Teenage Jane spots the Lake Grove house from a lobster boat tour and immediately feels a mysterious connection to it.

Jane and Allison explore the abandoned Lake Grove house and discover marbles and smashed glass scattered across the upper hallway.

Jane builds a career as an archivist at Harvard's Schlesinger Library, specializing in collecting and preserving women's stories.

Jane returns to her hometown of Awadapquit after her mother Shirley's death to sort through the family home and its possessions.

A psychic named Clementine visits Jane and relays messages from Shirley, Mary, and a girl identified only by the initial D.

Jane meets wealthy vacationer Genevieve at Allison's inn and learns that Genevieve has bought and renovated the Lake Grove house.

Genevieve asks Jane to research the Lake Grove house's history, hoping to explain the ghost her son Benjamin has been speaking to.

Jane researches the Littleton family and learns that Samuel drowned offshore and a maid named Eliza Green lived with his widow Hannah.

Marilyn Martinson calls Jane back about the house but abruptly hangs up when Jane asks about someone whose name starts with D.

Jane, Genevieve, and Allison visit Camp Mira, where Clementine suggests the Lake Grove property may be haunted by more than one ghost.

Jane learns Genevieve secretly had the Lake Grove cemetery dug up to install a pool, and her boss confirms her termination is permanent.

Jane accepts a drink from a friend outside a bar and breaks three months of sobriety, spending the following weeks drinking every day.

Jane finds Marilyn Martinson's name on her grandmother's mortgage papers and then locates a death certificate for a girl named Daisy.

A box from Marilyn's friend Caitlin arrives with Mary's letter, revealing Mary's affair with Marilyn's husband and her alcohol use disorder.

Jane texts Allison an apology, leaves Daisy's message for Marilyn on voicemail, and drives to her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Jane Flanagan returns to her Maine hometown after her mother Shirley's death, carrying three months of sobriety and a career in crisis after an alcohol-related incident forced her on unpaid leave. She is hired by wealthy vacationer Genevieve to research the history of the Lake Grove house, a place Jane has felt mysteriously drawn to since adolescence. Her research reveals that Captain Samuel Littleton drowned offshore, leaving his wife Hannah and a maid named Eliza to run the household for decades. A series of blows—learning Genevieve destroyed the historic cemetery, receiving her termination notice, and seeing a troubling photo of her estranged husband David—send Jane back to drinking. She eventually connects a psychic's mysterious message to the tragic death of a girl named Daisy, and discovers that her grandmother's hidden history mirrors her own struggles with alcohol. After reading her grandmother's letter and receiving Holly's honest account, Jane attends her first AA meeting and begins building a new life centered on the women's history she has spent her career preserving.

The headline events of Jane's research, recovery, and reckoning.

Jane attends an Early Women Writers class at Bates College and becomes captivated by the idea of documenting women's stories as history.

Jane secretly visits the Lake Grove house almost every day, alone, until she leaves Awadapquit for college.

Jane introduces David to her family over Thanksgiving; Allison meets him and immediately tells Jane she should marry him.

Benjamin tells Genevieve about a ghost girl in his hidden room; Genevieve connects this to the flickering lights and marbles she keeps finding.

Jane walks her mother's dog past a coffee shop sign declaring the town stands on stolen Abenaki land and reflects on Indigenous erasure.

Jane and Holly clean Shirley's bedroom; Holly reveals that their grandmother had a long affair with a married man.

Jane visits Lydia Beazley's local historical society and reads Ethel Troy's history book, which erases Indigenous perspectives from local events.

Marilyn and Herbert Martinson buy the Lake Grove house on a whim after hearing two sisters left it to a distant relative.

Daisy discovers Hannah Littleton's letters and photograph in the hidden room; Marilyn and Daisy bury the inscribed ring in the family cemetery.

Jane visits Genevieve's renovated house and is surprised to discover that Benjamin's hidden bedroom still exists behind its secret door.

Eliza leaves the Shaker community at eighteen and takes a job in a Portland bonnet factory, shocked by the outside world's harshness.

