"Born on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité—known as Tété—is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tété finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and the voodoo loa she discovers through her fellow slaves.
When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it’s with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Although Valmorain purchases young Tété for his bride, it is he who will become dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.
Against the merciless backdrop of sugarcane fields, the lives of Tété and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When the bloody revolution of Toussaint Louverture arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the brutal conditions of the French colony, soon to become Haiti, for the raucous, free-wheeling enterprise of New Orleans. There, Tété finally forges a new life, but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not easily severed. With an impressive richness of detail, and a narrative wit and brio second to none, Allende crafts the riveting story of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge a new identity in the cruelest of circumstances."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/island/summary
When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it’s with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Although Valmorain purchases young Tété for his bride, it is he who will become dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.
Against the merciless backdrop of sugarcane fields, the lives of Tété and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When the bloody revolution of Toussaint Louverture arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the brutal conditions of the French colony, soon to become Haiti, for the raucous, free-wheeling enterprise of New Orleans. There, Tété finally forges a new life, but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not easily severed. With an impressive richness of detail, and a narrative wit and brio second to none, Allende crafts the riveting story of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge a new identity in the cruelest of circumstances."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/island/summary
"Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of Northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.
So begins Isabel Allende's enchanting novel Daughter of Fortune. As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and Northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes—among whom Eliza moves with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi'en—California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquín gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.
Daughter of Fortune is a sweeping portrait of an era, a story rich in character, history, violence, and compassion. In Eliza, Allende has created one of her most appealing heroines, an adventurous, independent-minded, and highly unconventional young woman who has the courage to reinvent herself and to create her hard-won destiny in a new country."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/daughter/summary
So begins Isabel Allende's enchanting novel Daughter of Fortune. As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and Northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes—among whom Eliza moves with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi'en—California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquín gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.
Daughter of Fortune is a sweeping portrait of an era, a story rich in character, history, violence, and compassion. In Eliza, Allende has created one of her most appealing heroines, an adventurous, independent-minded, and highly unconventional young woman who has the courage to reinvent herself and to create her hard-won destiny in a new country."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/daughter/summary
"The astonishing debut of a gifted storyteller, The House of the Spirits is both a symbolic family saga and the story of an unnamed Latin American country's turbulent history. Isabel Allende constructs a spirit-ridden world and fills it with colorful and all-too-human inhabitants, including Esteban, the patriarch, a volatile and proud man whose lust for land is legendary and who is haunted by tyrannical passion for the wife he can never completely possess; Clara, the matriarch, elusive and mysterious, who foretells family tragedy and shapes the fortunes of the house and the Truebas; Blanca, their daughter, soft-spoken yet rebellious, whose shocking love for the son of her father’s foreman fuels Esteban’s everlasting contempt, even as it produces the grandchild he adores; and Alba, the fruit of Blanca’s forbidden love, a luminous beauty and a fiery and willful woman.
The Trueba family's passions, struggles, and secrets span three generations and a century of violent change, culminating in a crisis that brings the proud and tyrannical patriarch and his beloved granddaughter to opposite sides of the barricades. Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and enduring than the political allegiances that set them at odds."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/house/summary
The Trueba family's passions, struggles, and secrets span three generations and a century of violent change, culminating in a crisis that brings the proud and tyrannical patriarch and his beloved granddaughter to opposite sides of the barricades. Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and enduring than the political allegiances that set them at odds."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/house/summary
"Isabel Allende brings her magical storytelling powers to a highly personal and charmingly idiosyncratic look at the intertwined sensual arts of food and love. Blending personal reminiscence with folklore from around the world, historical legends, and memorable moments from literature—erotic and otherwise—Allende spices her narrative with equal portions of humor and insight.
Assembling a feast of fascinating facts about the aphrodisiac powers of food and drink, Allende serves them up with both convincing admiration and due irreverence. She offers suggestions, both ancient and modern, for luring a lover, kindling sexual ardor, prolonging the act of love, and reviving flagging virility. Dipping into the cauldron of history, she reports on the lascivious appetites of everyone from the emperor Nero to Catherine the Great to France's notorious Madame du Barry.
A personal ode to the pleasures of food and sex, Aphrodite celebrates the sensual life with joy and imagination. Allende's exuberance, storytelling powers, and naughty sense of fun make this memoir an irresistible treat for the senses."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/aphrodite/summary
Assembling a feast of fascinating facts about the aphrodisiac powers of food and drink, Allende serves them up with both convincing admiration and due irreverence. She offers suggestions, both ancient and modern, for luring a lover, kindling sexual ardor, prolonging the act of love, and reviving flagging virility. Dipping into the cauldron of history, she reports on the lascivious appetites of everyone from the emperor Nero to Catherine the Great to France's notorious Madame du Barry.
A personal ode to the pleasures of food and sex, Aphrodite celebrates the sensual life with joy and imagination. Allende's exuberance, storytelling powers, and naughty sense of fun make this memoir an irresistible treat for the senses."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/aphrodite/summary
"Isabel Allende has mesmerized readers throughout the world with her own blend of magical realism, politics, and romance. With Paula Allende has written a tour de force, a powerful autobiography whose straightforward acceptance of the magical and spiritual worlds will remind readers of her first book, The House of the Spirits.
Paula is a soul-baring memoir that, like a novel of suspense, one reads without drawing a breath. The point of departure for these moving pages is tragic personal experience. In December 1991, Isabel Allende's daughter Paula became gravely ill and shortly thereafter fell into a coma. During months in the hospital, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious daughter. In the telling, bizarre ancestors appear before our eyes; we hear both delightful and bitter childhood memories, amazing anecdotes of youthful years, the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers. Chile, Allende's native land, comes alive as well, with the turbulent history of the military coup of 1973, the ensuing dictatorship, and her family's years of exile.
Written as an exorcism of death, Allende explores the past and questions the gods. The result is a magical book that carries the reader from tears to laughter, from terror to sensuality and wisdom. The glorious characters of Allende's fiction—clairvoyants, revolutionaries, and, most of all, the questing woman who makes her way through storytelling—populate this autobiography, which ranks as one of Allende's finest works. In Paula we understand that the miraculous world of The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna is the world Isabel Allende inhabits—it is her enchanted reality."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/paula/summary
Paula is a soul-baring memoir that, like a novel of suspense, one reads without drawing a breath. The point of departure for these moving pages is tragic personal experience. In December 1991, Isabel Allende's daughter Paula became gravely ill and shortly thereafter fell into a coma. During months in the hospital, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious daughter. In the telling, bizarre ancestors appear before our eyes; we hear both delightful and bitter childhood memories, amazing anecdotes of youthful years, the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers. Chile, Allende's native land, comes alive as well, with the turbulent history of the military coup of 1973, the ensuing dictatorship, and her family's years of exile.
Written as an exorcism of death, Allende explores the past and questions the gods. The result is a magical book that carries the reader from tears to laughter, from terror to sensuality and wisdom. The glorious characters of Allende's fiction—clairvoyants, revolutionaries, and, most of all, the questing woman who makes her way through storytelling—populate this autobiography, which ranks as one of Allende's finest works. In Paula we understand that the miraculous world of The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna is the world Isabel Allende inhabits—it is her enchanted reality."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/paula/summary
"“My name is Eva, which means ‘life,’ according to a book of names my mother consulted. I was born in the back room of a shadowy house, and grew up amidst ancient furniture, books in Latin, and human mummies, but none of these things made me melancholy, because I came into the world with a breath of the jungle in my memory.” This is the voice that carries us through Eva Luna, the assured voice of a naturally inventive storyteller, a woman who relates to us the picaresque tale of her own life (born poor, orphaned early, she will eventually rise to a position of unique influence) and of the people—from all levels of society—that she meets along the way. They include the rich and eccentric, for whom she works as a servant; the Lebanese émigré who befriends her and takes her in; her unfortunate godmother, whose brain is addled by rum and who believes in all the Catholic saints, some of African origin, and a few of her own invention; a street urchin who grows into a petty criminal and, later, a leader in the guerrilla struggle; a celebrated transsexual entertainer who instructs her, with great tenderness and insight, in the ways of the adult world; and a young refugee whose flight from postwar Europe will prove crucial to Eva's fate.
As Eva tells her story, Isabel Allende conjures up a whole complex South American nation—the rich, the poor, the simple, and the sophisticated—in a novel replete with character and incident, with drama and comedy and history, a novel that will delight and increase her devoted audience."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/evaluna/summary
As Eva tells her story, Isabel Allende conjures up a whole complex South American nation—the rich, the poor, the simple, and the sophisticated—in a novel replete with character and incident, with drama and comedy and history, a novel that will delight and increase her devoted audience."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/evaluna/summary
"A swashbuckling adventure story, Zorro reveals the history behind the legendary masked man.
Born in Southern California in the late eighteenth century, Diego de la Vega is a child of two worlds. His father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner, his mother a Shoshone warrior. From his father, Diego receives lessons in the art of fencing and in cattle branding; from his maternal grandmother, White Owl, he learns the ways of her tribe. As a child he also witnesses the brutal injustices dealt Native Americans by European settlers and begins to feel the inner conflict of his dual heritage.
At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Barcelona to be educated. Spain is chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule, and Diego, following the example of his celebrated fencing master, joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. With this tumultuous period as a backdrop, Diego falls in love, saves the persecuted, and confronts a great rival who emerges from the world of privilege. After many adventures—duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and daring rescues—Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda where he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves.
Spanning the globe from California to Barcelona—the New World and the Old—Zorro celebrates the birth of a great hero and legend."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/zorro/summary
Born in Southern California in the late eighteenth century, Diego de la Vega is a child of two worlds. His father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner, his mother a Shoshone warrior. From his father, Diego receives lessons in the art of fencing and in cattle branding; from his maternal grandmother, White Owl, he learns the ways of her tribe. As a child he also witnesses the brutal injustices dealt Native Americans by European settlers and begins to feel the inner conflict of his dual heritage.
At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Barcelona to be educated. Spain is chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule, and Diego, following the example of his celebrated fencing master, joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. With this tumultuous period as a backdrop, Diego falls in love, saves the persecuted, and confronts a great rival who emerges from the world of privilege. After many adventures—duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and daring rescues—Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda where he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves.
Spanning the globe from California to Barcelona—the New World and the Old—Zorro celebrates the birth of a great hero and legend."
http://isabelallende.com/ia/en/book/zorro/summary