The Call of the Blood - Robert Smythe Hichens

This is one of those older titles that showed up in a list in the back of one of the other books I read, so it was picked kind of randomly. I had no idea what it was about, but the title seemed interesting. My imagination was going in all sorts of directions!

It's actually about Hermione who marries Maurice and takes him to Sicily. She's also friends with another man, Artois, and she leaves her new husband to take care of her friend when he falls ill in Africa. When she's gone, the husband falls prey to the "call of his blood" and gives in to his wild Sicilian side a bit.

Almost everyone in this book was an idiot. Maurice was an idiot because he acted like a petulant child when left on his own for a bit. Hermione is an idiot because she treats her husband like a child. She thinks of him as having the mind of a boy and being dumber than she is. Artois is an idiot because when he's sick, he immediately reaches out to the friend who is on her honeymoon and lets her stay with him for who knows how long. She didn't even ask her husband what he thought. She's just like, "I'm off. You stay here." And then both of them want to say more and don't. Idiots all around.

The one shining light is Gaspare. He may run a little high on the emotions chart, but he knows what's going on the whole time and tries to keep the man-child Maurice out of trouble. Of course, he fails but it's through no fault of his own. Gaspare is basically like a trusted manservant of the house and becomes very close with Maurice. 

Overall, no one in this book wanted to take responsibility for their actions, and it was straight annoying. It was the "I'm following the call of my blood" "It's the way God made people" Only Artois seemed to have any kind of self-reflection toward the end. Throughout the rest of the book, everyone was more worried about what they wanted to do. It was wrapped up in "helping someone else" at times, but it still boiled down to all three of them doing what they wanted. It was a frustrating read, and I was glad when it was over.