Allende offers readers a deeply researched historical adventure, excavating both romantic and journalistic exploits with verve and passion. But it is the story’s prescient alignment with our current cultural and civic upheaval that lands like a mortar from Allende’s epic depiction of the Battle of Concón ... Essential ... If history and a free press illuminate a revolution’s explosion of civil norms, literature reveals the human triumph, vanity and tragedy of revolution’s impact.
It’s a story likely to be appreciated by the legions of Allende fans who have ensured she’s considered the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author ... Reading the book, you can almost see young Emilia on the steamboat headed south to Chile, the land at the foot of the volcanos that holds her roots, and her destiny.
Emilia's story is exciting, empowering, and inherently feminist ... As she has in previous acclaimed novels, Allende...applies riveting storytelling to an exploration of history through the lens of a fictional heroine. Allende's language, and Frances Riddle's translation, is evocative in its descriptions of Chile's lovely landscapes, a young woman's complicated love for her family, and the horrors of the battlefield ... This enthralling novel leaves Emilia, still young, in a position of some uncertainty: readers may hope for more from this plucky protagonist in a possible sequel.
Emilia’s first meeting with her long-lost father in Santiago is quite moving, and her time with the canteen girls who accompany President Balmaceda’s army echoes with their unsung courage. Allende expertly navigates through the violent chaos of battle and how it affects Emilia, whose romantic relationships also showcase her character growth. Fans of Allende’s...will particularly welcome this offering, which is replete with Allende’s customary poetic storytelling.
Chilean revolutionary politics make for less sprightly reading, but Emilia’s individual encounters with members of high and low society lend atmosphere ... An action-packed, brightly detailed historical novel not much hampered by its thinly characterized central figure.
