Few people realise that Faith Faber, seemingly an accomplished doctor is really a shy and insecure person. Her lack of confidence is not helped by the fact that she lives with her critical and overbearing mother, who has never come to terms with her own divorce and who does not approve of Faith’s engagement to the gregarious Jonty.

Faith is delighted to be offered a post at Teviotdale medical centre, one of the partners is on sick leave and soon she meets Pollyanna Smith, a hugely overweight young woman who yearns to be slim, something Faith can sympathise with as she herself has had a constant battle with food for most of her life. But nothing they try seems to help.... well, not Pollyanna anyway.

Will the course of love run smoothly? Will Faith accept who she really is? While her relationship explodes and she is faced with one of the biggest and most difficult diagnoses of her life, Faith discovers who her real friends are makes a huge decision of her own.