Violeta - Isabel Allende

Genre: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Magical Realism

Release Date: Expected 25th January 2022

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Violeta arrived on this world on a dark and stormy day in 1920, a hundred years ago. The first daughter amongst five sons, her birth is the first of many extraordinary moments in her life.

The Great War has left a mark on the world, the Spanish Flu is ravaging its way through her homeland and the Great Depression is looming in the not-so-distant future, waiting to threaten the life she has always known. And this is just the start for Violeta as she grows into a beautiful young woman in an ever-changing world.

Now, after an entire century of life, Violeta pauses to write a letter to her precious Grandson, one she has loved more than most, reliving a journey of love and loss, and of major turning points in modern history through her own eyes.

There's a reason that Allende is the undisputed Queen of magical realism - she invokes a sense of beauty and wonder, finding light even in the darkest of nights. And we definitely go through darkness throughout this epic novel - wars, pandemics, poverty and loss are just some of the trials Violeta lives through, along with the harsh truths about being a woman and a Mother even a hundred years ago and the dangers it held simply to exist.

Told through a poignant and touchingly honest letter, Violeta not only manages to convey striking emotion but stunningly mesmerising settings and gentle, almost poem-like prose that flows seamlessly into one another like a dream.

Allende knows there is love at the heart of every story - and never fails to bring it to the surface and reveal it with tenderness and joy.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.

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