“Eva Luna’s stories are delicate, their images akin to poetry: the Pope in his glass-closed car, for example, is ‘a white porpoise in an aquarium’; Tierra del Fuego tapers off into ‘a rosary of islands.’ And, like poetry, this prose requires careful attention.”
—Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times

“Allende is a real talent, an amazingly prolific one. In her stories there are palpable life and death risks, the risks of passionate love, the risks of passionate belief, of convictions and honor.”
—Leigh Allison Wilson, The Washington Post

“Instantly seductive, richly sensual and unabashedly romantic.”
—Chicago Sun-Times

“Full of grace and passion…love and revenge…enchanting…One could go on reading [Allende’s] stories forever.”
—Orlando Sentinel

“The result is arresting and altogether distinctive, powerful and haunting; a collection of stories to be read aloud; memorized and repeated for generations.

As in traditional legend, the characters are larger than life embodiments of passion, cruelty and virtue. Look elsewhere for failing relationships, uncommitted lovers, jaded sophisticates and adolescents in search of themselves. Allende’s people know exactly who they are and what they must do to survive.

There is violence in these stories—revenge, madness, death, lust and greed—but also compassion, vitality, humor, tenderness and generosity, and all in exquisite balance and proportion.

Superbly translated from the Spanish, the language creates an aura of mystery and wonder even in the tales clearly based on actual events and firmly rooted in the present.”
—Elaine Kendall, Los Angeles Times

“This is a book of stories that some how turns the ordinary into magic and the magical into everyday life.

The stories are like opulent parables that tell us about the marvels of life. The characters dig deep into the subconscious and I, for one, sense I will be going back to this book again and again just to be with them.”
—Gillian Steward, Calgary Herald

“The frank passion of Allende’s writing is somewhat reminiscent of Anaïs Nin’s erotica but the lush Central American landscape, the fabulous scale of narrative, the characters as darkly pungent as coffee tinged with blood, charge her stories with a physicality and power that will leave readers checking for bruises on their thighs.”
—Sarah Sheard, The Toronto Star

“Tales of sexual heat, murder, obsession, greed and revenge.”
—Houston Chronicle

“Isabel Allende always revives one’s faith in the intoxicating power of sheer old-fashioned storytelling.”
—The San Diego Union

“A fiercely erotic tour of the magical.”
—Harper’s Bazaar

“An extraordinary fictional potion…That all the tales are love stories is [a] bonus.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Pungency and passion mark most of these 23 tales. Allende is a skilled storyteller who works like a miniaturist. She captures whole lives with the briefest of lines. In her world, the scales of destiny achieve a rough balance. Despite the brevity of these encounters, Allende makes each one matter.”
—Detroit Free Press

“Allende can spin a funny, sensual yarn, but she can also use her narrative skills to remind us that parallel to our placid and comfortable existence is another, invisible universe, one where poverty, misery and torture are all too real.”
—The Nation

“Most of the collection’s tales have the quality of legend or folk myth.”
—The Boston Sunday Globe

“Some short-story collections contain such luscious fare readers devour them at one sitting, eager to hasten the moment when they can savor each tale again in the rereading.”
—Edmonton Journal (Canada)

“Though Eva Luna may prefigure the stories, the novel is certainly not a requisite to their enjoyment. They stand alone in their own world, with their own integrity and consistency: No other support is needed. Eva is the archetypal and peripatetic storyteller…Allende reaches readers across many language barriers…These stories are entertainments, of course, and are meant to be read as such, but they also partake of the literary and psychic disjunction of a whole generation of Chilean and Latin American exiles.”
—Alexander Coleman, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts

“The Stories of Eva Luna shows us Isabel Allende at her best. The twenty-three tales that compose the collection present a plethora of fascinating, robust characters, some of which appeared in Allende’s 1987 novel Eva Luna.”
—Barbara Mujica, Americas

“The Scheherazade of Latin America…Allende’s latest work gives us a full flavored taste of life in Latin America, but her themes touch on the universal human experience. It’s a treat not to be missed.”
—Southern Oregon Currents