In the Midst of Winter: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of November 2017: A fateful fender bender transforms the lives of three unlikely co-conspirators in the latest novel by Isabel Allende. In the Midst of Winter opens with endearingly oblivious academic Richard Bowmaster, who is rattled after taking his cat to the vet, and rear-ends a car driven by Evelyn Ortega. Ortega is not in the country legally, it’s her boss’s vehicle, and he's not the sort of person you want to cross (ask the dead body in the trunk). So begins a madcap adventure to dispose of the deceased and ensure Ortega’s safety, a plan hatched by Bowmaster’s tenant and colleague, Lucia. For such a zany setup, Allende does a deft job of illuminating the plight of undocumented immigrants, and readers will be charmed by Lucia and Richard—two people in the winter of their lives, who end up bumbling towards an invincible summer (a hard-won one at that). You will happily bumble along with them. —Erin Kodicek, The Amazon Book Review