Lisa Quinn, who suffers from severe clinical depression, controlled with medication, comes from an affluent family and enjoys a trust fund set up by her father who committed suicide when she was a young girl. She is a successful interior designer and engaged to be married. With the world seemingly at her feet, why would she commit suicide? Mariah Winters, born and raised in the mid-west, is a young woman who has struggled with mild depression and financial problems during her youth. Her depression was brought on when she was a teenager, and her mother was killed in an automobile accident. Unable to cope with his grief, her father becomes an alcoholic. After Mariah leaves home to go to college, her father realizes that he is ruining his life and hurting Mariah with his drinking problem. He joins AA and eventually meets and falls in love with a younger woman. They marry and have a son. Mariah finds success and happiness as an interior designer, and with Lisa, with whom she becomes friendly at design school, they become partners in a decorating business in Lisa's hometown of Benton, Massachusetts. This is a story about suspense and romance. But, without getting too clinical, it also tells about the illness of depression, and how it affects people in different ways. Lisa suffers from clinical depression, while Mariah has had bouts of depression brought on by events in her life, over which she had no control.