Born in Shame

Author: Nora Roberts
Published: January 1, 1996
Category: Romance
Series: Born In #3
Rating: 7/10

I'm not quite sure how much I like this book. At times I love it and other times I dislike it because Shannon annoys me so much. I think my loving it stems from it being an extended epilogue for Bree and Maggie's stories (the first two books in the trilogy).

Shannon's life is rocked by an emotional earthquake when she learns the identity of her real father. Obeying her late mother's last wish, American Shannon travels to County Clare, Ireland, to meet the sisters she never knew she had. Warmed and comforted by the bond that grows between her and her sisters, her heart is lured by the charm of the Irish countryside and tempted by the attraction of horseman Murphy Muldoon. Murphy takes one look at Shannon and knows that she is the woman he's waited for all his life. But Shannon is a practical woman. Will she open her heart and mind to the timeless, magical bond that connects them? Or will she reject fate's plan and leave Murphy to return to her life in America?

Shannon annoyed me with her anger over the truth of her heritage. She wished that she'd never known about her blood father. How could her mother have done such a thing in her youth? But if her mother hadn't been pregnant and unmarried and tossed out of her home, she wouldn't have met the good man Shannon called her father.

Murphy offers his love without any dancing around the issue, which is true to his character. He's a straightforward type of man who knows what he wants, and believes that Shannon and he were lovers in a previous life. Shannon kept rejecting him because she had a big and important life and job back in New York, despite the fact that her job didn't make her happy, and she's found a new family in a beautiful country. She actually reminds me of Tess, the Hollywood screenwriter stuck in Montana in Roberts' Montana Sky.

Another thing that bothered me: The past lives thing and reliving it through dreams. Apparently, Murphy and Shannon were lovers of a local myth involving a warrior and a sorceress parted by war. I have nothing against fantasy, but it seemed rather out of place in this book and didn't feel like it was in perfect harmony with the rest of the story.