The Englishwoman Gertrude Bell lived an extraordinary life. Her adventures are the stuff of novels: she rode with bandits; braved desert shamals; was captured by Bedouins; and sojourned in a harem. Called the most powerful woman in the British empire, she counselled kings and prime ministers. Bell's colleagues included Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, who in 1921 invited Bell - the only woman whose advice was sought - to the Cairo Conference to determine the future of Mesopotamia. Bell numbered among her closest friends T.E. Lawrence, St. John Philby and Arabian sheiks.

ANGELA has been trying to reunite her feuding grandmother and older sister all of her adult life. When her unmarried older sister, LISA, announced she was pregnant at only 19, a stormy argument ensued between LISA and their traditional Italian grandmother who had raised the two girls ever since their parents died tragically six years earlier. In the end, MARIA threw LISA out of the house, or did she? That was over 20 years ago and Angela has been trying to unite her family ever since. On the eve of DAVID'S 21st birthday, Angela finds herself nostalgic for the family she once knew. She makes...