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| Fire in the Blood | 
 enlarge | Author: Irene Nemirovsky
Creator: Sandra Smith
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy Used: £2.43
You Save: £10.56 (81%)
New (24) from £2.53
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 42433
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0701181834
EAN: 9780701181833
ASIN: 0701181834
Publication Date: September 27, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Book in very good condition, slight wear with small remainder mark on edge. Ships from Canada by Air Mail - Delivery within 2 to 3 weeks - Satisfaction Guaranteed
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Bijou novel about the passions and betrayals of the french peasantry October 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A great little novel - apparently a fragment found by her children. Its fragmentariness shows, but it's not worse for that. Small but perfectly formed, and I thought it was better than Suite Francaise.
 Wonderful August 24, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
What a wonderful book. Lyrical and atmospheric, this book is a story told by Silvio about his family in the early last century who live in a little village in rural France. What starts out gently and as a story of great love between the various family members quickly descends into secrets, lies, betrayal and grief.
I picked this book up this morning and read the first page to see how I liked it and before I knew it I have read the whole things while barely pausing for breath. A lovely book and I shall certainly be reading more by this author.
 Fine novel by Nemirovsky, if probably unfinished August 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Irene Nemirovsky's short novel, written before her arrest and subsequent death in Auschwitz in 1942, was considered lost (there was a partial text of the first pages) and was only found on 2007 (!). Nevertheless, everything indicates this is not the final draft, and had she lived to publish it a different version would have arrived to us. The book itself is a tale of secret passions in a French small town. The arrival of Silvio, a single man in his sixties, to his home town, after a lifetime of living abroad, lets secrets hidden under the cover of normalcy and boredom out of the closet; a lot of it it's beguiling, but it also feels incomplete: for example, the relationship between Silvio and Brigitte (fundamental, given what we find in the book's last pages) is curiously underworked: this lets me to think we should consider this book to be an unfinished work. Despite this, it is another fine work by the Russian-born Jewish-raised French author, whose books have gone through a revival in the last few years.
A delightful read, another Nemirovsky masterpiece April 16, 2008
16 out of 20 found this review helpful
After reading Suite Francaise, which I absolutely LOVED, I was a little bit anxious that this other "new" book (that found the day of light after so many years in oblivion) will not fulfil my expectations...but the hell it did, what a brilliant book!
Although it is way too short, and it is obvious that Ms Nemirovsky intended to write a lot more, fortunately the plot is quite coherent and you could imagine where she was going to with it. Nevertheless, I felt the same rage and frustration I experienced with Suite Francaise of never being able to read the finished product, due to the author's untimely death. I am delighted anyway that it has been published in spite of all these shortcomings, as it has been a crime that such a beautiful book has been hidden away for so many years. And unfinished or not, it is always a pleasure to read anything from Irene Nemirovsky. It brings tears to my eyes to realise her voice was extinguished way too early and we have been denied the honour of reading more of her fantastic books.
This book is a gem, I just love Ms Nemirovsky's style, it is so well written, her vivid description of the French country live is a delight to read. It is a very sarcastic and sharp critic to the sometimes petty and particular ways of the peasant mentality. The plot has so many clever twists; I could not put it down. Something I particularly loved about it was how masterfully the author mirrored the past and the present, showing how the more things change the more they stay the same.
A must read. Thank you Ms Nemirovsky, I'll eternally be a fan.
Silvio frequently muses about youthful passion April 14, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
I just got done reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, and picked up a copy of Fire in the Blood. The book opens when Silvio's cousin Helene and her daughter Colette and the rest of the family come over to introduce Colette's fiance. Helene is prompted to tell the story of how she and and her husband got together. In fact, Francois wasn't her first husband. Though he fell in love with her when she was barely more than a child he waited--and waited even after she was married off to a wealthy older man, returning only when Helene's first husband died, true--or romantically idealised--love then finally taking its course.
Such a situation isn't that uncommon: even now there's a similar case in the neighbourhood, where mean, rich old Declos married the very young Brigitte. Declos hasn't got long to live, but he still hangs on for the time being. Nemirovsky is artful in her presentation, careful in the clues she strews from the first page on. As it will turn out, there are many more secrets and connexions here, but she only very gradually lets on what the various relationships and histories are and were. There's tragedy, of course, and scandal, though in this close-knit community the last thing anyone wants is to involve the authorities or anyone from outside. If you missed Tino Georgiou's novel--The Fates, I'd recommend reading it.
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