In this memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss: the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family. Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory. Here, too, are the stories behind Allende's books, the superstitions that guide her writing process, and her adventurous travels.