Just finished Isabel Allende’s Zorro.   I finally got my hands on her first novel written in 1983, translated in ’85 and made into a movie in 1994, starring Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Winona Rider and Antonio Banderas – which lo and behold I have never seen.  Probably because the early ’90s revolved around pregnancies, babies and toddlers  – not indie movies.  The only movie I remember seeing when I was pregnant with my second was (the ‘One’ night I went to the dollar AMC where there is a Walmart now) A River Runs Through It (the first time I saw Brad Pitt in a movie BTW) and of course, Jurassic Park, when V was just 7 days old (because her brother was fanatical about all things dinosaur) and Alladin, Toy Story, etc…But somehow I missed The House of Spirits.

Recently, I read Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia.  Read Daughter first, Sepia is a sequel, unbeknownst to me.

From Zorro’s bi-cultural roots, born in 1790, wherein his maternal grandmother guides him through a vision quest in California to Zorro’s honing of his fencing skills in troubled Spain and back to his homeland, Allende takes us through historical moments braided and woven into intricate backstories of brotherhood and justice – always righting the wronged.  The way the author wraps up stories, returns back full circle to events, dialogue and clues, is precise and satisfying to the reader.  Her team of researchers find and check all her injections of true facts into the tale so that the events become part of the plot and the characters display authentic voices of the era.

Summer is a great time to read.  Allende is a great author to read if escape to another time and place with depth of perception is where you want to imagine yourself being in these next few hot weeks.