Again, a great novel. I'm unsure how accurate it is historically, despite the assurance at the end. She often has protagonists of murky or even despicable morality, but this was especially tough. I struggle to relate to or empathize with conquistadors. From how the book is written, Allende certainly does not laud the conquistadors, but sometimes it seemed to border upon that, such is unavoidable when the narrator is the gubernator's wife, a conquistadora in her own, less brutal light. Yet, the story is fantastic and woven with the love/heartbreak that she writes so masterfully. On top of her usual prowess in romance and interpersonal narrative, the war and strategies of battle, the complete historical project and painting of a world so removed from the one I inhabit is a herculean task which she accomplishes: the book is both believable in being set in the 1500s and reads as fluidly and effortlessly as if Allende had somehow spent time in that era (I recognize this is more likely to be because I, too, have not lived in that era, so her story isn't compared against a scrupulous standard). Regardless of complete accuracy, this is one of those novels that you come away from having learned a good deal. I also love the emphasis she has placed on a historical woman whose rightful spot in history has been overshadowed by men, even if that spot in history isn't so commendable (surely more so than the men that colonized Chile, who treated fellow humans no better than swine). A complicated book, which is great, but the sense of adventure that seems to exist within its pages are hard to enjoy, so synonymous with some of the worst displays of inhumanity in history. I recognize that this is precisely a point of the novel: the "founders" of the countries of the Americas are complicated historical figures. They are at once responsible for much of the culture Allende and myself grew up in and are despicable figures who massacared entire populations. This book made me confront that incongruency: I wonder why she writes of the conquistadors as part of an entertaining story yet I live and claim a country founded upon cruelty no less condemnable. (There's an essay hiding here... best kind of book)