At the age of eleven, Helena Frith Powell's mother gave her a letter after school. It was from her real father her mother told her, not the abusive and moody man Helena had always assumed was the one. This new father was glamorous, an Italian film maker, and he would like her to meet his family on a grand tour of Italy. The moving discovery of both Italy and relatives Helena never knew she had is wittily described in Ciao Bella, the memoir of her trip through Italy with her father. Giving advice on anything from Dante to sex, her father turns her from a shy young girl from Newbury into an adolescent with a dash of Italian confidence. In a new twist, her father receives a prestigious literary prize in 2008 at the age of 80 and is reunited with her mother - will it last?