Beyond the Ties of Blood

Book excerpt: In the tradition of Isabel Allende, a family saga that explores the lives touched by the tragedies of Chile's vibrant history Imprisoned and tortured in the aftermath of the 1973 coup while her love, Manuel, is savagely murdered, Eugenia Aldunate is a rare survivor of the countless "disappeared" that would haunt Chile's collective memory for decades. While still in prison, Eugenia discovers she is pregnant and is exiled to Mexico, then the United States to raise her daughter alone, forbidden to return. She builds a quiet life for herself, but the scars on her arms to do not fade. Horrific nightmares plague Eugenia each night, while each morning she aches for her homeland. Nearly twenty years after her exile, Eugenia is called back to Chile to testify in Manuel's murder and seek justice for the others who disappeared. A rare living witness to these "camps," Eugenia must come to grips with the legacy of violence and trauma inflicted by Pinochet's dictatorship and find truth and solace in the stories of those she left behind. In the tradition of Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss and Julia Alvarez's In the Time of Butterflies, Beyond the Ties of Blood is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and the transcendence of family.