"A luminous, Marquez-esque tale" ( O, The Oprah Magazine ) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Museum of Extraordinary Things a forbidden love story set on a tropical island about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro--the Father of Impressionism. Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. Rachel's mother, a pillar of their small refugee community of Jews who escaped the Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for being a difficult girl who refuses to live by the rules. Growing up, Rachel's salvation is their maid Adelle's belief in her strengths, and her deep, life-long friendship with Jestine, Adelle's daughter. But Rachel's life is not her own. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father's business. When her older husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Fr d rick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family, including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France. "A work of art" ( Dallas Morning News ), The Marriage of Opposites showcases the beloved, bestselling Alice Hoffman at the height of her considerable powers. "Her lush, seductive prose, and heart-pounding subject...make this latest skinny-dip in enchanted realism...the Platonic ideal of the beach read" (Slate.com). Once forgotten to history, the marriage of Rachel and Fr d rick "will only renew your commitment to Hoffman's astonishing storytelling" ( USA TODAY ).