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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/830390.Daughter_of_Fortune?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Daughter of Fortune" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1178742579m/830390.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/830390.Daughter_of_Fortune?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Daughter of Fortune</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2238.Isabel_Allende">Isabel Allende</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7702460?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>At the request of Candice (a/k/a sister-in-law extraordinaire) I am reviewing Daughter of Fortune. I read it quite some time ago, but remember it as a favorite, in contrast to the last Allende book I just reviewed. In Daughter of Fortune, a young Chilean woman, Eliza, stows away on a ship bound for San Francisco. It is 1849 and adventurers from all over the world are arriving in California in search of gold. During the long sea voyage, she befriends a Chinese man, Tao Chi'en, who serves as the ship’s cook after being kidnapped and forced into labor at sea. He has a very interesting background of his own which Allende spends some time going into. He is a master acupuncturist and we follow his journey in San Francisco as well. After arriving, Eliza finds that she needs to dress as a man so that she can safely get by alone in the rough and tumble society of Gold Rush San Francisco. She decides to maintain this façade for the next four years because the only options a woman has for survival during that time are becoming a prostitute or becoming a wife. Eliza matures and discovers herself and her own values along the way. It is a beautiful story and although it is at times depressing, it is overall life-affirming. I recall that I felt very drawn into the lives of these characters and wanted to constantly pick up the book and keep reading. Enjoy! <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/268618?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>