Isabel Allende

Every now and then I re-read one author's entire output (if it's in print!) and so I've spent the last week or so re-reading the collected works of Chilean writer Isabel Allende. She writes gorgeous novels, set mostly in South America, often in countries she doesn't give names to. Her books are described as magic-realism, or reality with a hint of the magical, if you prefer
 I started with Love and Shadows, which is a beautiful love story about two people caught up in the middle of a corrupt system working to expose it. Then I moved onto the series Allende wrote for younger readers, City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and Forest of the Pygmies. These chronicel the adventures of Alex Cold, his friend Nadia and his eccentric journalist grandmother Kate, as they travel down the Amazon, up the Himalayas and into the African interior, encountering the native peoples, evil villains out to exploit the natural world and magical creatures and people.
Returning to South America and a fictionalised version of history, specifically of her native Chile, I read House of Spirits, Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia. While not specifically a trilogy, characters from Spirits and Fortune reappear in Portrait, so they are loosely connected. House of Spirits tells the history of the De Valle family through three generations. Daughter of Fortune concerns Eliza Sommers, a supposed orphan raised by an English ex-pat family, who chases her man and her fortune to the fledging San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Finally comes Portrait in Sepia, which connects the De Valle's to Eliza Sommers, and continues the story of the family through another generation.
Lastly (so far, she's rather prolific) I read Eva Luna, another version of history set in a country with no name. It tells the life story of the titular Eva, born with the memory of the jungle, and also of Rolf Carle, and their meeting. Like a lot of Allende's stories there's a corrupt government, a dictator, and a revolt to live through. The cast of supporting characters are rather colourful, and Eva's stories enchanting, quite literally.
There's more to come, The Stories of Eva Luna, Zorro, The Inifinite Plan, Ines of my Soul, and then there's her volumns of memoir, Paula, My Invented Country, Aphrodite and The Sum of Our Days.
Might take me a while, but I'm enjoying the self-set challenge of re-reading and re-discovering these books.