This spicy contemporary romance, first in the "Born In..." trilogy, is set in Ireland and centers around Maggie Concannon.
Maggie and her sister, Brianna, have been raised in a bitter and loveless marriage. Their widowed mother continually carps about her miserable lot in life, and the girls' father, the only one to show them love and affection, dies as the novel opens. Brianna copes by retreating behind a facade of cool competence; Maggie allows her more fiery nature to surface in her work as a talented glass artist. Fiercely independent, distrustful of marriage, she is determined to live life on her own terms.
Enter Rogan Sweeny, an international art dealer with an eye for new talent. One look at Maggie's glasswork and he's determined to sign her for his gallery. One look at Maggie and he's intrigued by her uniqueness. Bewildered and exasperated by her artistic lifestyle, but unable to resist, Rogan soon begins a headlong tumble into love. But will Maggie be able to put her own miserable family upbringing behind and meet him halfway?
Roberts' style is earthy, realistic, and makes for an entirely believable read. She has captured the rhythm of the Irish dialect and used it to great effectiveness. Maggie emerges as a thoroughly likable heroine, one with whom we can easily identify. She has several endearing faults, but she's honest with herself, and this made me respect her dilemma more than if she'd spent half the book wallowing in confusion.
There is a dandy subplot concerning the widowed mother and what to do with her, and those scenes serve to underscore Maggie's emotional turmoil and reluctance to fall in love. The secondary characters are spare and necessary; I have a feeling more than one of them will crop up in the other books of this trilogy.
Roberts did one thing with her character of Rogan that I really liked. Once he realizes he is in love with Maggie, about halfway through the book, he never looks back. No waffling, no resistance to the idea, just a full-steam-ahead campaign to win her over. Roberts wisely kept her major emotional conflict confined to one character and let us enjoy the ride. And what an enjoyable ride it is!
Nora Roberts' concluding novel in her Born In... trilogy won't disappoint readers who've been tantalized by the hero in the two previous books. Yes, it's Murphy, and yes, you'll fall more than a little in love with him yourself by the end of the book (or maybe even halfway through it).
Shannon Bodine, illegitimate half-sister to Maggie and Brianna of the first two books, is left alone in the world when her mother dies in the first chapter. With her last breath, the mother explains that Shannon was the product of a short but undying love affair with a married man (Thomas Concannon) while on a vacation in Ireland. Returning to America, the mother married Colin Bodine, whom Shannon had always believed to be her true father.
After burying her mother, Shannon is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to meet these heretofore unknown half-sisters. Intrigued, and more than a bit resentful, she travels to Ireland. There she finds a welcoming Brianna, a suspicious and hostile Maggie, and... Murphy Muldoon, a beloved neighbor and surrogate brother to the Concannon sisters.
Murphy is sort of an Irish Renaissance Man. A farmer, he's also a musician, poet, gardener, mechanic, and all-around studly guy. Shannon, being a high-flying advertising genius in a prestigious New York agency, can't imagine herself living the bucolic high life in Ireland. As she is drawn into the family rhythms of Brianna and Maggie, and as Murphy penetrates her emotional armor, Shannon's ideas about life and love start to crumble.
Nora Roberts takes us into the Irish mist with Born in Ice, but it's an interesting trip. This, the second book in her "Born In..." trilogy, offers us a slower, cooler, more restrained look at Irish life and love through the eyes of Brianna Concannon, younger sister of Maggie from Born in Fire.
Brianna is the proprietress of Blackthorne Cottage, a bed-and-breakfast establishment set up in her family home. Shrewish mother Maeve is now installed in her own house in town, and Maggie is married to Rogan Sweeney and expecting their first child. Brianna, known in the family as the "cool rose", longs for a family and children but is content to run her business and see to the comfort of others. Until the rainy night when American mystery writer Grayson Thane enters her cottage and her life, that is...
Gray has a few bitter memories of his own to deal with. Raised in foster homes, he has isolated himself from deep emotional entanglements and prefers to bury himself in his writing. Drawn to Brianna, he finds himself writing her into his latest novel, foil for a protagonist modeled after himself. The conflict in this book is in Gray and his unwillingness to admit his feelings for Brianna.
Familiar characters from the first novel pop up again, and the running subplot of the bitter mother is continued. Roberts also introduces a new subplot, a packet of mysterious letters addressed to the girls' dead father, which hint at an illicit affair and a half-sister in America (novel number three, no doubt).
Roberts is an expert at characterization through the spoken word rather than description. Her dialogue is tight as a tick and never sounds forced; you have to look hard to find a "she said". The Irish rhythms are skillfully woven through the dialog and the attention to detail made this reader feel as though she was right there, listening in.
Bestseller Martini's entertaining ninth Paul Madriani legal thriller (after 2005's Double Tap) offers an improbable if intriguing premise. San Diego, Calif., attorney Madriani and Harry Hinds, his longtime partner, agree to represent Carl Arnsberg, a racist facing execution for the bludgeoning-by-hammer murder of author Terry Scarborough, whose nonfiction bestseller, Perpetual Slaves, has actually led to riots in the streets. Scarborough focused the U.S. public on the retention in the Constitution of offensive language defining African-Americans as three-fifths human, despite subsequent amendments overriding those statements. He intended to follow Perpetual Slaves with a sequel that would reveal the existence of a secret letter written by Thomas Jefferson whose contents Scarborough believed would prove even more incendiary. Madriani and his team race frantically to trace a copy of that letter, which disappeared from the victim's briefcase at about the time of his murder. Compelling courtroom scenes, which display a sophisticated knowledge of legal trench warfare, compensate for some less-than-credible plot twists.
