Born in Fire

Born in Fire is the story or Maggie Concannon, a glass artist with a beautiful vision and scary temperament. Born in Fire begins with Maggie coming to tell her father about her first official sale as a glass artist, but he passes away that evening.

The story picks up five years later. Maggie is still making beautiful art, and she’s caught the eye of Rogan Sweeney, the owner of Worldwide Galleries, an internationally renowned art company. Rogan has spent a long time trying to get in touch with M M Concannon, but she doesn’t answer her phone, and when she did she blew him off. Finally, fed up with being ignored, Rogan drives from Dublin to County Clare, in the west of Ireland. When he first sets his eyes on Maggie, it is in her glass house while she is working. Rogan is affected by her almost instantaneously.

Maggie ends up signing with Worldwide and she and Rogan begin a relationship with blurred boundaries.  Maggie fights the love and caring Rogan shows every step of the way until she finally realizes that no, he won’t be giving up anytime soon. From meeting, to making real money for the first time, her famous artistic temperament, dealing with her grumpy affilcted mother and kind to a fault sister (whom Maggie refers to as Saint Brianna), major gallery showings, and the development of a true personal relationship, just about all the bounds are covered in Nora Roberts’ Born in Fire.

So, what did I think?

Let me say first, I’ve never been a romance reader. Sure, I’ve read books with an element of romance in them, but I have to admit it was limited to paranormal romance (because what can I say, I love me a good dose of vampires).

I had heard of Nora Roberts before, but this was the first novel of hers I actually read. Because this was my first Roberts novel, I went into it with little in the way of expectations and ultimately came out of it with a smile on my face. I will admit that I was thinking to myself that it would be a little too, cliche and perfect girl for me, but boy was I wrong! I ended up reading the entire trilogy in about two and a half days.

I loved the story of Maggie and Rogan. They were so human to me, the events they were forced to endure (such as losing parents, or in Maggie’s case having a difficult mother to deal with) helped me to picture them in the flesh. I feel almost like if I flew to Ireland tomorrow, I could walk through the countryside and find Maggie and her family. Born in Fire was one of those books where I found myself getting annoyed with the characters when they would say or do something I found ridiculous, like say, deny that a handsome and rich man could possibly love you.

I did not feel like I was reading a fairy tale here, even though it was a happy ending type of book. What it comes down to, is this one book, and the other two in the series have put Nora Roberts on my radar, and I have already started to expand my collection of her works.