Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Sulfrablatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, it's my honor to be speaking to Isabella Yende, whose new novel, Ines of My Soul,

has just been published by Harper Collins. She's the author as well.

I would like to say, of course, of the House of the Spirits,

of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, the stories of Eva Luna.

Her most recent novel was Zorro.

She's been writing several books for young adults as well.

This book, while it is a historical novel, you describe

it in your author's note as a work of intuition. What does that mean? It means that very little

is known about Ines. A lot is known about the conquest and the people who came with her to Chile in 1540, but nothing about

her. So although I had a lot of information, so it's an educated guess, it is a work of intuition

because I had to imagine her. The very few things that we know about her are astounding.

And based on that, I could sort of recreate her life.

I know that she lived to be 73 years old, which was a very long life at the time,

that she survived the jungle, the desert, battles, starvation, all kinds of stuff.

So she was also very healthy.

She was very strong, very determined and stubborn.

...