Books to Read if You Love Isabel Allende

As Barcelona heals from the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Daniel finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. But when he looks for the author’s other works he discovers that someone has been destroying every book Carax has written. Daniel’s quest opens a door into one of the city’s darkest secrets—an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

If you loved reading Isabel Allende’s novels, you’ll love her memoir that is “a bold exploration of womanhood, feminism, parenting, aging, love, and more” (Associated Press).

In this epic novel of love, discovery, and adventure, Ana, a young girl growing up in Spain is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de Leon. She travels across the ocean to a remote sugar plantation. But when the Civil War erupts, she must reconcile her new life with those on whose backs her wealth has been built: the hacienda’s slaves.

Adrift in the wake of her mother’s death, Mary longs for something meaningful to take her over. Then José Luis enters her life, a refugee from El Salvador and its bloody civil war. Mary cannot help but fall in love with the movement and the man. And little by little, she begins to reveal to José Luise the part of herself she has never known.

In a triumph of magical realism, Allende constructs a spirit-ridden world and fills it with colorful and all-too-human inhabitants. The House of the Spirits not only brings another nation’s history thrillingly to life, but also makes its people’s joys and anguishes wholly our own.

The García sisters and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow its dictator is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960, a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In this modern Latinx classic, the sisters tell their stories about being home—and not at home—in America.

In this modern literary classic from Gabriel García Márquez, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

A masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile, and belonging, A Long Petal of the Sea shows Isabel Allende at the height of her powers. This epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home.

Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico blends poignant romance and bittersweet wit.