isabel allende daughter of fortune review

In Tao Chi'en she finds her soul mate, though neither of them recognizes that it is so. To avoid being pursued, Eliza bribes a Chinese physician who has been shanghaied as a crewman on a schooner to hide her on board. The captain of a merchant schooner inflames all of Valparaiso when he reports in a choking voice, 'There's gold everywhere, you can shovel it up, they say there are nuggets the size of oranges.' Love drives the 16-year-old Eliza to stow away on a ship bound for California to follow her impoverished working-class lover, who has gone to seek his fortune in the gold fields. Household, where Miss Rose, who has a past no one speaks of, fends off would-be suitors to spend her hours writing things that no one is permitted to read.

But the Indian maid, Mama Fresia, declares flatly that she was left bundled in a man's sweater, in an old soap crate.Įliza's origin is one of many secrets in the upper-class Miss Rose tells Eliza she appeared in a basket, in a nightgown worked with French knots, and sheets edged with Brussels lace, topped with a mink coverlet, and six gold coins tied up in a silk handkerchief. The story is that of Eliza Sommers, a foundling taken in by a Victorian English spinster, Miss Rose, and her too-starchy brother Jeremy, in Valparaiso. Allende renders each of the settings in technicolor. It ranges from rural China to Valparaiso, Chile, but its ultimate setting is California in 1849, when the regions around San Francisco and Sacramento became a festering broth of rascals in pursuit of gold and revolutionaries determined to reclaim the territory for Mexico. 'Daughter of Fortune' is a 19th-century tale. Isabel Allende's new tale of orphans and bastards is as rich in intrigue, quirky characters and gritty details as 'Oliver Twist.' Allende throws steamy sex into the bargain, and stirs up the most mesmerizing novel of her career. 'Daughter of Fortune' by Isabel Allende HarperCollins, $26 -Įat your heart out, Charles Dickens. 8 at Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., Seattle. Isabel Allende will read from 'Daughter of Fortune' at 7:30 p.m.

Isabel allende daughter of fortune review