Hope Tantry arrives at cottage in England's pastoral Lake District where her mother, Ally, spent the last years of her life. Ally - one of a group of women who called themselves the Wednesday Sisters - had used the cottage while she worked on her unpublished biography of Beatrix Potter. Traveling with Hope are friends Anna Page and Julie, first introduced in The Wednesday Sisters, now grown women grappling with issues of a different era. Tucked away in a hidden drawer, Hope finds a stack of Ally's notebooks, written in a mysterious code. As she, Julie, and Anna Page try to decipher Ally's writings, they are forced to confront their own struggles: Hope's doubts her marriage, Julie's grief over her twin sister, Anna Page's fear of commitment.