Tess is fed up; she can no longer endure her life in a loveless marriage and impulsively boards a train to somewhere. Guided by an uncertain feeling, she gets off in Mannheim and finds her first anchor point at the 'Goldene Gans'. Quickly, she grows fond of Mannheim and its approachable residents. This affection deepens when she discovers an old Bible at her new workplace, a bookstore with an attached antiquarian shop in a Mannheim suburb, which contains clues to a hidden treasure of the former Huguenot community in Friedrichsfeld. Together with her current treasure, her friend Marcus, and her boss, the bookseller Philipp Decreux, she embarks on a quest and learns a great deal about the tumultuous history of the Huguenots and the Kurpfalz shortly after the upheavals of the Reformation, as well as about her own feelings and her place in life. And she finds what she is looking for. 'The Treasure of the Mannheim Huguenots' is a multifaceted debut that combines local color with subtle personal development.