Hannah and Eliza fall into a loving routine raising Fannie and James together; Hannah tells Eliza she loves her and they sleep together every night.

Jane writes her drinking history for the first time, tracing it from her freshman year of college through the work incident that ended her career.

Jane's mother's dog Walter returns home after three weeks missing; Jane has been drinking every day and hides a wine bottle when Allison visits.

Jane is directing the Lake Grove women's history museum and preparing a new Shaker women exhibit when Naomi Miller calls with a story.

Jane's passion for women's history begins in high school when an early women's writing course shows her that documenting overlooked lives can reshape the historical record. Her adult relationships—with David, Allison, and her sister Holly—give texture to her grief and her struggle with addiction, while her research uncovers the hidden lives of the Lake Grove house's previous occupants. Marilyn Martinson bought the house with her husband Herbert and filled it with creativity and heartbreak, while her daughter Daisy formed a deep bond with the house's history before her tragic death there. Eliza's life in the Shaker community and her eventual arrival at Hannah's household reveal a woman shaped by deprivation and radical kindness, who ultimately found love in an unconventional home. As Jane's drinking spirals, she hides it from Allison, loses track of Walter, and retreats into isolation before slowly beginning to piece her life back together. The novel ends with Jane directing a women's history museum at Lake Grove, embodying the very principle that first drew her to history: that women's stories deserve to be told.

The backstories, quieter discoveries, and secondary characters that fill out the story.

Jane overhears her professor describe her as a high-achieving, at-risk kid and breaks down crying on the bus ride home.

Evan at the Maine Historical Society shows Jane a crewman's letter detailing how Pembroke's men tricked and abducted four Abenaki men.

Daisy Martinson sneaks downstairs for the jar of marbles, trips on the shattered glass, and falls from the balcony, breaking her neck.

Marilyn Martinson returns to the Lake Grove house intending to die by suicide but wakes unexpectedly after taking sleeping pills in the barn.

On the ferry back from Camp Mira, Allison reveals she secretly paid for Jane's session with Clementine as a gift so Jane could speak with her mother.

Eliza confides in Hannah about her father's abandonment; the two women talk through the night and grow deeply closer.

Hannah discovers she is pregnant with Fannie; on Fannie's first birthday, Hannah kisses Eliza, which Eliza later describes as ecstasy.

The Providence sinks in rough seas just offshore while Hannah, Eliza, and the townspeople watch helplessly from the beach.

After Samuel is buried, Hannah takes Eliza's hand and asks her to stay; Eliza admits she never planned to leave.

Eliza dies of tuberculosis at age thirty-eight; Hannah buries her under a simple fieldstone engraved only with Sister Eliza.

Jane wakes to find David at her door in the middle of the night; he plays back her drunken voicemails in which she screamed she hated him.

David tells Jane he has been attending Al-Anon meetings and needs to focus on himself; Jane realizes their marriage is ending.

Holly tells Jane that their grandmother Mary had an alcohol use disorder and that Shirley kept this secret so Jane would have someone to admire.

Jane visits Allison's mother Betty, who no longer recognizes her, and resolves that she still has the chance to start her life over.

Naomi Miller receives a package from her cousin Barbara containing the long-lost story of an Abenaki woman named Kanti.

From an overheard insult that first crystallizes Jane's sense of being an outsider, to the discovery that four Abenaki men were abducted by the British explorer credited with discovering her hometown, this pool traces the moments that change how characters understand themselves and their world. Marilyn Martinson's life pivots on two devastating events—her daughter Daisy's accidental death and her own failed suicide attempt—that reshape everything that follows. Eliza's hidden love story with Hannah moves through its own turning points: the growing intimacy between two lonely women, the shipwreck that seals their bond forever, and Eliza's quiet death and burial in near-unmarked ground. In the present day, confrontations with David's played-back voicemails, Allison's secretly arranged gift, and Holly's long-kept family secret all force Jane to see her history and herself in a new light. The pool closes with Naomi Miller receiving a package that holds the key to Awadapquit's Indigenous history—a story of loss and endurance that has been waiting to be told for centuries.

The pivotal revelations and emotional turning points that drive the story's transformation.