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Hi, this is Betsy from Otto’s. It’s the early 1800’s on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. Rachel is a stubborn, headstrong girl living in a community of Jewish exiles. She was taught by her father to read widely and to run his business—both past-times forbidden by her mother because (humph!) Rachel was a girl! Her closest friend is the daughter of the family’s African maid! To save his business, her father marries her off to a middle aged man whose wife has just died. She raises his three children and has four more. After her husband dies, his nephew, Frederic, comes to settle the estate and he and Rachel begin a forbidden love affair (forbidden by the Jewish Law that said a woman couldn’t marry a relative of her dead husband). One of their children was the artist Camille Pissarro. There you have the who, what, why and where. But the writing? It’s exquisite! Read The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman and you won’t want to stop. You’ll find it at Otto’s, a booklover’s paradise in the heart of downtown Williamsport.
