Review: The Fire in Their Eyes

Stephanie Bretherton, The Fire in their Eyes, (Breakthrough Books, 2025)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/234882889-the-fire-in-their-eyes#?ref=nav_brws

Archaeological discovery leads to medical breakthrough

The Old Woman wraps her bear skin over her to go fetch water. Death has ‘drunk from her heart too many times’, yet she doesn’t fear. She understands the fellow creatures around her, anticipates them. She has given to her progeny a ‘seed-gift’, the ‘fire eyes’ of her mother, a stranger to the tribe.

Dr Eloise Kruft takes a late night call from Darius, from Mount Kenya. He has unearthed, near the bones of ‘Sarah’, a carved claw. A cave in Yemen, disturbed by an earthquake, reveals something else.

Max goes over his documentary on the bones of ‘Sarah’ and the abduction of Dr Kruft. Jess is the only nurse trusted by Calumn, the cult member abductor, now securely hospitalised. Rev John Evesham visits him to ‘ease his spiritual burdens’ and argues with atheist Max.

An ice core drilled from the Norwegian Arctic contains a 74,000-year-old virus that devastates the research team and risks spreading to the local Sami or the reindeer. It’s being compared with the DNA of ‘Sarah’.

The plot alternates between the folktale-like story of the Old Woman in prehistoric Africa and the high-tech story of the worldwide danger posed by the unearthed genome. The two worlds begin to interconnect in more ways than just old bones.

The modern sections feature details about archaeology, DNA, virology and medical practices. A bit more would have given us a techno-thriller, but it’s quite exciting, nonetheless, and more psychological.

The excitement is recounted largely through the dialogue and emails, making every development more realistic, more an in-the-moment experience. We see how each person feels about what’s happening. I liked the differentness of the characters. Even the prehistoric characters have distinct personalities. I loved how the language in the prehistoric sections seemed appropriate to the timeframe.

Book 2 of the Children of Sarah.

This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.