Review On: Born in Shame by Nora Roberts
Series: Born in Trilogy (Book 3)
Rating: 3/5
After Born in Fire and Born in Ice, we finally have Born in Shame, the final book in the Born In trilogy. In Born in Shame we meet Shannon Bodine, Maggie and Brie’s long-lost half-sister, whose mother Amanda Dougherty had a short-term affair with their father Tom, about 25 years before the books started. In Born in Fire, Maggie is present when her father dies, and hears him utter the name of a stranger before he passes on. In Born in Ice, Brie discovers some love-letters in her attic, finds out her father had an affair, and they (with Maggie) decide to find their lost brother/sister.
At the start of the story, Amanda Dougherty-Bodine is dying, but decides to finally tell her daughter the truth about who her real father is, and the message of love her step-father wanted to share with her even when she wasn’t his real daughter. Shannon Bodine is distraught over this confession but has no time to think it over as her mother dies soon after telling her. Suddenly, Shannon meets a lawyer sent by Maggie and Brie, who are looking for her mother. When they find out that Amanda has passed away, Brianna invites Shannon to come to Ireland to meet them and the Ireland where her mother had fallen in love.
Shannon, though initially reluctant to go to Ireland, least of all to meet her half-sisters, decides to take a leave of absence from her work in New York and goes to Ireland. She builds a wall around herself when she meets her half-sisters, and finds herself immediately in conflict with Maggie whom she discovers has a personality much like hers. She also meets Murphy, the Concannon’s neighbor and childhood friend, who is immediately smitten with her. Upon her arrival to Ireland, Shannon tells herself that she is only satisfying her curiousity and after a few weeks, she will go back to her old life and Ireland won’t mean anything to her. But as the days pass by and she gets to know her sisters, their husbands and children, and the community, Shannon can’t help but find her wall chipping away. Having Murphy come at her doesn’t help Shannon’s defenses either as she finds herself being courted and more unsure of what she thought she had wanted. Not to mention the vivid and somewhat magic-like dreams she keeps getting, which has something to do with Murphy and Ireland. And later, Shannon comes face-to-face with Maeve, her half-sisters’ mother. Though their confrontation is initially a mess, Shannon is later on able to gain some form of respect from Maeve, which also helps her relationship with her own daughters.
But, is Ireland growing on Shannon, enough for her to stay and leave everything behind for the sake of love and family?
Among all three books, this is my least favorite. Born in Shame brings all books together, and I think that this trilogy wouldn’t have made much sense if it was only Maggie and Brianna’s story. Shannon’s story completes the sisters. But I personally feel that though the story was in many ways beautiful – like Shannon’s accepting her sisters, Maggie and Brianna’s forgiving their father and accepting Shannon, Mauve’s accepting Shannon and inadvertently Shannon’s helping to bring together the sisters and their mother; a lot of the parts of the story didn’t make sense, or didn’t flow well together. For example, Shannon was pegged as having the same personality as Maggie, she was suppose to be stubborn and with a fiery character that was hard to manage. Yet there were times that I felt that Shannon was more of a follower, than someone who made her own rules. I wanted to see her more in-conflict with her family and Ireland, and ultimately with herself, as she was struggling to find her place in County Clare. With Murphy, well, I expected more from Murphy. It’s a bit hard to imagine that Murphy saw Shannon and just fell in love. It sounds a lot like how Grayson met Brianna. I loved how he was kind-of old-fashioned but considering how Nora Roberts wrote him out as someone who really believed in his fated one and the dreams he had been having since he was little, I expected more of a fight from him during the progression of the story. Also, the ending to the story was just too disappointing. Like there was one aspect of the story that was built up, but it never really reached its potential. You can kind of see here how Shannon sort of exudes an I-just-give-up personality, though readers expect more from her.
Somewhere in the middle of the story, I could sort of feel that Nora Roberts was figuring out how to end the story. After writing a trilogy, I’m sure she wanted to get this story done with, but it’s really hard to finish a book and have it live up to the expectations of its readers. Somehow the story left me wanting more, there was so much more to the story, especially since this book had more magic in it than the previous 2 books. I thought that the aspect of magic would involve itself more with the characters, because it was one of the things that brought them together, and the ending had something to do with magic.
Despite my disappointment with the story, and how while I was reading it…I sort of wanted to just finish the darn thing, I really enjoyed how Nora Roberts was able to reflect the importance of family within its pages. Nora Roberts made you fall in love with Ireland, with County Clare, and with the Concannon sisters. Here, you can see that all the different characters are not flawless, they have obvious faults that make itself known throughout the story, but make it all the more believable. For example Tom Concannon, the father of all three girls. You initially see him as a loving father who is just down on his luck when it comes to money, and then you discover that he falls in love with someone outside of his marriage, but that his love for his family keeps him where he is. He’s not a bad father, and wasn’t really a bad husband either, but he discovered love a little too late. Another example is Mauve Concannon, the mother of Maggie and Brianna, who was often pegged as the villain in the earlier two books. Though you have a bit of hate for Mauve, who is full of hate and jealousy and spite, you kind of feel sorry for her when you discover her past and why she’s bitter the way she is. But then in the third book, Shannon comes along and helps Maggie and Brianna mend their relationship, though I don’t really understand how she was able to do so in just a few pages. And then there’s Maggie and Brianna, who adored their father and were distraught when they discovered he had an affair. They learned to accept Shannon, and later found her slowly becoming a part of their family.
Throughout the books, you really see how family wins out among the sisters, despite how stubborn or hurt or defeated they may look at one point or another. That’s one great thing about the book, all the characters grow on you, especially if you’ve also read Born in Fire and Born in Ice – you see how it all began up to how it all ends. I was sad to see this story end because the stories of the sisters sounded so realistic that readers could to some extent relate to one of them, and I wish that had Nora Roberts had not rushed things in this last book, but part of me was glad to have finally finished the book because part of it wasn’t making sense to me anymore. (And this review is starting to not make sense to me too!)
After all three books though, Nora Roberts illustrated a really interesting looking Ireland. People who have never been to Ireland will definitely want how a place like County Clare would look like. I would too!
Also, do not be disappointed with Nora Roberts because of this one review. I’ve read her other books and she’s a pretty fantastic writer. I just think that when you’re writing books that are part of a series, it’s sometimes hard not to disappoint readers, when they’ve gotten to know characters during the progress of the books. It’s really hard to live up to the expectations of readers who are expecting your story to end a certain way and with a certain flair.