Love in the Time of Cholera

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love." The "aromatic fumes" of a lover's poison lead the way into the story of an unrequited love that survives fifty-one years, nine months, and four days. Florentino Ariza, a man with the soul of a poet and the patience of a saint, has waited more than half a century for his love, the beautiful and "naturally haughty" Fermina Daza--since she revoked her promise to be his wife and married one of their city's wealthiest men, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, instead. That half-century is filled with encounters and travel, births, deaths, and poetry. As Fermina Daza and Dr. Urbino build their life together, creating a love based on shared experience, Florentino Ariza builds his own life, remaining loyal to Fermina Daza in his heart, if not exactly faithful, succumbing to 622 "long-term liaisons." But it is only when Dr. Urbino finally dies that Florentino Ariza's real life begins. ~from inside cover