The release date for the English version of 'A Long Petal of the Sea' by
Isabel Allende is Jan 2020. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
This epic tale, which spans decades and countries and was written by the same author as The House of the Spirits, follows two young people as they leave the ruins of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home.
Spain is engulfed in a civil war in the late 1930s. Hundreds of thousands are forced to escape on a perilous trek across the mountains to the French border when General Franco and his fascists succeed in toppling the government. Among them is Roser, a young widow who is pregnant, whose life becomes entangled with that of her late love's brother, army doctor Victor Dalmau. The two must be married in a marriage that none of them wants in order to live.
They set off for Chile, "the long petal of sea and wine and snow," on the SS Winnipeg, a ship that poet Pablo Neruda chartered, along with two thousand other immigrants. They accept their exile as strange companions as the rest of Europe explodes in conflict. They are only getting started in a new continent, and they will encounter challenge after trial throughout their lives. However, they will also be happy as they eagerly anticipate the day when they will no longer be in exile. Their dream of going back to Spain sustains them through it all. Roser and Victor are destined to see the global struggle between repression and freedom unfold, and they discover that home may have been closer than they first realised.
A Long Petal of the Sea, a brilliant piece of historical fiction about exile, hope, and belonging, features Isabel Allende at the pinnacle of her career.