Bishop’s Lynn, England, 1413. At the age of 40, Margery Kempe has nearly died giving birth to her 14th child. Fearing that another pregnancy might kill her, she makes a vow of celibacy, but she can’t trust her husband to keep his end of the bargain. Desperate for counsel, she visits the famous anchoress Dame Julian of Norwich. Pouring out her heart, Margery confesses that she has been haunted by visceral religious visions. Julian then offers up a confession of her own: she has written a secret, radical book about her own visions, Revelations of Divine Love. Nearing the end of her life and fearing Church authorities, Julian entrusts her precious book to Margery, who sets off on the adventure of a lifetime to secretly spread Julian's words.

Coming of age in the midst of a creative and cultural whirlwind in Vienna, young, beautiful Alma Schindler yearns to make her mark as a composer. A new era of possibility for women is dawning, and she is determined to make the most of it. But Alma loses her heart to the great composer Gustav Mahler, nearly 20 years her senior. He demands that she give up her music as a condition of their marriage. Torn by her love and in awe of his genius, how will she remain true to herself and her artistic passion?

Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy, but a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything. They begin secretly writing comedies together and fall in love, but their collaborative affair comes to a devastating end. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense and in defense of all women.

Offered to the Church at the age of eight, Hildegard von Bingen was entombed in a small room where she was expected to live out her days in silent submission. Instead, she found comfort and grace in studying books, growing herbs, and rejoicing in her own secret visions of the divine. Some 30 years later, Hildegard broke out of her prison with the heavenly calling to speak and write about her visions and to liberate her sisters and herself from the soul-destroying anchorage.

Bess Southerns, an impoverished widow living in Pendle Forest, is haunted by visions and gains a reputation as a cunning woman. Drawing on the Catholic folk magic of her youth, Bess heals the sick and foretells the future. As she ages, she instructs her granddaughter, Alizon, in her craft. When a peddler suffers a stroke after exchanging harsh words with Alizon, a local magistrate, eager to make his name as a witch finder, plays neighbors and family members against one another until suspicion and paranoia reach frenzied heights.