The young heroine of the short story “The Ball,” Antoinette, burns with hatred for her mother, who treats her worse than another stepmother treats her stepdaughter. The ban on being at the ball for “at least a quarter of an hour” becomes the last straw that overflows the girl’s patience. She takes revenge on her mother with cruelty that only children are capable of... In the novel “Heat of Blood” the action takes place in a remote French province. But it gradually becomes clear that violent passions are boiling behind the walls of the houses. Murders, betrayals, betrayals, family secrets that surfaced years later... Happiness, alas, is only a fragile illusion.