Isabel Allende

'In some of the most beautiful passages in the novel, Allende explores the gentle but redemptive depths of mature love and the paths it can take . . . Allende has an unflashy wisdom to offer, a maturity that illuminates her storytelling . . . it pursues an age-old question: how to live a full life and find meaning, not just survive or endure one’s past’ Financial Times on In the Midst of Winter

From internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende comes an exquisitely crafted, multigenerational love story. In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis and the world goes to war, young Alma Belasco's parents send her overseas to live with an aunt and uncle in their opulent San Francisco mansion. There she meets Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family's Japanese gardener, and between them a tender love blossoms, but following Pearl Harbor the two are cruelly pulled apart. 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 reconcile 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.

THE POWERFUL AND MOVING NEW NOVEL FROM LITERARY LEGEND ISABEL ALLENDE‘A testament to love, survival and sacrifice’ HARPER’S BAZAAR No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too.Vienna, 1938. Five-year-old Samuel Adler boards the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria, escaping to England with just a change of clothes and his beloved violin. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother flee El Salvador for refuge in the United States, where the new family separation policy lands seven-year-old Anita alone at a camp in Nogales. Intertwining past and present, this is an unforgettable story of the search for family and home, the extraordinary sacrifices made by parents, and the courage of children to never stop dreaming. ‘Allende blends fact and fiction, love and war . . . As you read her escapist tale you develop a richer understanding of the world you inhabit’ BRITISH VOGUEPRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR‘A grand storyteller’ KHALED HOSSEINI‘A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat’ DAILY MAIL‘What a joy it must be to come upon Allende for the first time’ COLUM MCCANN‘A global literary great’ i

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. 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. Told in the form of a letter to someone Violeta loves above all others, this is the story of a hundred-year life - of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Bearing witness to a century of history, it is a life shaped by 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 humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.