Best Selling Books by Isabel Allende

This “spectacular… absorbing and distinguished work…is a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present, and future of Latin America” (The New York Times Book Review). The House of the Spirits, which introduced Isabel Allende as one of the world’s most gifted storytellers, brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter Blanca embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban: his adored granddaughter Alba, a beautiful and strong-willed child who will lead her family and her country into a revolutionary future. One of the most important novels of the twentieth century, The House of the Spirits is an enthralling epic that spans decades and lives, weaving the personal and the political into a universal story of love, magic, and fate.

"Durante doce meses interminables, Isabel Allende vio como se escapaba la vida de su hija, Paula, atacada por una rara enfermedad genetica. En este texto, escrito a modo de carta, la autora chilena evoca para su hija la historia de su familia y de su propia vida, relata sus recuerdos mas intimos, recrea las figuras de sus padres y abuelos, la casa de su infancia, su juventud, sus primeros amores,..."

When her lover asks her to tell him a story, Eva Luna complies with this collection of tales.

A woman reporter in a Latin American country and a photographer are sent on a routine assignment. The two uncover a hideous crime, the revelation of which could challenge the terrorism of the military regime.

In her first novel in a thrilling adventure trilogy, the internationally acclaimed author brings her unique style of magical realism to a tale of adventure and peril set in the depths of the Amazon jungle.

The New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and A Long Petal of the Sea tells the story of one unforgettable woman—a slave and concubine determined to take control of her own destiny—in this sweeping historical novel that moves from the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century “Allende is a master storyteller at the peak of her powers.”—Los Angeles Times The daughter of an African mother she never knew and a white sailor, Zarité—known as Tété—was born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue. Growing up amid brutality and fear, Tété found solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and the mysteries of voodoo. Her life changes when twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770 to run his father’s plantation, Saint Lazare. Overwhelmed by the challenges of his responsibilities and trapped in a painful marriage, Valmorain turns to his teenaged slave Tété, who becomes his most important confidant. The indelible bond they share will connect them across four tumultuous decades and ultimately define their lives.

In this heartfelt memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss—the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende bares her soul in a book that is as exuberant and full of life as its creator. She recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family. Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory. Here, too, are the amazing stories behind Allende’s books, the superstitions that guide her writing process, and her adventurous travels. Ultimately, The Sum of Our Days offers a unique tour of this gifted writer’s inner world and of the relationships that have become essential to her life and her work. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, The Sum of Our Days is a portrait of a contemporary family, bound together by the love, fierce loyalty, and stubborn determination of a beloved, indomitable matriarch.

Summer Reissues with P.S. The engrossing story of one man’s quest for love and for his soul from bestselling author Isabel Allende, now available with P.S. Isabel Allende’s first novel to be set in the United States and to portray American characters, The Infinite Plan is a vivid tale of one man’s search for love, and his struggle to come to terms with a childhood of poverty and neglect. As he journeys from the Hispanic barrio in Los Angeles to the killing fields of Vietnam to the frenetic life of a lawyer in San Francisco, Gregory Reeves loses himself in an illusory and wrongheaded quest. Only when he circles back to his roots does he find the love and acceptance he has been searching for.

A passionate tale of love, freedom, and conquest from the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende. Born into a poor family in Spain, Inés Suárez, finds herself condemned to a life of poverty without opportunity as a lowly seamstress. But it''s the sixteenth century, the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Struck by the same restless hope and opportunism, Inés uses her shiftless husband''s disappearance to Peru as an excuse to embark on her own adventure. After learning of her husband''s death in battle, she meets the fiery war hero, Pedro de Valdivia and begins a love that not only changes her life but the course of history. Based on the real historical events that founded Chile, Allende takes us on a whirlwind adventure of love and loss seen through the eyes of a daring, complicated woman who fought for freedom.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This sweeping novel from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. “An immersive saga about a passion-filled life.”—People ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Real Simple, Reader’s Digest Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

In the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn, 60-year-old human rights scholar Richard Bowmaster hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes a far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor''s house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz, a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile, for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia.

Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country; a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit; and the politics, religion, myth, and magic of her homeland that she carries with her even today. The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle Salvador Allende Gossens on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a literary writer. And the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on her adopted homeland, the United States, brought forth an overdue acknowledgment that Allende had indeed left home. My Invented Country, mimicking the workings of memory itself, ranges back and forth across that distance between past and present lives. It speaks compellingly to immigrants and to all of us who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions.

En La suma de los días, Isabel Allende narra con franqueza la historia de su vida y la de su peculiar familia en California, en una casa abierta, llena de gente y de personajes literarios, y protegida por un espíritu; hijas perdidas, nietos y libros que nacen, éxitos y dolores, un viaje al mundo de las adicciones y otros a lugares remotos del mundo en busca de inspiración, junto a divorcios, encuentros, amores, separaciones, crisis de pareja y reconciliaciones. También es una historia de amor entre un hombre y una mujer maduros, que han salvado muchos escollos sin perder ni la pasión ni el humor, y de una familia moderna, desgarrada por conflictos y unida, a pesar de todo, por el cariño y la decisión de salir adelante. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor and wisdom, The Sum of Our Days is a portrait of a contemporary family, tied together by the love, strong will, and stubborn determination of a beloved matriarch, the indomitable New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende. "An inspiring and thought-provoking work." –Denver Post Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory—and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.

