When writer's block derails the literary dreams of Olly Pickering, he has to move in with his friend Murray after losing all his money. Things start to look up when Olly's college pal James asks him to be the best man at his wedding. Prior to the nuptials, Olly is drawn to a woman whom he thinks is the bride's sister -- only she turns out to be the bride, Sarah. Can Murray, who dislikes James, help get Sarah and Olly together?
Xie Lijun, a young married woman, is bored by her husband Wang Qiping and attracted to Chen Mengtian, a superficially more appealing and apparently richer man. Chen tells her not to worry if her husband discovers their involvement: he will simply have a lawyer friend start divorce proceedings.
A dance band leader finds love and success in Brazil.
Catherine is a teenager going through adolescence just as her parents are getting a divorce. Her social life is no better as bullies and boys add to the pressure of growing up in the chaotic '90s.
A young woman named Savannah Knoop spends six years pretending to be a transgender writer named JT Leroy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law.
Daniel, a writer seeking seclusion to work on his new book, finds himself stranded at a rural bed and breakfast run by a strange and prudish young woman and her ailing, wheelchair-bound husband who remains shut in his room all day. As night falls, a psychotic, razor-wielding killer begins stalking the bed and breakfast, brutally slashing the throats of its most sex-crazed guests, whose bodies and luggage then mysteriously disappear the following morning...
The story of writer Xiao Hong comes alive through memories of her great love affair, literary influence and escape from China during World War II.
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Deprived of a normal childhood by her ambitious mother, Lillian Roth becomes a star of Broadway and Hollywood before she is twenty. Shortly before her marriage to her childhood sweetheart, David Tredman, he dies and Lillian takes her first drink of many down the road of becoming an alcoholic.
Don Birnam, a long-time alcoholic, has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last - one way or another.
The story of a Jewish novelist, Harry Lesser, struggling to complete his latest work, and his antagonistic relationship with a black writer who moves in down the hall.
A soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character in his own show.
A seedy writer of sleazy pulp novels is recruited by a quirky, reclusive ex-actor to help him write his biography at his house in Malta.
Nora Moran, a young woman with a difficult and tragic past, is sentenced to die for a murder that she did not commit. She could easily reveal the truth and save her own life, if only it would not damage the lives, careers and reputations of those whom she loves.
The coquettish granddaughter of a respected small-town judge is stranded at a bootleggers’ hide-out, subjected to an act of nightmarish sexual violence, and plunged into a criminal underworld that threatens to swallow her up completely.
An investigative reporter romances a suspected smuggler's daughter.
Bootlegger/cafe owner, Johnny Franks recruits crude working man Scorpio to join his gang, masterminded by crooked criminal defense lawyer Newton. Scorpio eventually takes over Frank's operation, beats a rival gang, becomes wealthy, and dominates the city for several years until a secret group of six masked businessmen have him prosecuted and sent to the electric chair.
Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. There she falls in love with dancer Guy Holden, whom she later mistakes for the corespondent her lawyer hired.
A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?
A trio of former sideshow performers double as the "Unholy Three" in a scam to nab some shiny rocks.