Prime Video's 8-Part Historical Drama Adaptation Is Officially a Global Smash

While Prime Video’s original series often draw from novels to tell their stories, they rarely do as much justice to the book as 2026’s The House of the Spirits, with some exceptions like Barry Jenkins’ take on Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. Drawing from Chilean author Isabel Allende’s 1982 debut novel of the same name, the show does a beautiful job transposing the book’s blend of multigenerational family saga, magical realism, and poetic tale of the ravages of time and the longstanding effects of violence to a new medium. The series is not afraid to be melodramatic, colorful, and rich, studying the Trueba family from their humble beginnings in an unnamed Latin American country that slowly descends into a horrific political situation. Narrating the saga is Alba (Rochi Hernandez), who thrusts us into the world of the family with as much speed as The Royal Tenenbaums.