Inâes Suâarez es una joven y humilde costurera extremeäna que se embarca hacia el Nuevo Mundo para buscar a su marido, extraviado con sus sueänos de gloria al otro lado del Atlâantico. Anhela tambiâen vivir una vida de aventuras, vetada a las mujeres en la pacata sociedad del siglo XVI. En Amâerica, Inâes no encuentra a su marido, pero sâi un amor apasionado: Pedro de Valdivia, maestre de campo de Franciso Pizarro, junto a quien Inâes se enfrenta a los riesgos y las incertidumbres de la conquista y la fundaciâon del reino de Chile.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The House of the Spirits, this epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home. “One of the most richly imagined portrayals of the Spanish Civil War to date, and one of the strongest and most affecting works in [Isabel Allende’s] long career.”—The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Parade In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires. Together with two thousand other refugees, Roser and Victor embark on the SS Winnipeg, a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda, to Chile: “the long petal of sea and wine and snow.” As unlikely partners, the couple embraces exile as the rest of Europe erupts in world war. Starting over on a new continent, they face trial after trial, but they will also find joy as they patiently await the day when they might go home. Through it all, their hope of returning to Spain keeps them going. Destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world, Roser and Victor will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along. A masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile, and belonging, A Long Petal of the Sea shows Isabel Allende at the height of her powers. Praise for A Long Petal of the Sea “Both an intimate look at the relationship between one man and one woman and an epic story of love, war, family, and the search for home, this gorgeous novel, like all the best novels, transports the reader to another time and place, and also sheds light on the way we live now.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Saints for All Occasions “This is a novel not just for those of us who have been Allende fans for decades, but also for those who are brand-new to her work: What a joy it must be to come upon Allende for the first time. She knows that all stories are love stories, and the greatest love stories are told by time.”—Colum McCann, National Book Award–winning author of Let the Great World Spin

Alexander Cold knows all too well his grandmother Kate is never far from an adventure. When International Geographic commissions her to write an article about the first elephant-led safaris in Africa, they head -- with Nadia Santos and the magazine''s photography crew -- to the blazing, red plains of Kenya. Days into the tour, a Catholic missionary approaches their camp in search of his companions who have mysteriously disappeared. Kate, Alexander, Nadia, and their team, agreeing to aid the rescue, enlist the help of a local pilot to lead them to the swampy forests of Ngoubé. There they discover a clan of Pygmies who unveil a harsh and surprising world of corruption, slavery, and poaching. Alexander and Nadia, entrusting the magical strengths of Jaguar and Eagle, their totemic animal spirits, launch a spectacular and precarious struggle to restore freedom and return leadership to its rightful hands. The final installment of Isabel Allende''s celebrated trilogy of the journeys of Jaguar and Eagle soars with radiant settings, spirits, beings -- and the transformation of an extraordinary friendship.

A sequel to Daughter of Fortune, New York Times bestselling author, Isabel Allende, continues her magic with this spellbinding family saga set against war and economic hardship. Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that erases from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal and commanding Paulina del Valle, she grows up in a privileged environment, free of the limitations that circumscribe the lives of women at that time, but tormented by horrible nightmares. When she is forced to recognize her betrayal at the hands of the man she loves, and to cope with the resulting solitude, she decides to explore the mystery of her past. Portrait in Sepia is an extraordinary achievement: richly detailed, epic in scope, intimate in its probing of human character, and thrilling in the way it illuminates the complexity of family ties.

sta es la historia de Gregory Reeves, un hombre que sobrevive en el dif cil mundo de los hispanos de California. Gregory quiere llevar a la pr ctica el peculiar "plan infinito" que se traz a s mismo en su infancia. Sin embargo, para conseguirlo debe recorrer un duro camino lleno de obst culos: la marginaci n social, el racismo, el brutal contraste entre pobreza y riqueza o la guerra de Vietnam.

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, 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, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family''s Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family -- like thousands of other Japanese Americans -- are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that 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 elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco''s charmingly eccentric 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, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “The lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration” (People), from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea and Violeta “Timely, provocative . . . emotionally satisfying . . . [a story about] the kindness of strangers who become family.”—The New York Times Book Review AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht—the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother. Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.

