Given to me as a Christmas present by my future father-in-law.

I'd never heard of this author before. It turns out she has a tragic story. But her writing is wonderful, and I'm sure it's even better in the original French.

Fire in the Blood is a forlorn, pondering book which oozes a sense of loss throughout. It is only towards the end that the reader fully understands what this loss is. But the novel is so short and evocatively written that I didn't find it particularly depressing. The desire to keep turning pages thoroughout never wavered.

Released at meetup.

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caught at meetup - thanks (will add it to Suite Francaise on the TBR pile - Suzi, if you want to borrow it, let me know)

Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky - Very Good

Such bitter sweet, poignant stories. This is the third book of Irene Nemirovsky I've read and this is another one that was found in her daughter's suitcase many years after her death. This one is generally thought to have been written in 1942 but not published until 2007.

The Fire in the Blood of the title is that fire of youth for living and loving that burns deep within. In this book we are in the same village as in part of Suite Francaise (I don't think there is a character overlap) but many years earlier. Young women are married to much older men for the life and security if will bring but strain at their confines and the waste of their youth. Young men travel and return, affairs are conducted, secrets hidden.

All this is remembered or seen through the eyes of Sylvio: one of the young men that travelled and returned and now, in later life, watches history repeating itself and old secrets coming to light.

The story is bitter sweet in the way that looking back at lost youth will always be, but also in the loss of such a talented writer who would never live to see the height of her success. She left so many beautiful books, but what more would she have given us if she had survived?

Read in memory of her death in Auschwitz 17 August 1942.

Bringing to Old Gang Meetup and will leave on the OBCZ shelf if not taken.

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Picked up at the Meet Up ( the first since Covid messed everything up) , so nice to see everyone again

Beautifully and exquisitely written. Full of feelings for a lost love and perhaps a lost life.
I loved the description of the villagers and rural French life.

Going into the mixed fiction bookbox

Chosen from mixed fiction bookbox

Chosen from First Sentences VBB round 24. I have read and enjoyed The Wine of Solitude by this author.

Thank you!