For the past 40 years the Chilean-American novelist Isabel Allende has drawn readers into her richly imagined narratives, often inspired by her own history or that of South America . . . With her customary vibrant and compelling prose, Allende's Violeta is a moving exploration of both the pain and the freedom of being an outsider ? New StatesmanVioleta is full of life, a great sweeping story like a river in spate. It makes for enjoyable and undemanding reading . . . I can't imagine readers turning it aside because they are bored ? ScotsmanThere's extreme drama at nearly every turn, with the continent itself lurching murderously between communism and fascism in the background . This breakneck novel is loosely about the extent to which a life is at the mercy of history ? Daily Mail[Allende] is terrific on old age, and shows how adventure doesn't have to stop once you start stooping ? i paper[Allende's] breakneck recital of events . . . has pace and verve, captured in Frances Riddle's enjoyably fast-flowing translation ? Financial TimesThis epic, beautifully crafted novel spans the entire twentieth century and tells the story of Violeta . . . Gripping from start to finish, it will also make you yearn to visit Chile ? Sunday TelegraphA new Isabel Allende for a new year is most welcome and here Violeta, who is 100 years old, tells her extraordinary story ? Irish IndependentCovering two pandemics, passionate affairs, and poverty, Violeta is a must for historical fiction lovers ? Country & TownhouseA cast of magical characters is thrown together by circumstance and desire, their fates shaped by political upheavals . . . Storytelling at its best ? Woman & Home One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story. 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, 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 all 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. In a letter to someone she loves above all others, Violeta recounts devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy, and a life 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 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. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of a number of bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including A Long Petal of the Sea, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, The Stories of Eva Luna and Paula. Her books have been translated into more than forty-two languages and have sold more than seventy-five million copies worldwide. She lives in California.