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    Of Love and Shadows
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    Of Love and Shadows
    Unavailable
    Of Love and Shadows
    Ebook365 pages7 hours

    Of Love and Shadows

    By Isabel Allende

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    **The moving novel from the multi-million-bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and The Japanese Lover**

    Irene Beltrán is a force to be reckoned with. As a magazine journalist – an unusual profession for a woman with her privileged upbringing – she is constantly challenging the oppressive regime. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés.
     
    They are an inseparable team, and – despite Irene’s engagement to an army captain – form a passionate connection. When an assignment leads them to uncover an unspeakable crime, they are determined to reveal the truth in a national overrun by terror and violence. Together they will risk everything for justice – and ultimately to embrace the passion that binds them.
     
    Praise for Isabel Allende's Of Love and Shadows:
    ‘[Allende] can just as deftly depict loving tenderness as convey the high fire of eroticism. And when you’ve successfully mingled sex and politics with a noble cause, how can you go wrong? New York Times Book Review
     ‘Allende is a born storyteller’ Chicago Tribune
     ‘The people in Of Love and Shadows are real, their triumphs and defeats are so faithful to the truth of human existence, that we see the world in miniature. This is precisely what fiction should do’ Washington Post
     ‘We are by turns enchanted and entertained . . . Allende has married the world of magic and political evil most credibly’ LA Times Book Review
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateMay 3, 2018
    ISBN9781471173462
    Unavailable
    Of Love and Shadows
    Author

    Isabel Allende

    Isabel Allende is the author of twelve works of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Maya’s Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, Inés of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, and a novel that has become a world-renowned classic, The House of the Spirits. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

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    Reviews for Of Love and Shadows

