Isabel Allende Books

The Trueba family embodies strong feelings. This family saga starts at the beginning of the 20th century and continues through the assassination of Allende in 1973.

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.

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.

A brilliant memoir from the celebrated Chilean novelist on friends, family and life in California, her adopted home.Isabel Allende has sold more than 50 million copies of her books worldwide. The most beloved and successful of her books, The House of the Spirits, was based on her Chilean childhood, and other autobiographical works include the deeply moving Paula - a family history written at the bedside of her daughter while she lay in a coma - and the fascinating My Invented Country, which explored the events of her native Chile where she lived until Pinochet's military coup. Now, in The Sum of the Days, we have Isabel describe in an exceptionally vivid, human and deeply personal way her life in California where she has lived for more than 25 years. The first page picks up from where Paula ends - her daughter never did wake up from her coma and died in 1992 - when Allende recounts spreading Paula's ashes in her favourite part of the woods by their home. It is fair to say that Isabel has never recovered from losing her daughter but has managed to survive by keeping her husband, son, grandchildren as well as close friends - kindred spirits - central to her life.The book is particularly illuminating and revealing about her working life - she must begin every new book she writes on January 8th or else abandon it for a year.

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".

Born in the back room of the mansion where her mother toils, and herself in service from an early age, the enchanting and ever-enchanted Eva Luna escapes oppression through story telling.

From the New York Times bestselling author comes a passionate meditation on womanhood. Isabel Allende begins by recalling her childhood, where she witnessed her mother, abandoned and voiceless, support three children. This experience ignited her fierce determination to fight for the life her mother couldn't have. As she matured in the late 1960s, Allende embraced the second wave of feminism, finding a sense of belonging among female journalists who boldly addressed women's issues. Throughout her life, she has witnessed the movement's achievements and navigated three passionate marriages, learning to grow alongside a partner, recognize when to step away, and embrace her sexuality. Allende reflects on what nourishes the souls of feminists and all women today: safety, value, peace, resources, connection, bodily autonomy, and love. Despite progress, she acknowledges that much work remains. Through her words, she hopes to inspire future generations, urging them to continue the fight for equality and empowerment, just as previous generations have done for them. This book serves as a beacon for daughters and granddaughters, encouraging them to carry on the essential work still ahead.

From internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende comes an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from present-day San Francisco to Poland and the United States during WWII. In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis and the world goes to war, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There she meets Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family's Japanese gardener, and between them a tender love blossoms. Following Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart when Ichimei and his family - like thousands of Japanese Americans - are declared enemies by the US government and relocated to internment camps. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love they are forever forced to hide from the world. Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the older woman and her grandson, Seth, at Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, and learn about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

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.

This powerful novel weaves together the past and present, exploring the ripple effects of war and immigration on two children from different eras. In Vienna, 1938, six-year-old Samuel Adler loses everything when his father disappears during Kristallnacht. His mother secures a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train to the UK, where he boards alone with only a change of clothes and his violin. Fast forward to Arizona, 2019, where seven-year-old Anita Diaz, who is blind, and her mother flee danger in El Salvador, seeking refuge in the U.S. Their arrival coincides with a family separation policy, leaving Anita alone in a Nogales camp. She escapes into Azabahar, a magical world she created with her sister. Anita's case is assigned to social worker Selena Duran, who teams up with a promising lawyer from a top San Francisco firm. Together, they uncover a connection between Anita and another family member in the U.S.: Leticia Cordero, who works for eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler. Spanning time and place, this narrative serves as a testament to parental sacrifices and a love letter to children who endure unimaginable dangers while continuing to dream.