A morality tale with doubtful morals, a story of murder, love and the inheritance of harmful secrets, Fire in the Blood, written in 1941, is set in a small village, based on Issy-l’Eveque where Suite Francaise was written, and brilliantly prefigures the village community in her later masterpiece.
Silvio looks back from old age on a chequered life, concealing truths he will not reveal until the end. Fire in the Blood starts quietly, lyrically but then races away with narrative twists and surprise revelations. A young man, newly married, is found drowned in the mill stream: an old man is more concerned with the repayment of a debt than with his young wife; a young woman asks Silvio to plead her case; no one is quite what they seem……Young women have to marry old men, youthful passions burn and the regrets of old age simmer in this rural community where secrets are kept close and passed from one generation to the next.
