This his­tor­i­cal nov­el traces the jour­ney from Por­tu­gal to Ger­many, via France and Italy, of Isabela, a four­teen-year-old New Chris­t­ian, or Con­ver­so. She lives with her par­ents in Abrantes, Por­tu­gal, work­ing along­side her moth­er, a pro­fes­sion­al seam­stress. Isabela is not privy to their past lives as Jews, hav­ing been raised as a faith­ful, church-going Christian.

The two women embroi­der fab­rics for the church’s vest­ments and wealthy clients who have been rec­om­mend­ed by their Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty leader, Padre Alvaro. He has become obsessed with active­ly seek­ing out New Chris­tians who may be heretics secret­ly prac­tic­ing bits of their Judaism passed down from pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions. Alvaro is sus­pi­cious of every­one and threat­ens the pun­ish­ments of hang­ing in the pub­lic square or burn­ing at the stake.

Isabela’s father, Gabriel de Cas­tro Nunez, has qui­et­ly left their home to try to estab­lish a safe haven for his wife and daugh­ter, using his work as a trav­el­ing busi­ness­man as an excuse. When Isabela’s moth­er dies from a pan­dem­ic sweep­ing the city, Isabela is left alone to pro­vide for her­self by con­tin­u­ing to embroi­der for the church, with only her best friend, David de Sousa, who has had to replace his father as the head of his house­hold. David, aware of the dan­ger posed by his family’s Jew­ish past, tries to con­vince the New Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty to flee the Inqui­si­tion. His moth­er has become a devout Chris­t­ian who refus­es to leave, and he takes on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tect­ing his two younger sisters.

David uses a secret net­work of sym­pa­thet­ic and char­i­ta­ble Chris­tians who are against the laws of the Inqui­si­tion to escape toward safe­ty through a sys­tem of safe refuges. Isabela uses her sewing skills to cre­ate signs with secret sym­bols alert­ing oth­ers about safe­ty or dan­ger. He and Isabela trav­el on sep­a­rate jour­neys, pray­ing to meet up soon some­where viable. 

The author names many peo­ple and places, and has pro­vid­ed a map of the routes tak­en by var­i­ous char­ac­ters and a descrip­tion of exact­ly who they are. 

In addi­tion, the epi­logue describes the author’s per­son­al con­nec­tion to this his­tor­i­cal peri­od. She delved into genealog­i­cal research and found an ances­tor born in the same town as Isabela in 1586, who died in Ham­burg in 1655. This sparked the author’s cre­ativ­i­ty as she fol­lowed the trail to many of the places so rich­ly depict­ed in her writing. 

This sto­ry about an extreme­ly dif­fi­cult peri­od five hun­dred years ago is rel­e­vant to today’s reli­gious and polit­i­cal cli­mate. The cur­rent news about the fate of refugees and move­ments of pop­u­la­tions through­out the world includes affect­ed Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties. There are lessons to be learned about com­pas­sion — for both one’s own peo­ple and strangers — and about risk­ing one’s per­son­al safe­ty in order to help oth­ers sur­vive in exceed­ing­ly chal­leng­ing times.