It was kinda neat to read a story about a glass blowing artist. I love traveling to other countries with Nora Roberts. A reason I loved the Irish Trilogy. Born In Fire is a good book, but not my favorite by Nora. I did like the difficult characters in this book. I will definately read the rest of the Concannon sisters trilogy.

this is the first in the "born in" series by nora roberts. it tells of the romance of maggie and rogan.

maggie is a red-headed irish girl who's tempermental, candid, brash at times, sexual, and afraid of marriage. she's a gifted glass blower who is on the cusp of stardom, although she's not aware of it yet, living in a small town in ireland.

rogan is a black-haired hunk with blue eyes and a focus on his business. he's the opposite of maggie in that he's more emotionally controlled, holds his tongue more times than not for appearance sake, is uncomfortable with the idea of losing control sexually (at least initially), and values marriage over just a sexual relationship. he is immediately enamored with maggie's artwork and wants to display it in his galleries. the conflict begins when he wants to take control and she doesn't want it because she's always controlled everything in her world up until then.

i loved maggie because she was comfortable with her sexuality and was committed to her art. she was outspoken and didn't hold her tongue if she felt something needed to be said. there wasn't any coy games going on with her when it came to rogan. she let him know early on she was interested in him sexually.

it was really cool watching rogan lose control of the situation, when he was so used to having control over every aspect of his life. i loved how the two characters came together sexually, too. it was definitely HOT, although i wish roberts had spent a little more time describing more of the interludes.

and the banter between the two was hilarious. maggie had an uncanny way of getting under rogan's skin, and the arguments between these two were almost as entertaining as the sexual encounters.

there were a few weak points of this book, though. for one, there was an unnecessary amount of time spent on them at work. while i understand the need to educate the reader on the process of glass blowing, sometimes i found myself wanting to skim over it so i could get to the interaction between maggie and rogan. i wish there had been more of it in the book. it wouldn't have been a bad thing if the storyline was interesting when they were apart, but it really wasn't. the only time it got interesting outside of the romance was when maggie and her mom were going at it.

if you want a strong female character who's funny and knows what she wants and like the idea of watching a man's control unravel, and you like reading about spontaneous and heated sexual encounters after reading uninteresting stuff for about thirty pages prior, this is the book for you. i thought it was aiight, but i'm not pressed to read it ever again.