Description

Internationally celebrated novelist Isabel Allende has created an impressive historical novel set at the conclusion of the nineteenth-century in Chile -- a wonderful family saga that occupies and continues the story begun in her highly-acclaimed Child of Fortune.Recounted in the speech of the young girl looking for her roots, Portrait in Sepia is just a novel about memory and family secrets. Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that shapes her character and removes from her mind all recollection of the very first five years of her existence. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal and commanding Paulina del Valle, Aurora matures in a privileged environment, free from the limitations that circumscribe the lives of women at that time, but tormented by terrible nightmares. When she's forced to identify her betrayal at the hands of the person she loves, and to handle the resulting solitude, she decides to investigate the mystery of her past.Portrait in Sepia is definitely an amazing accomplishment: highly detailed, epic in scope, intimate in its probing of human character, and thrilling in the manner it illuminates the complexity of family ties.