This is the true story of an American expatriate who came of age in the vibrant city of Beirut, Lebanon, once known as the Paris of the Middle East. But in 1975 a civil war breaks out, and her expatriate family are caught in the crosshairs. After her sister is shot and her father kidnapped, the devastating violence forces them to leave. Cynthia is traumatized by what has happened to her family, and becomes determined to find out what has destroyed the country they loved.

On this quest to understand the reasons behind the demise of multicultural Beirut, Cynthia moves to Paris, France in 1984. A former journalist at CBS News, Cynthia has left the news business to write an in-depth book about the fate of Lebanon. Believing the truth can best be told via the story of another woman, Cynthia sets out to convince Georgina Rizk to collaborate with her to tell her tragic tale to the world. Because of Georgina's involvement with multiple sides of the war, Georgina is fatefully qualified for this task. She is also the only Arab woman to ever win the Miss Universe contest. But none of that glamour has spared her. By age 30 she is a widow, and a refugee, struggling to raise her small son on her own in France.

Through a series of tumultuous love affairs, friendships and fraught encounters with Georgina in the City of Light, Cynthia comes to realize that by trying to tell another woman's story, she needs to face the hardest truths about her own.