Search - Portrait in Sepia (Daughter of Fortune, Bk 2)

A wonderful book, intelligently written, about the lives and secrets of a nineteenth century family. It takes you from San Francisco's Chinatown, to the turmoli of political unrest and civil war in Chile.

A great book. Took me longer to read than other books because the descriptive intricate writing I did not want to miss, but a moving story about a woman finding her origins in the late 1880's all the way up to the early 1900's. Also has some good historical fiction/nonfiction about Chilé and Chinatown in the late 1880's. Not a book I would normally read, but read after good reviews here and would recommend again!

This historical novel by acclaimed author Isabel Allende is a continuation of the late 19th century tale begun in 'Daughter of Fortune." A novel of memory and family secrets; a young woman raised in privilege by an ambitious grandmother, but bedeviled by nightmares from her earliest childhood, of which she has no memory.

I realized about halfway through this book that I'd read it before. I thought it was a third book in a series when really it was the second. I thought the beginning seemed so familiar because maybe it was overlapping some of the same story from the second book. Finally I got to a point where it was just too familiar. While I basically enjoyed the read, it wasn't great enough to stick in my memory the first time, warranting only 3 stars.

Great for latina studies.