"Portrait in Sepia" is a continuation of the family saga begun in "Daughter of Fortune". The main characters in that book were Eliza Sommers, the Chilean girl who runs away to the San Francisco of the Gold Rush era, and her husband, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien. "Portrait in Sepia" is set at a later period and covers the last few decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. The main character is their granddaughter, Aurora, who after her mother dies in childbirth is brought up by her other grandmother, Paulina del Valle, whom we also met as a young woman in "Daughter of Fortune".

The earlier book began in Chile and moves to California, with occasional scenes set in China. "Portrait in Sepia" reverses this pattern and moves from California to Chile, with occasional scenes set in Britain. As in "Daughter of Fortune" it is the Chilean scenes that are the most successful, bringing to life a society which is unfamiliar to most British (and also probably to most European and North American) readers. Parts of the action are set against the background of the Pacific War of 1879-83, in which the Chileans defeated both Bolivia and Peru, or the Chilean Civil War of 1891, and there are some very vivid and graphic descriptions of battle scenes. We see the contrast between the relatively progressive city of Santiago and the almost mediaeval life of the Chilean countryside, with an impoverished peasantry dependent upon the wealthy landowning classes.

The main weakness of this book is that its central character is not its most interesting one. In "Daughter of Fortune" some of the minor characters were vague and insubstantial, but the main ones, Eliza and Tao Chien, were vivid and memorable. In "Portrait in Sepia" it is the other way round. For most of the novel, Aurora is the focus of attention, but she seems a dull and uninspired creation, whereas I found myself wishing that some of the minor characters had been better developed. Aurora's beautiful Chilean/Chinese mother Lynn seems a much livelier character than her daughter, but Ms Allende kills her off at the age of twenty, less than a third of the way through the book. Her father Matias, Paulina's dissolute playboy son, likewise disappears from the action for most of the time and, in a rather old-fashioned moralising touch, dies young of syphilis. Like another reviewer I wanted to know much more about Aurora's husband Diego and his obsessive passion for Susana, his own brother's wife.

It is possible that Ms Allende herself was aware of this weakness, because the structure of the book is an unusual one, seemingly deliberately designed periodically to shift attention away from Aurora. Part I (of three) is essentially one long flashback, telling the story of Lynn and her romance with Matias. The story then moves on to Aurora's early childhood in San Francisco her move back to Chile with Paulina and her disastrous marriage to Diego, the younger son of a wealthy landowner. The character who most stands out in this part of the book is the larger-than life figure of Paulina, the daughter of an aristocratic family who has refused to accept the social restrictions normally faced by women of her class and who has built up a successful business empire through hard work and determination. Aurora, by contrast, is a passive figure; her one great passion is for photography (hence the title of the book), which seems an appropriate symbol of her passive nature, watching and recording the action from the sidelines rather than participating in it. The book ends with another flashback, which explains the nightmares that have long plagued Aurora.

I noticed a few errors, particularly in the chapters relating to Britain. It seems odd, in a chapter set in 1896, five years before the accession of King Edward VII, to come across a reference to a building's "Edwardian" faýade; presumably Ms Allende meant "Georgian". Queen Victoria

Portrait in Sepia is a sequel to Daughter in Fortune. The first book had wonderful characters and a good variety of characters. This book has mainly two characters, one of them from the first book. I found this book almost boring and depressing. It wasn't nearly as rich and colorful as the first. Nothing happy really happens. Isabel Allende is a good writer and I will read other book by her but I was disappointed in this one.

Family ties are the most important things, and Isabel Allende is masterfully adept at portraying young women in search of their roots. I no longer want to know mine. She examines the human psyche and character to explain why the character acts the way she does.

This novel concerns loss of memory and family secrets. It is the sequel to DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE. For some reason, Aurora cannot remember anything from her first five years. When my mother died and I was only seven, I too erased about all of my early years, remembering only fleeting glimpses into the past. I do remember her taking me to my first day at school and I cried when she left me. As a consequence, I became the teacher's pet. But that's all I remember of that traumatic year when she was so sick. So, after her death, I wiped her from my heart and my memory.

