living in Minnesota. He has 6 audiobooks listed in the Brilliance catalog, all done in 2008. He has, of course, a wonderful Irish accent, and his American accents are pretty good too. Gray is American, you see, so Fiacre does have to juggle accents about. His women are easily identifiable as the fairer sex without a hint of drag-queen falsetto (THANK YOU!) but they are not as easily identifiable to character – that is, I couldn’t always tell if he was voicing Maggie or Brie when they were talking together. He narrated all 3 of the Born in series – the entirety of his romance narration, as far as I can tell.

After re-reading my personal notes on the print version, though, I think I liked it better in print and I’m not sure why that is. It might be that his delivery was a little too fast, and it was a little too generic, you know, reading the book not acting it. But that’s not 100% the case – many of his line deliveries were very good. It could also be that my tastes have changed. I still enjoyed it but didn’t feel quite as squeezed and heart-bruised as I did 4 years ago – and that actually is true about my personal life then as well.

Melinda

Narration: B-

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: none, really – only in Gray’s books, mentioned casually

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Brilliance Audio