This is an off-key story about an eccentric, wealthy widow who lives in a no-frills nursing home - as told through the eyes of an assistant who works there. As the novel progresses, we learn more about widow’s long and strange history, including an illicit, decades-long love affair. And we get a glimpse into her assistant’s stormy past and unlikely path.

On the whole I found the story a little bit strange and difficult to enjoy. I think the present-day storyline is just not particularly interesting or compelling, while I enjoyed the World War 2-era storyline much more. Still, there are others who have explored more or less the same themes and ideas, and have done it better - Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet comes to mind. I had some hopes for the novel to explore ideas of magical realism, which is a bit of a specialty for Allende, but despite an early hint of it, the story really had nothing of the sort. There’s certainly some beautiful language and captivating ideas here, but getting to that is a kind of a slog through some blander bits.