The story definitely takes its time, and, the first few chapters are less focused on Eliza than a tertiary character, a certain Jacob Todd who travels to Chile after making a bet. When her beloved is struck by gold fever and leaves for California, a bereft Eliza will risk her own life to be reunited with him. Eliza, however, goes on to fall head-over-heels in love with a Chilean man of ‘dubious’ character.

Rose lives with her strict older brother and tries to raise Eliza as a ‘proper’ Victorian lady. Eliza Sommers, a Chilean girl and the novel’s central character, is adopted by Rose Sommers, an unmarried Briton.

The novel begins in Chile during the 1840s. Still, her storytelling, for the most part, kept me engaged in the characters and their stories. There are very few, if any, dialogues, which did occasionally distance me from the events Allende narrated. Yes, some of these characters were, for the most part, ‘harmless’ stereotypes, but nonetheless, they did induce an eye-roll or two on my part (for instance, every indigenous woman from Chile is cuvacious and passionate).Īs with many other novels by Allende Daughter of Fortune is very heavy on the telling.

The way Allende portrays other cultures and groups relies on clichés. Don’t get me wrong, I love Isabel Allende’s work and she is one of my favourite authors, however, at the risk of coming across as an oversensitive zillennial, her mystification of China struck me as rather old-fashioned. For a work that was first published in 1998 Daughter of Fortune strikes me as something more suited to the 1970s.

Daughter of fortune by isabel allende