8-year-old Vicky has a mysterious gift: she can recreate any scent she comes across, even that of her beloved mother Joanne. When her estranged aunt Julia suddenly returns to town, the invocation of her fragrance plunges the young girl back in time to unravel a past replete with family secrets.
A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card. Chaos follows when his parents arrive in New York for the wedding.
In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.
Khaila Richards, a crack-addicted single mother, accidentally leaves her baby in a dumpster while high and returns the next day in a panic to find he is missing. In reality, the baby has been adopted by a warm-hearted social worker, Margaret Lewin, and her husband, Charles. Years later, Khaila has gone through rehab and holds a steady job. After learning that her child is still alive, she challenges Margaret for the custody.
A dashing Mississippi river gambler wins the affections of the daughter of the owner of the Show Boat.
College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.
Verona and Burt have moved to Colorado to be close to Burt's parents but, with Verona expecting their first child, Burt's parents inexplicably decide to move to Belgium, now leaving them in a place they hate and without a support structure in place. They set off on a whirlwind tour of of disparate locations where they have friends or relatives, sampling not only different cities and climates but also different families. Along the way they realize that the journey is less about discovering where they want to live and more about figuring out what type of parents they want to be.
After his father leaves home for another woman, 16-year-old Martial has to move with his mother, Sabine, to a more modest apartment. Martial finds it difficult to fit in his new life. His mother offers to help him, but she only makes the situation worse. Martial then forms a bond with two twin sisters his own age, with whom he has a series of exciting and disturbing experiences.
A prison guard begins a tentative romance with the unsuspecting widow of a man whose execution he presided over.
A British engineer in India takes a simple native girl as his bride, an act which defies social strictures and leads to tragedy.
A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He's quite rightly worried that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse.
In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.
In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
When his girlfriend leaves for New York City on a 3-month-long internship, a strongly opinionated Berkeley arthouse movie theater manager begins exploring life as a bachelor.
Determined to leave the ravages of war behind, 38 year old Gian Singh resigns from the British Indian Army to a quiet life. His world is soon thrown in turmoil, when he suddenly finds himself responsible for the life of a 17 year old girl, traumatized by the events that separated her from her family.
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.
A white female detective is partnered with a black male detective to find the person who is committing a series of particularly vicious murders. During the course of the investigation the two begin to develop an attraction to each other, but the situation is complicated by the fact that he is married.
Living in the liminal space between worlds, two young women find themselves falling in love for the first time, while also being forced to unexpectedly confront their families, each complicated by legacies of love and loss.
The duty manager of a seaside cinema, who is struggling with her mental health, forms a relationship with a new employee on the south coast of England in the 1980s.
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.