First and foremeost, Isabel Allende is a wonderful story teller. That is in evidence with her newest novel, DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE, which will be published next month by Harper Collins.

The odyssey of a Chilean girl, Eliza Sommers, orphaned at birth, reminds me more of Jack London saga than anything else. This is no coming-of-age, girl-into-woman journey. Eliza, raised by an aunt and uncle, meets a young man in the early stages of her womanhood.It is the mid-nineteenth century, and her inamorata departs for California, and Eliza, finding herself with child, is determined to locate him. Her travels on sea and through the newly formed populous of gold hungry transients in California, has everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end. Along the way, she is surrounded by a wildly vivid assortment of people: Chileans, Mexicans, Yankees and, most important, a Chinese man named Tao Chi'en.

In addition to being a tale about Eliza Sommers, Ms. Allende offers a fascinating glimpse of California, which, during its emerging statehood, became the resting spot or refuge for the great unwashed, the unwanted, the outlaw, the women of easy virtue and the escaping slaves of several countries.

Isabel Allende's heroine is a far cry from Scarlett O'Hara, or any of Henry James' or Edith Wharton's ladies. There are no frilled skirts and a minimum of tea pouring. This is a fictional account of a real pioneer woman. Call it a post-feminist novel if you must, but labels aside, it is a highly readable, very enjoyable, wonderfully written novel.

Isabel Allende, niece of Salvador Allende, Chile's great leader of a generation ago, keeps the family banner high with this literary accomplishment.