Daughter of Fortune: Summary and book reviews of Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, plus links to an excerpt from Daughter of Fortune and a biography of Isabel Allende.

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. 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 Joaquín 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. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden

Media Reviews

The Boston Globe An intricate novel by a fine storyteller....Once the reader submits to her wizardry, a florid, detailed universe of hopes and lust, of class struggle and quarreling individual identities, unfolds.   Publishers Weekly A gallery of secondary characters, developed early on, prove pivotal to the plot. In a book of this scope, the narrative is inevitably top-heavy in spots, and the plot wears thin toward the end, but this is storytelling at its most seductive, a brash historical adventure.   Kirkus Reviews Allende's first novel in six years delivers her gentle, often plush style at extravagant length to tell the life of Eliza Sommers, a Chilean woman who immigrates to San Francisco in the 1840s....Allende has clearly enjoyed providing rich elaborations that don't particularly advance the story here but affirm her theme of personal discovery. Each of her characters finds "something different from what we were looking for." With this novel, the same may not be said of readers who enjoy Allende's fiction.   The Washington Post Like a slow, seductive lover, Allende teases, tempts and titillates with mesmerizing stories.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Allende fan
Daughter of Fortune Review
What could have been a brilliant work of fiction, what with its thorough research and exquisite writing, becomes instead a trashy novel, filled with immoral sexual activity and explicit pornographic details. Also a turnoff is the implied negativity...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Barbara
Daughter of Fortune
I really enjoyed Isabel Allende's "Daughter of Fortune." The plot is easily predictable, with Allende giving plenty of clues as to how the story will develop, even after the last page. But the intrigue wasn't in the story line, as much as it was...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Amanda
A good, easy read but still the same old romance novel. I was left disappointed with the ending, I wished it would have been more definitive. I have a hard time seeing the two characters together. I would compare it to Danielle Steel novels. They...   Read More

Rated of 5 by miburo
Well, I didn't like this book as much as my other novel, memoirs of a geisha. However, the details of the character's background, especially Tao Chi'en's, is really well prepared. A good read, even though the ending could be improved.

Rated of 5 by Margaret
This was a pretty good book. I usually just read a book to read it, but I couldn't do that for this one. I actually had to READ it. And it did go slowly in the begining, but I still felt compelled to finish, even if it was for school. It wasn't...   Read More

Rated of 5 by stephanie 1
I STRONGLY dislike this book. I am an avid reader but the strong sexual commentation in the book turns me away. I am seriously questioning wether or not I can finish the book, but I have to for english. If you do not like reading don't read this...   Read More

...14 More Reader Reviews

Readalikes

If you liked Daughter of Fortune, try these:

---

---

These are 2 of the 4 readalike suggestions for Daughter of Fortune. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.

Books with similar themes

• Historical Fiction
  
• USA 
  
• West 
  
• California 
  
• 19th Century 
  
• Immigrants & Expatriates 
  
• Strong Female Leads