Toby Jian Jian itibaren Pandopur, Pakistan itibaren Pandopur, Pakistan

I'm a big fan of epics, so my first Isabel Allende read, Daughter of Fortune, was a natural choice. My mom read the paperback, sent it to my Grammy, and when I was visiting Minnesota in November, my Grammy gave it to me. Fitting. The scene is the nineteenth century (always promising) and our heroine, Eliza Sommers, is a girl without true family or place. She's adopted by some wealthy British colonists in Chile, though she herself is at least half Chilean, she's raised as a proper young British lady, albeit one raised abroad. The real action begins when Eliza falls in love with a selfish idealist revolutionary type, Joquain. Joquain stows away on a ship bound for California (we're in the throes of the gold rush here, people) and Eliza, disguised as a boy, sets out after him. She meets Tao, a Chinese doctor/herbalist, and he takes care of her on the long crossing and after, when they arrive in seedy and wild San Francisco. (Hookers! Crazy immigrants! Manifest destiny!) The best parts of this book occurred after Eliza and Tao get to California. I really like imaging how places must have been in the past, and because I currently live in the Bay area, Allende's imagined 1850's San Francisco and East Bay hills are fascinating. I wish I lived here 200 years ago. Except for the disease, bad food, never bathing, and seriously limited choices for women. Otherwise, hell yes. Unspoiled California wilderness, gun-toting outlaws, and yes, the sense of a truly epic life. A fun saga, well told.