Daughter Of Fortune

Eliza, the engaging and independent heroine of Isabel Allende's latest novel, is a foundling. Discovered on the doorstep of the British Import and Export Company in 1830s Chile, she is eagerly adopted by Miss Rose Sommers, who keeps house for her two brothers, a businessman and a sea-captain. But although Rose is determined to turn her into a proper English lady, headstrong Eliza determinedly charts her own course. Barely 16, she falls hopelessly in love with an impoverished young revolutionary called Joaquín Andieta. When he disappears to seek his fortune in the great Californian gold rush, she stows away on one of her uncle's ships, crowded with adventurers and whores all heading for San Francisco... A shrewdly entertaining and often memorable description of a new world in the making.' Sunday Times