The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

at Marsha Alter’s home

An intellectual, suspenseful, and entertaining page-turner, The Weight of Ink tells the story of two remarkable women separated by three centuries, the ambition that connects them, and the power of the written word. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of a novel, perfect for readers of A. S. Byatt’s Possession and Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book. Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.