It's 1913, and Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, in her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie's running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection, the typically risk-adverse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage.