In the midst of winter : a novel / Isabel Allende ; translated from the Spanish by Nick Castor and Amanda Hopkinson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

New York Times Bestseller

Worldwide bestselling "dazzling storyteller" (Associated Press) Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel about three very different people who are brought together in a mesmerizing story that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil.

In the Midst of Winter begins with a minor traffic accident--which becomes the catalyst for an unexpected and moving love story between two people who thought they were deep into the winter of their lives. Richard Bowmaster--a 60-year-old human rights scholar--hits the car of Evelyn Ortega--a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala--in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes an unforeseen and far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor's house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz--a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile--for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a mesmerizing story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia.

Exploring the timely issues of human rights and the plight of immigrants and refugees, the book recalls Allende's landmark novel The House of the Spirits in the way it embraces the cause of "humanity, and it does so with passion, humor, and wisdom that transcend politics" (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post ). In the Midst of Winter will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

A big bang brings together two professors, an illegal immigrant, and a frozen corpse during a 2016 blizzard. Professor Richard Bowmaster rear-ends a Lexus driven by Guatemalan nanny Evelyn Ortega, who then appears that evening at Richard's brownstone with a harrowing tale that requires Richard to call up his basement tenant, fellow professor Lucia Maraz, to help. Over the next few days, the trio will attempt to solve a murder, two will fall in love, one will need to disappear, and another will need to find resting peace. Dennis Boutsikaris presents Richard with equal parts dignity and desperation, revealing a past filled with selfish decisions, lost relationships, and self-imposed isolation. Alma Cuervo becomes Lucia, her voice rich and melodious, buoyant and solemn, as she shares the teacher's Chilean past, her family nearly destroyed by deception and violence. Jasmine Cephas Jones assumes Evelyn's horrific losses of siblings and culture-perhaps even her sanity-with compassion and grace. VERDICT The terrific triad bring gentle nuance and empathic energy to Allende's latest best seller; libraries will want to be prepared with all formats to meet high demand. ["Allende puts a human face on the realities of illegal immigration, broken hearts, courage, and healing": LJ 11/1/17 review of the Atria hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, -Washington, DC © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

The audiobook of Allende's latest novel employs the vocals of three actors with mixed results. Actor Boutsikaris is a master of tempo, and her well-tempered reading here keeps listeners fastened to the story. Jones and Cuervo, on the other hand, tend to enunciate too carefully, obstructing Allende's rhythms and causing listeners to focus on individual words rather than the story as a whole. That said, the three actors convincingly portray the three protagonists of Allende's story, all of whom cross paths in Brooklyn. Each is scarred by experiences related to the Latin American political landscape of the 1970s: NYU professor Richard Bowmaster is a human rights scholar who has worked in Brazil; his tenant, Lucia Maraz, is a visiting professor from Chile; and Evelyn Ortega is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who crashes into Richard's car while driving her employer's Lexus on a snowy day. The book includes a somewhat awkward mixture of light romantic comedy and heavy personal and political tragedies-the Pinochet years, the terror of MS-13, the plight of immigrants, and the hideous business of sex slavery in the U.S. The readers are sweet in the romantic parts, but Allende's minute descriptions of violent personal and political events are harder to follow. An Atria hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* No one should be driving in blizzard-struck Brooklyn, but emergencies have forced Richard, a lonely academic, and Evelyn, a nanny caring for a boy with cerebral palsy, out onto the icy streets where their vehicles collide. When Evelyn reveals that she was driving her employer's car and that there's a body in the trunk, Richard summons his basement tenant and colleague, Lucia. Internationally beloved Allende (Ripper, 2014), as effervescent in her compassion, social concerns, and profound joy in storytelling as ever, brings both humor and intensity to this madcap, soulful, and transporting tale of three survivors who share their traumatic pasts while embarking on a lunatic mission of mercy. Life-embracing, funny, and tough Chilean journalist Lucia is hoping, still, for love after surviving political violence, exile, loveless marriages, and cancer. Richard, the American son of Holocaust survivors, suffers debilitating guilt over long-concealed disasters in Brazil. Evelyn made the perilous journey to the U.S. from her destitute Guatemalan village after being brutally assaulted by gang members. Allende has a rare and precious gift for simultaneously challenging and entrancing readers by dramatizing with startling intimacy such dire situations as the desperation behind illegal immigration and domestic violence, then reveling, a page later, in spiritual visions or mischievous sexiness or heroic levity. No wonder she was inspired by Albert Camus: In the midst of winter, I finally found there was within me an invincible summer. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Allende will tour coast-to-coast with her latest, drumming up the usual reader frenzy.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Thrown together by a Brooklyn blizzard, two NYU professors and a Guatemalan nanny find themselves with a body to dispose of. "Blessed with the stoic character of her people, accustomed as they are to earthquakes, floods, occasional tsunamis, and political cataclysm," 61 year-old Chilean academic Lucia Maraz is nonetheless a bit freaked out by a snowstorm so severe that it's reported on television "in the solemn tone usually reserved for news about terrorism in far-off countries." Her landlord and boss, the tightly wound Richard Bowmaster, lives right upstairs with his four cats, but he rebuffs her offer of soup and company. Too bad: she might have a crush on him. Enter Evelyn Ortega, a diminutive young woman from Guatemala Richard meets when he skids into her Lexus on the iced-over streets. Evelyn's hysterical reaction to the fender bender seems crazily out of proportion when she shows up on his doorstep that night, and he has Lucia come up to help him understand why she's so upset. The Lexus, it turns out, belongs to her volatile, violent employerand there's a corpse in the now-unlatchable trunk. Once Lucia gradually pieces together Evelyn's storyshe was smuggled north by a coyote after barely surviving gang violence that killed both of her siblingsthe two professors decide to help her, and the plan they come up with is straight out of a telenovela. While that's getting underway, Allende (The Japanese Lover, 2015, etc.) fills in the dark and complicated histories of Richard and Lucia, who also have suffered defining losses. The horrors of Evelyn's past have left her all but mute; Richard is a complete nervous wreck; Lucia fears there is no greater love coming her way than that of her Chihuahua, Marcelo. This winter's tale has something to melt each frozen heart. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.