Bhawana Somaaya

This week’s post is dedicated to two books. The first I enjoyed reading and the second for I can never say no to a debut author.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende is the tale of a young Chilean woman’s search for love during California’s Gold Rush days. Like other stories set in a time and place peopled by the likes of Mark Twain, the adventures of Eliza Sommers sometimes veer toward the tall tale. The writer makes us believe that even the most outlandish coincidences and crossing of paths might really be possible. The story is told by a narrator who knows how things are going to turn out and tantalizingly hints at events to come.

Following the pattern of the women in her family who “were always deranged by their first love,” Eliza, at 16, is pregnant by a secret lover who has gone to California to strike it rich. Fearful of the fate that awaits her if she reveals her conditions to Rose and Jeremy, she stows away on a ship for San Francisco, vowing to find her beloved. True to its billing as a historical novel the book provides readers not only with romance but also a good many facts about a place where “gold had attracted a quarter of a million immigrants in four years’ time.

There are plenty of surprises. In addition to the question of what has become of Eliza’s lover, there’s the puzzle of Eliza’s parentage and the mystery of Rose’s shadowy past and her source of money. After finishing the book, readers might like to believe in spirits.
Many of Allende’s books are noted for their feminine perspective, dramatic qualities of romance and struggles, and the magic realism genre often found in Latin American literature. Her female characters survive hardships—imprisonments, starvation, the loss of loved ones—but never lose their spirit or ability to love others.

In 1998, at the age of 45, she met her current husband, American lawyer William Gordon, in Northern California. Despite the happiness of a love-filled marriage, Allende again faced tragedy in 1992 when her daughter, Paula, died from complications from a rare genetic condition called porphyry. Her heartache inspired her to entwine her daughter’s story with her own in a work of non-fiction, Paula, published in 1994. In 1996 she started the Isabel Allende Foundation in her daughter’s memory, to encourage women’s empowerment on a local and global scale.

Allende has gone on to publish a total of 15 books, including Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, and her most recent, Zorro (2005). Her works have been translated into 27 languages and adapted into films, operas, and ballets.

Varsha Dixit author of Right Fit Wrong Shoe wrote me a mail and introduced her book. She calls herself a feel good junkie. Varsha started out to write a thriller but realised that she could not kill even on paper and therefore wrote what she is best at, romance. Currently living in USA with her husband and daughter it is strange that she chooses to tell a love story set in Kanpur on the lines of the ‘Mills and Boon’ romance.

Nandini and Aditya are attracted to each other but don’t know it as yet. Their parents are best friends and neighbours. Aditya comes back after finishing his studies to help his father in the family business and hates Nandini on first sight. Slowly the relationship changes and Aditya discovers his attraction for Nandini when he is away on a business expedition.

Like all love stories complications follow confessions and the lovers go separate ways. Narrated in flashback the book begins where all love stories end. If you are a die hard romantic and if you love happy endings the book is for you. It is a refreshing take on love and relationships but predictable and mushy. Perhaps this is just a rehearsal for the author and it will be her second book to watch out for. Dixit dedicates the book to the spunkiest person she has known, her mother.

Bhawana Somaaya
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