The release date for the English version of 'Daughter of Fortune' by
Isabel Allende is May 2006. 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.
Eliza Sommers, who was left orphaned at birth, is brought up by the well-meaning Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more strict brother Jeremy in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile. Gold is found in the northern Californian hills just as she meets and falls in love with Joaquín Andieta, a menial clerk who works for Jeremy, who is incredibly inappropriate. By 1849, people in Chile of all backgrounds had succumbed to irrational fantasies of prosperity. When Joaquín leaves for San Francisco in search of his money, Eliza, who is expecting his child, chooses to go with him.
We join a world where freshly arrived people are driven insane by gold fever as we accompany her adventurous heroine on a risky trip north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California. With the assistance of her dear friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien, Eliza goes into a society of unmarried men and prostitutes, and California opens the door to a new life of independence and freedom for the young Chilean. Her pursuit of the elusive Joaquín eventually evolves into a different sort of voyage that changes her over time; what started out as a quest for love ultimately becomes the achievement of personal liberation.