Gripping, moving and convincing, by a master storyteller, about a long life, well lived

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

Violeta 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

There’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

[Allende] is terrific on old age, and shows how adventure doesn’t have to stop once you start stooping

[Allende’s] breakneck recital of events . . . has pace and verve, captured in Frances Riddle’s enjoyably fast-flowing translation

This 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

A new Isabel Allende for a new year is most welcome and here Violeta, who is 100 years old, tells her extraordinary story

Covering two pandemics, passionate affairs, and poverty, Violeta is a must for historical fiction lovers

A cast of magical characters is thrown together by circumstance and desire, their fates shaped by political upheavals . . . Storytelling at its best