Ines of My Soul is a daring novel, great on any scale. Daring, because the writer has bravely faced one of the bloodiest periods in the history of South America, without siding with the conquerors or the natives; Great, because it is a widely researched historical fiction, as well as being a love story.

The story is told from the imaginary point of view of Inés Suárez based on what she may have written in her diary at the age of seventy. The existence of the diary is also imaginary. Only a writer of the stature of Isabel Allende would dare to tell this complicated story in flashback and succeed so brilliantly.

In her diary, Inés addresses Isabel, her stepdaughter from her last marriage. In the first chapter, Inés Suárez says: “I beg you to have a little patience, Isabel. You will soon see that this disorderly narrative will come to the moment when my path crosses that of Pedro de Valdivia and the epic that I want to tell. Almost starts “.

Inés, a poor seamstress from Plasencia, a town in Spain, arrives in the new world on a boat with her niece to look for her husband Juan de Málaga. In reality, she is determined to escape the poverty and backward thinking of the society into which she was born. When she finds out that her husband has died, she tries to survive on her own with her nursing and cleaning skills. When a man who was in the same ship as her tries to attack her, she kills him in self-defense, but the ship’s captain removes the man’s body from her home and discards it, keeping his name clear. After this, Inés wants to move to other towns in the new world, partly out of fear of being discovered. It is at this moment that he meets Pedro de Valdivia, the conqueror of Chile, and becomes his lover.

Inés gets permission from Pisarro saying that she knows dowsing and that she can find water in the desert; thus, together with Valdivia, he traveled to Chile, crossing an impossible arid region and facing many difficulties to establish the city of Santiago in the Mapocho Valley as a Spanish settlement. They call the new city, “Santiago de la Nueva Extremadura”. The date is February 12, 1541.

In this settlement, far from Peru due to distance and poor travel conditions, the group faces a terrible fight against the fierce Mapuche Indians of Chief Michimalonko. The story of Inés continues until 1580 when she writes her memoirs at the age of seventy as a wealthy and successful widow but somewhat boastful and full of pride.

Even if the story is full of battles, cruelty, and blood and gore, the central theme is passionate love and company between two lovers. The relationship between Pedro and Inés is that of a fairy tale, passionate, affectionate and full of communication. Even if Pedro changes from an idealistic man to a greedy man over time, his love for Ines survives until his last breath.

Although Isabel Allende, through Inés, does not exalt or hide the brutality of the conquerors, she romanticizes the idea of ​​establishing settlements in the new world and the feats of those who went through so much to conquer the continent. Inés, a remarkable woman who finds solutions to most of the problems faced by settlement people in the New World, is portrayed as modern women’s rights defenders would like to see a heroine. It is debatable how much of this idealization could have come close to the truth.

Inés of My Soul is the fifteenth book by Isabel Allende. In this book, too, his storytelling style takes over the story, but his charming narration with the exciting twists and turns in his storytelling completely grips the reader and makes them not want to leave a word unread.

Isabel Allende is a Chilean novelist who was born on August 2, 1942 in Lima, Peru. Her books are: The house of the spirits (1982), The porcelain fat woman (1984), Of love and shadows (1985), Eva Luna (1987), The stories of Eva Luna (1989), The infinite plan (1991) , Paula (1995, Aphrodite (1997), Daughter of Fortune (1999), Portrait in Sepia (2000), City of Beasts (2002), My Invented Country (2003), Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004), Forest of Los pygmies (2005), El Zorro (2005), Inés de mi alma (2006) and Two Words.

The book is hardcover and 336 pages with ISBN-10: 0061161535 and ISBN-13: 978-0061161537.

As expected from Allende’s wonderful storytelling, “Inés of My Soul” is a brilliant historical epic, full of emotion and suspense.