From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende (Inés of My Soul, The House of the Spirits, Portrait in Sepia) tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny.

Book synopsis:

Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité -- known as Tété -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tété finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves. 

When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it’s with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride -- but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.

Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tété and Valmorain, and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

To read an excerpt from Island Beneath the Sea, click HERE.

Isabel Allende Llona (born 2 August 1942) is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is one of the best-known women writers in Latin America. She is largely famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) (1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias) (2002), which have been commercially very successful. Allende has been described as "the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author." Her novels often focus on the experiences of women, are sometimes based on her own experiences, and weave myth and realism together. She has lectured and toured widely, and has taught literature at many American colleges. Having adopted American citizenship in 2003, she currently resides in California with her husband. She is of Basque, Spanish and Portuguese descent.

Would you like to read this novel? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.