Having grown up in San Francisco with her brilliant neuroscientist father, Elise Brinkley has absorbed a faith from her father and her environment that this life is all there is. And although her life is perfect in many ways and unperturbed by doubt, her faith in her way of thinking is challenged through her experiences with her friend Joy. She finds herself wondering if there is more than just the material world. Then she is swept up in a romance with the handsome and enigmatic Tino. However, Tino is not all he appears to be. Elise's world comes crashing down around her in the space of a few hours. Through the ordeal she embraces a hard-won appreciation that there is a Source outside ourselves for the good, the true, and the beautiful, in our lives.