Para ser una esclava en el Saint-Domingue de finales del siglo XVIII, Zarit hab a tenido buena estrella: a los nueve a os fue vendida a Toulouse Valmorain, un rico terrateniente, pero no conoci ni el agotamiento de las plantaciones de ca a ni la asfixia y el sufrimiento de los trapiches, porque siempre fue una esclava dom stica. Su bondad natural, fortaleza de esp ritu y honradez le permitieron compartir los secretos y la espiritualidad que ayudaban a sobrevivir a los suyos, los esclavos, y conocer las miserias de los amos, los blancos. Zarit se convirti en el centro de un microcosmos que era un reflejo del mundo de la colonia: el amo Valmorain, su fr gil esposa espa ola y su sensible hijo Maurice, el sabio Parmentier, el militar Relais y la cortesana mulata Violette, Tante Rose, la curandera, Gambo, el apuesto esclavo rebelde... y otros personajes de una cruel conflagraci n que acabar a arrasando su tierra y lanz ndolos lejos de ella. Al ser llevada por su amo a Nueva Orleans, Zarit inici una nueva etapa en la que alcanzar a su mayor aspiraci n: la libertad. M s all del dolor y del amor, de la sumisi n y la independencia, de sus deseos y los que le hab an impuesto a lo largo de su vida, Zarit pod a contemplarla con serenidad y concluir que hab a tenido buena estrella.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits, Isabelle Allende, comes a passionate tale of one young woman''s quest to save her lover set against the chaos of the 1849 California Gold Rush. 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. As Eliza embarks on her perilous journey north in the hold of a ship and arrives in the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco, she must navigate a society dominated by greedy men. But Eliza soon catches on with the help of her natural spirit and a good friend, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi’en. What began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom. A marvel of storytelling, Daughter of Fortune confirms once again Isabel Allende''s extraordinary gift for fiction and her place as one of the world''s leading writers.

Under the aegis of the Goddess of Love, Isabel Allende uses her storytelling skills brilliantly in Aphrodite to evoke the delights of food and sex. After considerable research and study, she has become an authority on aphrodisiacs, which include everything from food and drink to stories and, of course, love. Readers will find here recipes from Allende''s mother, poems, stories from ancient and foreign literatures, paintings, personal anecdotes, fascinating tidbits on the sensual art of food and its effects on amorous performance, tips on how to attract your mate and revive flagging virility, passages on the effect of smell on libido, a history of alcoholic beverages, and much more. An ode to sensuality that is an irresistible blend of memory, imagination and the senses, Aphrodite is familiar territory for readers who know her fiction.

A child of two worlds -- the son of an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner and a Shoshone warrior woman -- young Diego de la Vega cannot silently bear the brutal injustices visited upon the helpless in late-eighteenth-century California. And so a great hero is born -- skilled in athleticism and dazzling swordplay, his persona formed between the Old World and the New -- the legend known as Zorro.

For use in schools and libraries only. When fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold accompanies his grandmother on an expedition to find a humanoid Beast in the Amazon, he experiences ancient wonders and a supernatural world as he tries to avert disaster for the Indians.

Desarrollada en un pafs latinamericano sin nombre que vive bajo el dominio de una dictadura militar, la segunda, hipnotizante, novela de Allende cuenta la historia de una mujer y un hombre que estßn destinados, bajo las circunstancias mßs espeluzantes, a compartir un amor excepcional. Irene Beltrßn es fruto de la clase alta, una bien intencionada, aunque algo ingenua, reportera en una revista para mujeres. Francisco Leal, hijo de exiliados espa±oles, es un fot=grafo partidario de la resistencia clandestina. Durante el curso de un trabajo rutinario, esta pareja descubre, literalmente, un crimen que resulta en desaffo---y provocaci=n---al terrorismo oficial del gobierno, y que tambiTn pone en grave peligro sus vidas.

Isabel Allende—the New York Times bestselling author whose books, including Maya’s Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, and Zorro, have sold more than 57 million copies around the world—demonstrates her remarkable literary versatility with Ripper, an atmospheric, fast-paced mystery involving a brilliant teenage sleuth who must unmask a serial killer in San Francisco. The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Yet, while their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day. Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian. Long divorced from Amanda’s father, she’s reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her—Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco’s elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL. While her mom looks for the good in people, Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature, like her father, the SFPD’s Deputy Chief of Homicide. Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world. When a string of strange murders occurs across the city, Amanda plunges into her own investigation, discovering, before the police do, that the deaths may be connected. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes. Could her mother’s disappearance be linked to the serial killer? Now, with her mother’s life on the line, the young detective must solve the most complex mystery she’s ever faced before it’s too late.

A startling novel of suspense and resilience from New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende. Neglected by her parents, nineteen-year-old Maya Vidal grew up in a rambling old house in Berkeley with her grandparents. Her grandmother, Nidia, affectionately known as Nini, is a force of nature—a woman whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after she emigrated from Chile in 1973. Popo, Maya''s grandfather, is an African American astronomer and professor—a gentle man whose solid, comforting presence helps calm the turbulence of Maya''s adolescence. When Popo dies of cancer, Maya loses the only grounding force in her life. She turns to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime, eventually bottoming out in Las Vegas. Lost in a dangerous underworld, she is caught in the crosshairs of warring forces—a gang of assassins, the police, the FBI, and Interpol. Her one chance for survival is Nini, who helps her escape to a remote island off the coast of Chile. Here, Maya tries to make sense of the past, unravels mysterious truths about life and her family, and embarks on her greatest adventure: a journey of self-discovery and forgiveness.