Opaline sells her beloved first-edition David Copperfield to fund her escape from an arranged marriage set up by her brother Lyndon.

Martha flees her abusive husband and secures a live-in housekeeping job with the eccentric Madame Bowden at 12 Ha'penny Lane in Dublin.

Henry travels from England to Dublin to track down a mysterious vanished bookshop and a lost Emily Brontë manuscript mentioned in a 1920s letter.

Opaline walks into Shakespeare and Company in Paris and is hired as an apprentice rare-book dealer by the shop's owner, Sylvia Beach.

Martha and Henry find a 1920s photograph online that identifies Opaline as a shop assistant at Shakespeare and Company, revealing her real surname.

Lyndon kidnaps Opaline in Paris intending to force her into marriage, but Armand witnesses the abduction and rescues her.

Opaline arrives in Dublin, learns Mr. Fitzpatrick has died, and takes over his empty shop, transforming it into a rare bookshop.

Shane arrives drunk and violent at Madame Bowden's house and falls backwards down the stairs to his death.

Opaline discovers a hidden catch in Charlotte Brontë's sewing box that reveals a small notebook containing pages of an unfinished manuscript.

Lyndon commits Opaline to the Connacht District Lunatic Asylum against her will, claiming she is insane and dangerous.

Opaline gives birth inside the asylum and is told her baby died; Lyndon secretly sells the living child to a childless couple.

Martha and Henry break into the Connacht District Lunatic Asylum's records room and escape with Opaline's patient file.

Opaline escapes the asylum after eighteen years of confinement by threatening the corrupt doctor with a knife held to her own throat.

Opaline confronts Lyndon, who reveals he is her father and that her daughter survived; Lyndon then dies by suicide.

Martha and Henry piece together that Martha's grandmother Rose was Opaline's stolen daughter, linking the two storylines across generations.

Three storylines converge around a mysterious Dublin bookshop and a lost manuscript, beginning when Opaline Carlisle flees an arranged marriage in 1920s London and eventually establishes a rare bookshop in Dublin. In contemporary Dublin, Martha escapes her abusive husband and finds refuge as Madame Bowden's housekeeper, while Henry arrives from England to search for the very bookshop Opaline once ran. Opaline's journey is dominated by her cruel brother Lyndon, who kidnaps her in Paris and later commits her to an asylum for eighteen years, secretly selling the baby she delivers there. In the present, Martha and Henry chase clues through photographs and asylum records, gradually uncovering the full arc of Opaline's tragic life. Their investigation culminates in the revelation that Opaline's stolen daughter was Martha's grandmother, making Martha her great-granddaughter and the bookshop's rightful heir.

The headline events driving Opaline's and Martha's interconnected stories.

Opaline meets a charming Moroccan rare-book dealer named Armand Hassan on the ship crossing from England to Paris.

Opaline buys a rare Poe translation from a Paris bookseller and unexpectedly runs into Armand again, who gives her his calling card.

Madame Bowden tells Martha that a dinner guest once walked through a door expecting to find the house and instead entered a bookshop that then vanished.

Opaline begins a love affair with Armand in Paris despite recognising him as simultaneously charming and arrogant.

Henry takes Martha to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College and tells her that she already belongs there.

A Place Called Lost mysteriously appears on a shelf formed by tree roots growing through the wall of Martha's basement apartment.

Opaline transforms her Dublin shop into a bookshop and adopts the pseudonym Miss Gray, borrowed from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Opaline travels to England and finds a publisher's letter confirming that Emily Brontë was working on a second novel before her death.

Henry returns to England and breaks off his engagement with Isabelle after realising his feelings belong to Martha.

Opaline realises she is pregnant with Armand's child while living alone above her Dublin bookshop.

Martha attends Shane's funeral and her previously nonspeaking mother declares aloud for the first time that she is glad Shane is dead.

Opaline befriends a fellow patient named Mary inside the asylum, who convinces her to keep hoping and survive her grief.

Martha's mother visits Madame Bowden's house and reveals that Martha's grandmother Rose was adopted as a baby by a couple named the Clohessys.

Josef Wolffe, an Austrian prisoner of war allowed to leave his camp for college, enters Opaline's bookshop and brings her food and candles on Christmas Eve.

Josef returns to Dublin years after the war and hands Opaline the first-edition David Copperfield that her father had once given her.

While the main plot follows dramatic kidnappings and revelations, a quieter set of events defines who Opaline, Martha, and Henry truly are. Opaline's story is shaped by her complicated romance with the charming but self-serving book dealer Armand, her growing passion for finding Emily Brontë's lost second novel, and the slow discovery that she is carrying his child. Martha's journey involves learning to accept care from Madame Bowden and Henry, attending college for the first time, and confronting the grief she carries after Shane's death and her mother's long silence. Henry's arc moves through his broken engagement, a painful reunion with his alcoholic father, and his deepening partnership with Martha. Together, these events show three people slowly building the courage and connection they need to claim the lives they deserve.

The supporting relationships and moments that shape the three protagonists' journeys.

Opaline returns home to her Paris apartment and finds her brother Lyndon's distinctive walking cane by the door, revealing he has tracked her down.

Martha discovers she has always inexplicably received lines from an unknown story in her mind and felt compelled to tattoo them on her back.

Henry's phone rings during an intimate conversation with Martha, and she discovers he is engaged to another woman, causing her to pull away.

A copy of Dracula falls repeatedly off a shelf in Opaline's new bookshop, and she accepts this as a sign she must read it.

Martha reads a passage in A Place Called Lost about a woman paralysed at a fork in the road and concludes that choosing not to act is itself a choice.

Henry admits his feelings for Martha and they share their first kiss; she immediately rushes off to register for a college course.

Henry visits his father at an alcoholism rehabilitation centre and receives a genuine apology for years of neglect and abuse.

Opaline tells Armand she has found the Brontë manuscript; he demands she hand it over, and she refuses, sending him away furiously.

Madame Bowden interrogates Henry about his intentions toward Martha, and he declares passionately that he wants to spend his life making her smile.

Opaline discovers that a letter she wrote to Sylvia has vanished from her apartment, suggesting Lyndon has found her Dublin location.

Henry finds a letter published in an Irish newspaper by Opaline's friend Jane begging readers to help free a woman unjustly held in an asylum.

Martha shows Henry the book A Place Called Lost, and he shows her a photograph of Opaline's skirt embroidered with words that match Martha's tattoo.

Martha admits she loves Henry and they fully reconcile; she shows him the entire story of Brontë's lost manuscript tattooed across her back.

Martha and Henry find Madame Bowden's farewell note hidden in the attic and discover a concealed door leading to a spiral staircase.

Martha climbs the hidden staircase and finds that Opaline's bookshop has appeared in place of the house, waiting for her to claim it.

Beneath the surface of the plot lies a series of charged moments in which characters discover uncomfortable truths, make brave choices, or are forced to confront the people they have become. Opaline must recognise that Armand will never truly see her as an equal, and that her brother has been hunting her all along; her refusal to surrender the Brontë manuscript is the moment she fully chooses herself. Martha's arc turns on her slow recognition that she has been paralysed by fear—of Shane, of love, of books—and that every hesitation is itself a decision. Henry must confront his father, his fiancée, and his own ego before he can understand what he really came to Dublin to find. Together these turning points reveal that the bookshop, the manuscript, and even Madame Bowden herself are instruments of a deeper magic, one that rewards characters only when they are finally ready to be found.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that change everything for each character.