The novel follows the adventures of four women who are forced to leave their Spanish convent for the outside world of threat, violence and passions; and two men who are pitted against each other in a fight to the death.

ETA leader Jaime Miró, along with friends Ricardo Mellado and Felix Carpio, escape from prison, but at the expense of many civilian lives during a sabotaged bull-running exhibit that was used as a distraction from the police.

Following the event, the Prime Minister assigns Colonel Ramón Acoca (head of the anti-ETA group GOE) to hunt down Jaime Miró; Acoca's wife and unborn child were killed in a Basque demonstration assisted by ETA and the Church, so when he suspects Jaime hiding in a convent, he decides to raid it by force despite the implications of it.

The Cistercian Convent of the Strict Observance just outside Ávila, where women of all backgrounds choose to live a life of solitude, worship, and fasting, is run by Reverend Mother Betina.

The latest member of the convent, Sister Lucia, is actually Lucia Carmine, the wealthy daughter of a Mafia Don who went to the convent as a means of escape after she murdered three men involved in her father's arrest, and plans to lie low for a few months before escaping to Switzerland to retrieve her father's offshore money.

Sister Megan was abandoned and was never claimed for adoption and opted to join the convent instead of becoming a maid, but longs to know who her real family is.

Lucia is determined to make it to the Swiss border without drawing suspicion, and plots to steal the golden cross, pawn it, and use the money to go to Switzerland.

The Prime Minister doubts that he was there in the first place and believes that Acoca is starting to get out of control, but continues to have the Colonel search for both Miró and the missing nuns, in order to avoid public's suspicion and critics about the brutality and raid to the convent done by his men for no obvious reason.

Meanwhile, Sister Teresa, nervous about leaving the convent after years of solitude, has become paranoid of everyone, including the men escorting her to the ETA hideout.

She sees a father pushing a baby stroller, and is anxious that is her fiancé and his child with his sister, but she tries to remind herself that the infant is supposed to be an adult by now.

During a business trip to Spain, the private jet they are travelling in crashes, killing everyone except Milo, Ellen, and Patricia.

Ellen convinces Milo that if they take Patricia, they will simply raise her before she comes of age and inherits everything and leave them with nothing, and they abandon her at a farm and claim that they are the only survivors.

She hires her chief of security, former detective Alan Tucker, to search for a baby abandoned in Avila, Spain, not telling him why.

Sister Teresa is slowly going insane, believing that the terrorists were hired by Raoul to kidnap her and take her back.

While everyone is sleeping, she leave the golden cross with Lucia and makes her way to Colonel Acoca's camp, informing them of their location, begging them not to let her go to her former fiancé.

Lucia is entertained with Rubio, who believes that she has been in the convent for ten years and does not know what the current state of the world is.

Jaime holds up a bank to get money to continue traveling, and Acoca nearly catches him if it were not for Megan, and he suspects Felix of betraying him.

Amparo tells him that one of their friends wants them to meet in the town square, and when he leaves, Megan overhears her calling Acoca, and saves him from getting caught by pretending to be an angry wife looking for her husband.

He persuades Megan to wait in France with his aunt until he is done fighting so they can marry, and she talks to Graciela about leaving the convent.

Sister Lucia as Lucía Maria Carmine, daughter of an Italian Mafia boss, lost everything when her father's business crumbled.

Sister Megan is a tomboy who was abandoned at a farm as a baby, but then brought to an orphanage because the farmers had no money to take care of her.

At the moment, Ellen see an opportunity in owning the Scott Industries so they left Patricia at the front door of a farmer in Avila.

The Sands of Time adaption starred James Brolin, Michael Nouri, Roddy McDowell, Deborah Raffin, Amanda Plummer, and Elizabeth Gracen.