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

Allende barely skims the surface.Marlon Jamess recent novel, The Book of Night Women was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics. Fittingly so, because to reach the Island Beneath the Sea, one would have had to dive deep. There, Tete finally forges a new life - but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not so easily severed. And in the end the island in the novels title remains legend. When bloody revolution arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the island for the decadence and opportunity of New Orleans. Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tete and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. Island beneath the sea: a novel (Book) Average Rating 5 star (1) 4 star (1) 3 star (1) 2 star (1) 1 star (1) Uniform Title: Isla bajo el mar.

When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it's with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind.īut running his father's plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue - now known as Haiti -Tete is the product of violent union between an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Isabel Allende's latest novel tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible.

Island beneath the sea book