    3.5/5

    608 ratings11 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I thought Isabel Allende's novel "Of Love and Shadows" was a good book, but not a great one. I ended up disappointed because my expectations were so high for this novel.The story itself is interesting. It focuses on Irene and Francisco, a journalist and a photographer, who fall in love, but that's besides the point really. It's about the impact of a corrupt military on several families and the couple's documentation of it. The plot itself was interesting enough, but the execution wasn't the greatest. Allende kind of glosses over some things to move onto the next part of the story. It seemed a bit too "surface" if that makes any sense. Overall, it was an okay book but it isn't the best example of Allende's work.
    • 4/5
      I have read many of Allende's novels and I have enjoyed them all. This one was no different. It was an intriguing story and kept me interested until the very end. I found it to be a powerful and moving story of love in the midst of violence and fear. It shows us what life under military dictatorship in Latin American was like. It is also a mixture between mystery and romance. I would recommend this book to those interested in contemporary Latin American literature.
    • 4/5
      A story set in some country in America (probably a Latin American country). We are never told the name of the country but it is under the dictatorship of the military. It is political, love story and a family story. Irene is from upper class and is educated as a journalist. Francisco has lost his job as a psychologist because of his families Marxist leanings. He goes to work for Irene. Irene is slowly exposed to the reality of the military rule and as she learns the horrors, she loses he innocent joy of life that is so much of her beauty. This is a beautifully written and easy to read book.
    • 2/5
      I didn't find this book at all appealing, despite the passionate love story underlying it all.
    • 4/5
      An interesting story about discovery courage and bravery. Historical and political fiction that seems removed from the magical realism for which Allende is known. Two friends uncover a crime committed by the military and struggle to expose the truth without putting each other in danger. A story where everything that is a lie is truth and everything that is truth is a lie. What do you do, who are you and who do you become when you discover that the world is not as you believed it to be?
    • 4/5
      This was my introduction to Isabel Allende ... a great novel about the disappeared persons(los desaparecidos) of a Latin American dictatorship. I love Allende's writing style ... it was hard to put this one down.
    • 4/5
      A moving and enjoyable story. The story-line is relatively simple compared to some of Allende's other books, but nonetheless shines a light on the human condition.
    • 4/5
      A book of the Revolution in a Latin American country that went unnamed in the book, this deals with the brutal side of government takeovers & crimes against the people. Irene is a journalist for a women's magazine, Francisco her photographer. Irene comes from a formerly well to do family, but her father became one of "the disappeared ones", & in order to make ends meet, turned the entire bottom floor of the hacienda into a home for the elderly. They are a cast of characters all their own. Irene is engaged to Gustavo, a Captain in the armed forces there, but falls in love with Francisco. There are so many tales of characters that become interwoven in this story, including the 2 Evangelinas, switched at birth, given to different mothers who knew each other, but were not permitted to switch their daughters back, so they both gave them the same names, & the families each treated the girls like sisters, & the girls always knew about the switch. Very strange substory there.All in all, this story doesn't disappoint. The richness of the story, the way in which Allende writes about the people of this land, the families, the hardships, the brutality of the dictator's regime, the shocking violence of the takeover, & the propaganda that is spun while unspeakable things happen can be a lesson for all of today.
    • 5/5
      Imagine the horror of having your teenage daughter being roughly taken from your home by police and never seeing her again. That is just what Isabel Allende has imagined and written about in this book. Set in a South American country that is never called Chile this tale of desapercidos is fiction but must be based upon fact as the world now knows.Irene Beltran was a journalist with a women's magazine engaged to a military man. She came from an upper class family and had unthinkingly gone about her business unperturbed by the military takeover of the government. Into her life comes Francisco Leal, an out of work psychologist who has decided to earn a living as a photographer. Working together Irene and Francisco visit the Ranquileo home in the country where the daughter, Evangelina, is reputed to work miracles during fits that occur once a day at noon. While there they witness a visit by the local police during which the police commander is humiliated when slight, young Evangelina picks him up bodily and throws him out of the house. When Irene and Francisco pay a return visit to the Ranquileos they learn that Evangelina was arrested by the police and has not returned home. The police commander says that Evangelina was released the morning after her arrest but no trace can be found of her. As Irene and Francisco continue to investigate they fall in love and when their search leads them to an abandoned mine the horror they find there is somewhat assuaged by making love for the first time. Their crusade to bring notice to the bodies hidden in the mine makes them dangerous to the military junta that governs the country. Escape to a democracy is their only chance to remain alive.Even though Allende doesn't name Chile it is obvious that is the locale. Published in 1987 when the military government of Augusto Pinochet was still in power this book must have been dangerous for Allende. Of course, she was already on the government's list of wanted individuals and was living in exile but that would not have protected her if the Chilean government wanted to silence her. The horrific nature of the story is counterbalanced by lovely descriptions of the country and the love affair between Irene and Francisco. In fact, the description of the love scene between the two just after they discover the bodies in the mine is one of the best I have ever read. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      A very touching story set amidst the struggles of the people against the Chilean military junta.
    • 2/5
      Imagine that you have been invited to a dinner party in a different country. You are not acquainted with any of the guests, but, upon arriving, you find them to be a most diverse and lively group, encompassing rich and poor, young and old, lovable and detestable. You seat yourself at the table among them and for hours they make conversation with you, allowing you intimate glimpses into their innermost secrets, fears and desires. Eventually, once night has long since fallen and you have begun to yawn and glance at your watch, your hostess finally remembers her obligation to provide some sort of food, and rustles up a brief, unremarkable meal before bidding you all goodnight. Imagine all of this, and you will have some idea what it is like to read Isabel Allende's Of Love and Shadows, which is all very well and good – if you like that sort of thing.The book begins well enough, introducing a rich cast of characters and painting a lifelike picture of a South American dictatorship. The promising orientation is carried out with care and perceptiveness, delving deep into the lives of the characters and fleshing out their personalities convincingly. This, however, is about far as Allende goes towards writing a novel. It soon becomes clear that Of Love and Shadows is firmly stuck in orientation mode, and intent on staying there for nearly two hundred pages. In the absence of a plot, the novel languishes and meanders aimlessly through page after page of text, in thick, merciless slabs which are sure to try the patience of even the most resolute readers.By the time the plot finally kicked in, it was too late. I had been switched off so completely that nothing Allende wrote could switch me back on again. I cannot fault the quality of the writing, (apart from the occasional paragraph of florid melodrama,) but reading it was still like wading through treacle, counting down the pages until I could move on and read something else!If you can derive enjoyment from endless anecdotes and character descriptions, then congratulations; you are much more patient than I. If, on the other hand, you prefer books with storylines, then take my advice: steer well clear of Of Love and Shadows.