Published: 2019. First time in English 2020, Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: Spanish Civil War, love, family, Chile, political refugees My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ Inside the back cover of this book it says that Isabel Allende is one of the most widely read authors in the world, and her books have been translated into at least forty-two languages selling more than seventy-four million copies. After reading A Long Petal of the Sea, I fully understand why. The story begins in 1939, at the end of the Spanish Civil War, when half a million refugees escaped Franco by walking from Spain to France. They walked through bitterly cold conditions, with barely enough food to keep them alive, and among their numbers was a heavily pregnant young woman called Roser who was leaving without the baby's father Guilleme. He is away fighting for the Republican Army so her escape is enabled by his brother, Victor, who carries her carefully in the sidecar of an old motor...