Aurora continued to have alluring nightmares caused by some trauma and live with her grandmother in a grand style in the 1860s. She'd been born in San Francicso during the Civil War and grew up in a privileged environment. I have a portrait of an old woman who has my eyes, only she is dressed elegantly in a long dress of heavy satin and ruffles and a purple hat. I have a photo taken of my mother before she died; this, too in sepia. She was laready sick but was dressed up and had an artificial flower in hre hair. I have one of her not dressed up.

Aurora became a photographer and reflected "through photography and the written word, I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments... to untangle the confusion of the past." Maybe that's what I do as I take pictures of places and things (not people) around my hometown, to show me all I missed the long time I was away.

Her great-grandfathre had been Captain John Sommmres on her mother's side. An English seaman, he had to make his way through Yankee blockades and Confederate attacks. He brought elaborate furniture to California for Paulina del Valla, her father's mother, and had it assembled before delivreing it to Union Square. During this time, Yankee and Confederate armies were fighting in the South. The old lady in my sepia photo is holding a Confederate flag and shows her pride in it with her stature and smile. The family had made its fortune in transporting fresh produce packed in Antarctic ice from Chile to California.

In Chile, she fell in love but is betrayed. To cope with the disappointment and pain, she writes and explores the mysteries of hre past. Some of it was unsavory to say the least. "Write with honesty and don't worry about the feelings of others, because no mattet what you say, they'll hate you anyway" was the advice of her surrogate parent. Other books of Isabel Allende include OF LOVE AND SHADOWS, THE INFINITE PLAN, and THE HOUSE OF SPIRITS. She is a marvel and has a wild imagination.

Aurora del Valle is born in San Francisco in the 1880s, the daughter of a Chilean-Chinese-English woman who died shortly after her birth and a wealthy Chilean man who never knew Aurora until shortly before his death. Aurora has a childhood filled with mystery and confusion. She lives with her maternal grandparents for a time, and then spends the rest of her life with formidable paternal grandmother Paulina del Valle. In "Portrait In Sepia," melancholy, instrospective Aurora remembers and chronicles her life. Slowly, as she travels from California to Chile to England and back, she is able to make sense from a life that formerly was as clouded as a portrait in sepia.

In some ways, "Portait in Sepia" is exotically enchanting. Allende always seems to avoid pedestrain settings, and the effortless blend of American, Chinese, and especially Chilean settings makes for an intoxicatingly different reading experience. Characters such as Eliza Sommers, Tao Chi'en, and Paulina del Valle, previously introduced in "Daughter of Fortune" are also back in this story. Generally, their continued stories contain expanded characterizations and interesting twists that will please any Allende reader.

The complex cast of characters, the wide scope of the story, and the plot that consists of an infinite number of dramatic events is, at its best, reminiscent of "perfect" epics like "Gone With the Wind." At its worst, this story can make you want to turn the page and see if the next happening is more exciting. Sometimes there was too much Chilean history, other times Aurora seemed riduculously tragedy-ridden, occasionally a prosy passage just wasn't as breathtaking as it was designed to be, and then there were those moments when the dramatic story line too closely resembled a TV soap.

If this book were from a newer and less-acclaimed author, I would enthusiatically give it four stars and declare it totally promising. But it's from Isabel Allende-an internationally known author with books on college reading lists and millions of critics lavishing praise on every book. To me, a author of her status should be able to deliver a flawless blend of characters, plotlines, and prose in every book.

I didn't want this book to end.
It took me back to a time and place that doesn't exist anymore:
the late 1800's as it was in San Francisco, and then Chile.
From values, to customs of the time, this book tells the story of
women who have strong characters and adventurous spirits.
It's a very good read. I think this is as good as The House of Sprits.
Paulette Millander