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The Raging Fire
This story describes the love between a Russian village girl and a high-born English doctor which is forged and tested by the fires of revolution and war.
While the cab waited to take her to the station she stood in the apartment that held all she had ever known of love and happiness. She walked around the room touching the familiar objects, the table where they had sat together over books, laughing and happy, the samovar where she had sometimes brewed tea late in the night, the neatly stacked typescript of her long report which had brought them together, the chair where he sat so often reading to her and smiling at her clumsy attempts to translate the English she was striving to learn.
The book of poetry was still lying close by. She picked it up and opened it.
“I wonder, by my truth, what thou and I Did till we loved…”
While the cab waited to take her to the station she stood in the apartment that held all she had ever known of love and happiness. She walked around the room touching the familiar objects, the table where they had sat together over books, laughing and happy, the samovar where she had sometimes brewed tea late in the night, the neatly stacked typescript of her long report which had brought them together, the chair where he sat so often reading to her and smiling at her clumsy attempts to translate the English she was striving to learn.
The book of poetry was still lying close by. She picked it up and opened it.
“I wonder, by my truth, what thou and I Did till we loved…”
503 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 24, 1987
About the author
Constance Heaven
41 books16 followersConstance Fecher Heaven
aka Constance Fecher, Constance Heaven, Christina Merlin
Constance Fecher was born on 6 August 1911 in Enfield, Middlesex, London, England, UK. She was educated at the Convent of Woodford Green, Essex from 1921 to 1928, when she went to study at King's College London, where she obtained a Honours degree in English in 1931. In 1931, she also graduated from London College of Music.
In 5 November 1939, she married William Heaven, who died in 1958. She was an actress from 1939 to 1966.
First published in 1963, she started writing historical novels with young protagonists under her maiden name Constance Fecher. From 1972, she signed her more romantic novels using her married name, Constance Heaven. She also used the pseudonym of Christina Merlin.
In 1973, her novel "The House of Kuragin" was the Winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award, and years later she was elected the eleventh Chairman (1981-1983) of the Romantic Novelists' Association. Mrs. Heaven continued writing until her death in 1995.
aka Constance Fecher, Constance Heaven, Christina Merlin
Constance Fecher was born on 6 August 1911 in Enfield, Middlesex, London, England, UK. She was educated at the Convent of Woodford Green, Essex from 1921 to 1928, when she went to study at King's College London, where she obtained a Honours degree in English in 1931. In 1931, she also graduated from London College of Music.
In 5 November 1939, she married William Heaven, who died in 1958. She was an actress from 1939 to 1966.
First published in 1963, she started writing historical novels with young protagonists under her maiden name Constance Fecher. From 1972, she signed her more romantic novels using her married name, Constance Heaven. She also used the pseudonym of Christina Merlin.
In 1973, her novel "The House of Kuragin" was the Winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award, and years later she was elected the eleventh Chairman (1981-1983) of the Romantic Novelists' Association. Mrs. Heaven continued writing until her death in 1995.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 30, 2020
boring...too long
September 25, 2025
4* Highly descriptive richly textured family saga set before and during Russian revolution following the lives of a Russian peasant girl Galina Panova, a British doctor Simon Aylsham and the aristcratic Malinsky family. Yes, it is a long read (500 odd pages - only about half the reading time of War and Peace!) and may be considered boring by some readers because of its length yet, it is still an absorbing story, and the characters feel real to the reader. The tension and sense of danger also feels real living in Czarist Russia, then Revolutionary & Post Revolutionary Russia to any citizen who spoke out or tried to change and improve the social condition which continues for the ordinary Russian before and after the Revolution.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews