Margaret Sayers Peden Books

Paula is a soul-baring memoir, which, like a novel of suspense, one reads without drawing a breath. The point of departure for these moving pages is a 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. As an exorcism of death, in these pages Isabel Allende explores the past and questions the gods.

Perhaps the most ambitious novel from one of Mexico's greatest writers, the narrative covers 20 centuries of European and American culture, and prominently features the construction of El Escorial by Philip II. The title is Latin for "Our earth". Modeled on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, Terra Nostra shifts unpredictably between the sixteenth century and the twentieth, seeking the roots of contemporary Latin American society in the struggle between the conquistadors and indigenous Americans. -Terra Nostra is the spreading out of the novel, the exploration of its possibilities, the voyage to the edge of what only a novelist can see and say.- Milan Kundera

Born a slave 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 in the voodoo loas 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 baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint-Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride -- but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave. Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tété and Valmorain, and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances. Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden.

With an Introduction by Gabriel García MárquezA new translation by Douglas J. WeatherfordIn this stunning masterpiece of the surreal, Juan Preciado sets out on a strange quest, bound by a promise to his dying mother. Embarking down a parched and dusty road, Juan goes to seek his father, Pedro Páramo, from whom they fled many years ago. The ruined town of Comala is alive with whispers and shadows. Time shifts from one consciousness to another in a hypnotic flow of desires and memories, a world of ghosts dominated by the tyranny of the Páramo family. Womaniser, overlord and murderer, Juan's notorious father retains an eternal grip over Comala. Its barren and broken-down streets echo the voices of tormented spirits sharing the secrets of the past in an extraordinary chorus of sensory images, violent passions and unfathomable mysteries.

Charles Reeves is a preacher, mystic and formulator of the Infinite Plan - his philosophy of life. The Reeveses settle in a Mexican barrio outside Los Angeles, awaiting Charles death. His son, Greg, is left to explore the truth of the "Plan". By the author of "Eva Luna" and "Of Love and Shadows".

As a young girl, Aurora del Valle suffered a brutal trauma that has shaped her character and erased from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. When she finds herself alone at the end of an unhappy love affair, she decides to explore the mystery of her past.

An orphan raised in Valparaiso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, vivacious young Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Entering a rough-and-tumble world of new arrivals driven mad by gold fever, Eliza moves in a society of single men and prostitutes 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 to the young Chilean, and her search for her elusive lover gradually turns into another kind of journey. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.

Alexander Cold and his best friend, Nadia, the heroes of Allende's City Of the Beasts , are reunited in a new adventure. This time, Alexander's fearless grandmother and International Geographic are taking them to another remote niche of the world -- a forbidden kingdom tucked into the frosty peaks of the Himalayas. Their task: to locate its fabled Golden Dragon, a sacred statue and priceless oracle, before it is destroyed by the greed of an outsider. With the aid of a sage Buddhist monk, his young royal disciple, and a fierce tribe of Yeti warriors, and armed with the power of their totemic animal spirits, Alexander and Nadia fight to protect the holy rule of the Golden Dragon.

The second swashbuckling adventure in the internationally acclaimed Captain Alatriste series Captain Alatriste, Madrid’s most charismatic swashbuckler, returns in Perez-Reverte’s acclaimed international bestseller. The fearless Alatriste is hired to infiltrate a convent and rescue a young girl forced to serve as a powerful priest’s concubine. The girl’s father is barred from legal recourse as the priest threatens to reveal that the man’s family is “not of pure blood” and is, in fact, of Jewish descent—which will all but destroy the family name. As Alatriste struggles to save the young hostage from being burned at the stake, he soon finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a conspiracy that leads all the way to the heart of the Spanish Inquisition. A literary thriller that delivers adventure and rich historical detail, Purity of Blood captivates to the final page.

Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold has the chance to take the trip of a lifetime. Parting from his family and ill mother, Alexander joins his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon. Their mission, along with the others on their team -- including a celebrated anthropologist, a local guide and his young daughter Nadia, and a doctor -- is to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast. Under the dense canopy of the jungle, Alexander is amazed to discover much more than he could have imagined about the hidden worlds of the rain forest. Drawing on the strength of the jaguar, the totemic animal Alexander finds within himself, and the eagle, Nadia's spirit guide, both young people are led by the invisible People of the Mist on a thrilling and unforgettable journey to the ultimate discovery.... In a stunning novel of high adventure, internationally celebrated novelist Isabel Allende leads readers through the intricacies of two personal quests, and on an epic voyage -- teeming with magical realism -- into the wonder-filled heart of the Amazon.