Yohanan Rivlin, an Israeli professor, is doing research on the Algerian civil war. When he acquires as a research assistant a newly-married young Arab woman, his interests begin to extend beyond Algeria to matters closer to home. Specifically, his curiosity leads him to a quest for the truth about his son's mysteriously failed marriage.

Maud Bailey is a scholar researching the life and work of her distant relative, a little known 19th-century poet named Christabel LaMotte. Roland Mitchell is looking into an obscure moment in the life of another Victorian poet, the celebrated Randolph Henry Ash. Together, the two uncover a dark secret in Ash's life: though apparently happily married, he conducted a torrid affair with LaMotte that has never before come to light. As Maud and Roland dig into the facts, they also find themselves falling in love. A.S. Byatt cleverly evokes the world of the Victorians, juxtaposing it to the dryer, less passionate lives of her modern-day protagonists. She also has created extremely convincing letters and love poetry, ostensibly by each of the poets. As the truth about the past emerges, it also illuminates the present--and changes it radically.