My Name is Emilia del Valle

San Francisco, 1866. Molly Walsh is an Irish nun, seduced and abandoned by a Chilean aristocrat before her daughter, Emilia del Valle Walsh is born. Raised by her mother and stepfather in the heart of a humble Mexican neighborhood, Emilia grows into a bright and independent young woman, challenging social norms in the pursuit of writing, her first love and passion. At just sixteen Emilia is writing successful adventure novels under the pseudonym Brandon J. Price, and before long she secures a position as a columnist at the San Francisco Examiner, travelling for the first time to New York City, where a new love - passionate but short-lived - changes everything. She returns to San Francisco heartbroken, but with a newfound determination to survive in her own name. Santiago, 1891. Emilia finds herself in a nation on the brink of an abyss. While covering news of the civil war unfolding in Chile, she goes she goes in search of another story - of the del Valle family whose legacy is her birth right, and what became of the father who abandoned them. Enduring violence on the battlefield, in hospital and in prison, Emilia's own journey becomes one of loves lost and found, leading her into the heart of the homeland she never knew. Another masterclass in historical storytelling from Isabel Allende, My Name is Emilia del Valle is a powerful tale of love and war, discovery and redemption, told by a valiant young woman who confronts monumental challenges, survives, and reinvents herself along the way.

Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist. She is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than eighty million copies of her books across forty-two languages. She is the author of several bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, Violeta, A Long Petal of the Sea, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, and Paula. In addition to her work as a writer, Isabel devotes much of her time to human rights causes. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, and in 2018, she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California with her husband and dogs. You can visit Isabel Allende at IsabelAllende.com or follow her on Instagram @AllendeIsabel, on Facebook at Facebook.com/IsabelAllende and on X @IsabelAllende