Welcome to our latest Books in Bed read! We are very excited about the imminent publication of Isabel Allende’s new novel, Violeta and to be able to offer you an chance to read the first chapter, ahead of wider publication.
Isabel Allende is one of the most widely-read authors in the world and you might know her work from her widely acclaimed 1982 first novel The House of Spirits.
Her new novel is the epic story of Violeta del Valle, an extraordinary woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
Violeta recounts devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy and a life shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. This is an inspiring and deeply emotional epic tale and a story that everyone is sure to be talking about.
Isabel Allende has received fifteen honorary doctorates, including one from Harvard University. In 2014, Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour. She lives in California.
Violeta is published on the 25th January 2022 by Bloomsbury Publishing.
