Of Love and Shadows
A Novel
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4.3 • 34 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
This profoundly moving tale of love, bravery, and tragedy by New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende brings to life a country ruled with an iron fist—and the men and women who dare to challenge it.
Irene Beltrán is a force to be reckoned with. As a magazine journalist, an unusual profession for a woman with her privileged upbringing, she is constantly challenging the oppressive regime. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. Together, they are an inseparable team and—despite Irene’s engagement to an army captain—form a passionate connection. When an assignment leads them to uncover an unspeakable crime, they are determined to reveal the truth in a nation overrun by terror and violence. Together, they will risk everything for justice—and, ultimately, to embrace the passion that binds them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Allende has forsaken the epic multi-generational sweep of her bestselling first novel, The House of the Spirits, for a more tightly focused yet equally satisfying tale of love and political commitment. Irene Beltran, the unconventional daughter of a wealthy family, and Francisco Leal, son of Spanish exiles, are reporter and photographer for a women's magazine in an unnamed Latin American dictatorship. They stumble onto a mass grave where the bodies of people tortured and murdered by the police have been dumped. As their love grows in the shadow of death, Irene and Francisco struggle to bring the men responsible to justice. They win a qualified victory when public outcry and international condemnation, sparked by photographs and tape recordings smuggled out of the country, force the authorities to allow a trial and conviction. But the lovers must flee the continent to avoid reprisals from an enraged government that has no intention of truly altering its policies. The novel ends with Irene and Francisco en route to Spain, where they will make a new life while waiting for democracy to return to their homeland. Allende is a smashing storyteller who brings the most minor characters vividly to life; her absorbing new novel should win her an even wider readership. BOMC alternate.
