Helen Watt receives a call requesting she examine old documents found during renovations in a historic Richmond house.

Helen enlists a young American graduate student named Aaron Levy to help her review the fragile documents.

Helen and Aaron identify letters written by the notable scholar Rabbi HaCoen Mendes among the hidden documents.

Helen discovers a letter revealing that Rabbi Mendes's scribe was a young Jewish woman named Velasquez.

Ester Velasquez begins scribing for Rabbi Mendes after her brother Isaac abandons the household and runs away.

Helen's university purchases the documents after the Sotheby's assessor fails to notice the Spinoza connection.

Aaron discovers a cross-written personal manifesto hidden within one of the letters, written in the scribe's handwriting.

Ester secretly begins composing her own philosophical letters, signing them with the male pseudonym Thomas Farrow.

A competing scholar named Wilton and his team are granted access to the documents, threatening Helen and Aaron's progress.

Plague sweeps London, Rabbi Mendes dies, and Ester stays behind to care for Mary rather than flee.

Wilton publishes a scholarly article revealing major findings from the documents before Helen and Aaron can.

Ester and Rivka convert to Christianity to escape a hostile mob, then flee London by boat.

Helen and Aaron discover records showing Ester married a man named HaLevy and moved to Richmond with the documents.

Helen and Aaron pry open a wall panel in the Richmond house and discover a hidden folio of Ester's writings.

Helen dies, apparently by suicide; Aaron finds her letter entrusting Ester's documents and discoveries to him.

In late 2000, British historian Helen Watt discovers a cache of seventeenth-century documents in a Richmond house and enlists graduate student Aaron Levy to investigate. Together they identify letters by the blind Rabbi HaCoen Mendes and make the astonishing discovery that his scribe was a young Jewish woman named Ester Velasquez. As their research races against time and a rival scholar named Wilton, they learn that Ester secretly wrote philosophy under a male pseudonym during the London plague of 1665. Ester nurses both Rabbi Mendes and her friend Mary through their deaths, escapes the city with her housekeeper Rivka, and builds a new life in Richmond by marrying Alvaro HaLevy. Helen and Aaron eventually discover a hidden folio of Ester's writings tucked inside the walls of the very house where the original documents were found. Helen, at peace with Ester's legacy, chooses to end her own life on her own terms, leaving the work and her discoveries to Aaron.

The core story of two historians uncovering a hidden Jewish woman scholar.

An unnamed narrator in Richmond declares they will record a long-hidden truth that no one may ever read.

Rabbi Mendes writes a letter to Menasseh ben Israel describing his hopeful arrival in London with two orphaned siblings.

Ester searches the docks for her brother Isaac, who refuses to return and is later killed in a street fight.

Two wealthy brothers, Manuel and Alvaro HaLevy, begin visiting Rabbi Mendes's household as students.

Mary da Costa Mendes and her ailing mother ask Ester to serve as Mary's paid companion around London.

Ester confides to Mary the story of her grandmother Lizabeta's forbidden affair with an English Christian man.

Aaron accuses Helen of acting like a colonialist toward Jewish history; Helen reveals she once loved a Jewish man.

Rabbi Mendes tells Ester she must stop scribing for him and should marry, for her own good.

Ester and Mary attend the theatre and meet the actor Thomas Farrow and his companion John Tilbury.

Alvaro HaLevy is publicly caught with another man; his furious father arranges to have him sent away to sea.

Mary confesses she is pregnant with Thomas Farrow's child as Thomas drunkenly nearly capsizes their Thames boat.

Mary dies of plague in London, and Ester falls gravely ill before Rivka nurses her back to health.

Rivka shocks Ester by revealing she is literate and has known about Ester's secret writing all along.

Ester calls out to an angry mob that she will donate the house to the church, winning her and Rivka's escape.

Alvaro HaLevy returns to England and marries Ester in Richmond as the Great Fire of London burns nearby.

The novel's second layer of events traces the people and circumstances surrounding both Ester in seventeenth-century London and the modern historians uncovering her story. From Rabbi Mendes's hopeful arrival in England to Ester's complicated relationships with Mary da Costa Mendes, the HaLevy brothers, and the English actor John Tilbury, these events reveal the constrained social world Ester navigated. Her family history, including her grandmother Lizabeta's forbidden affair with an Englishman, shapes her deep distrust of love and desire, while her friendship with Mary exposes the dangers women face when they follow their hearts. In the modern storyline, Aaron and Helen clash over questions of cultural ownership before growing into reluctant allies. The plague ultimately unravels every connection Ester had built in London—Mary dies, Ester falls gravely ill, and Rivka's hidden literacy is revealed—before Ester escapes and begins a new chapter by marrying Alvaro in Richmond during the Great Fire.

The supporting cast and subplots that shape Ester's world and the historians' journey.

Aaron notices the documents are marked with a small Hebrew initial, raising questions about the scribe's identity.

Aaron discovers a marginal note in the scribe's handwriting quoting the philosopher Spinoza within a letter.

Helen recalls her youthful romance with an Israeli man named Dror and her lasting regret at leaving him behind.

Ester burns a matchmaking letter without telling Rabbi Mendes, choosing to protect her access to intellectual work.

Ester secretly writes to Amsterdam asking whether it is permissible for anyone to correspond with the excommunicated Spinoza.

Ester invents a false theological crisis in Florence to persuade Rabbi Mendes to allow her to resume scribing.

Ester composes her first philosophical letter to Franciscus van den Enden, signing it with the name Thomas Farrow.

Helen and Aaron establish that the scribe Ester Velasquez wrote philosophical letters under the identity Thomas Farrow.

Ester receives a cautionary reply from Spinoza and writes back, refusing to temper her radical theological arguments.

Ester and John Tilbury share their first kiss during a day trip along the Thames into the countryside.

Ester initiates sex with John at his lodgings before he leaves London, but finds him strangely cold afterward.

Rabbi Mendes confesses on his deathbed that he always knew about Ester's secret writing and the invented Florence crisis.

Aaron receives a shocking email from Marisa revealing she is pregnant with his child and plans to raise it alone.

Helen collapses at the library and, while being helped up, finally reads the contents of the long-sealed document.

Aaron reads Ester's final confession and discovers evidence suggesting she may have been a granddaughter of William Shakespeare.

Pool 3 follows the pivotal turning points in both narratives: the clues that gradually reveal Ester's true identity to the modern historians, and the personal choices that define Ester's own evolution. Key revelations include a cryptic Spinoza quotation in the scribe's handwriting, the deduction that Ester wrote under the identity of Thomas Farrow, and her remarkable secret correspondence with Spinoza himself. In the historical timeline, Ester's decisions—burning a matchmaking letter, lying to Rabbi Mendes about a crisis in Florence, and finally surrendering to desire with John Tilbury—mark her transformation from a guarded, cerebral woman into someone who understands that desire is the animating force of all life. In the modern storyline, personal shocks such as Aaron learning of Marisa's pregnancy and Helen's collapse in the library force both historians to confront their own lives alongside Ester's. The pool closes with the discovery that Ester may have been a granddaughter of William Shakespeare, tying her defiant intellectual legacy to England's greatest literary figure.