"Powerfully evocative... Allende is at her best here; spinning words like spells, enthralling the reader with surreal visions of the New World. "-- NewsweekA passionate epic of love, freedom, and conquest, based on historical events, from the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and A Long Petal of the Sea. Though she was born into poverty, Inés Suárez, a seamstress in sixteenth-century Spain, embodies the same restless hope and opportunism that fuels her nation's conquest of the Americas. Learning that her shiftless husband has vanished, Inés uses his disappearance to embark on her own adventure. It is a journey will lead her to Pedro de Valdivia--a conquistador who becomes the first royal governor of Chile--and to a love that not only changes her life but the course of history.