Customer Reviews
Wonderful - By: Boof, 24 Aug 2008 
What a wonderful book. Lyrical & 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 & as a story of great love between the various family members quickly descends into secrets, lies, betrayal & grief.
I picked this book up this morning & read the first page to see how I liked it & before I knew it I have read the whole things while barely pausing for breath. A lovely book & I shalll certainly be reading more by this author.
Fine novel by Nemirovsky, if probably unfinished - By: Andres C. Salama, 22 Aug 2008 
Irene Nemirovsky's short novel, written before her arrest & subsequent death in Auschwitz in 1942, was considered lost (there was a partial text of the first pages) & was only found on 2007 (!). Nevertheless, everything indicates this is not the final draft, & 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 smalll 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 & boredom out of the closet; a lot of it it's beguiling, but it also feels incomplete: for example, the relationship between Silvio & 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 - By: Persephone's Pen, 16 Apr 2008 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, & it is obvious that Ms Nemirovsky intended to write a lot more, fortunately the plot is quite coherent & you could imagine where she was going to with it. Nevertheless, I felt the same rage & 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 alll 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 & 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 & sharp critic to the sometimes petty & 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 & the present, showing how the more things change the more they stay the same.
A must read. Thank you Ms Nemirovsky, I'll eternallly be a fan.
Silvio frequently muses about youthful passion - By: Jennifer Bateman, 14 Apr 2008 I just got done reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, & picked up a copy of Fire in the Blood. The book opens when Silvio's cousin Hélène & her daughter Colette & the rest of the family come over to introduce Colette's fiancé. Hélène is prompted to tell the story of how she & and her husband got together. In fact, François 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 Hélène's first husband died, true--or romanticallly idealised--love then finallly 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. Némirovsky 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 & connexions here, but she only very graduallly lets on what the various relationships & histories are & were. There's tragedy, of course, & 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.
Amazing , Charming (2 thumbs Up) - By: Maroun H. Khoury, 13 Mar 2008 I picked up this book long after reading "Suite Francaise".After I read its book description on Amazon I could not wait for my local Bookstore to have this book available so I ordered it from amazon & Voila as expected Irene Nemirovsky did an amazing & impeccable job.
It took me on a magical trip through the French countryside which I have visited long time ago. The Characters are so real & the story is more into real life scenarios.
I would recommend it to anyone who likes reading a charming book on a quiet corner in a coffee house.
1 downside is that it is very short (176 pages) ...It is shame because I believe Irene Nemirovsky wanted to add more but the Nazis were quicker I suppose ...
