If you read my recent review of Elizabeth Bowen‘s book The Little Girls you’ll be surprised that I decided to read another of her books. It was a shock to me, in fact when I logged on to My Library Account I was aghast to see that I had requested this book. That’s what happens when you look at blogs late at night and it’s just too easy to click and request books which other bloggers have enjoyed. Luckily I did like this book as much as the other blogger did, sadly I can’t remember which blog it was, do let me know if it was you!

Anyway The Heat of the Day which was first published in 1948 did turn out to be a far better read than The Little Girls, in fact it seems that it was Elizabeth Bowen’s most successful book, I imagine that’s because of the subject matter. The book is based mainly in London during World War 2 which is where Bowen herself was based at the time and she seems to capture the atmosphere of the place perfectly as you would expect from someone who lived through the bombing.

The main character, Stella is a middle aged woman who is having a relationship with Robert who is a few years younger than her. She works for the government. Robert was wounded at Dunkirk, and it seems to have had a psychological effect on him. Depending on his mood his limp can be bad or almost completely unnoticeable.

Stella is divorced and has a son Roderick in the army, his father died soon after the divorce and eventually Roderick inherits an estate in Ireland on the death of a cousin. Ireland was a neutral country and it wasn’t possible for him to travel there as he was in the army. Stella travels there to see to his business affairs, back to the place where she had spent her honeymoon. It’s suffering from the same deprivation as Britain with candles and even matches being in short supply.

Harrison is also working for the government, he’s a counter spy and he’s haunting Stella whom he has fancied from afar for years. He tells her that Robert is suspected of being a spy.

Nothing is as it seems in this book as you would expect from a spy story. Looking at Bowen’s own life it’s easy to see that she used a lot of her own experiences to write it, with a character who suffers from mental infirmity (supposedly) and she herself inherited an estate in Ireland.

This book is regarded as one of the best portrayals of London during the bombing raids of World War 2, when people lived for the moment, never knowing if they were going to wake up in the morning or not.

The book was adapted for TV in 1989.