In the following brief review of Esquivel's second novel The Law of Love, reviewer Louise Redd gives us an overview of the novel's tangled story and writes that though the convoluted plotline may at times seem too soap-operaish (and the multimedia packaged with the story too encumbering), its parallels to Mexico's shedding the aftereffects of the Conquest keep it from descending too far into parody.

In Laura Esquivel's first novel, Like Water for Chocolate, she wrote of potent dishes that wreaked strange effects, often acting as love potions, on those who ate them. Now in The Law of Love, her second novel, she again proves herself a talented literary chef, creating a delectable feast from ingredients as disparate as a 16th-century rape and a 23rd-century spaceship.

The Law of Love is an exuberant mix of science fiction, new age psycho-babble, fable and oldfashioned love story. Although its...