Book Description
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the
British colony of Valparaso, 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 Joaqun 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. Joaqun 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 new novel, Daughter
of Fortune, her most ambitious work of fiction yet. 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 Chien--California opens the door to a new
life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her
search for the elusive Joaqun 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 own destiny in a new
country. 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.
