Enzo, a petty thief and con artist, lives in Rome and makes a living through illegal activities. Fleeing from the police after a robbery, Enzo hides on an old barge on the Tiber River, beneath which barrels of chemicals were stored. After swallowing some of that nasty stuff, he crawls home barely alive, only to discover the next morning that he has incredible strength.
Jack Spade returns from the army to his home neighborhood, where his brother, June Bug, was killed. Jack declares war on Mr. Big, the local mob boss. Jack’s army will be led by his childhood idol, John Slade—a man with vast experience fighting the bad guys.
Designer Jen Morrow and composer Brad Allen, who share the same phone number, have never met, but they can’t stand each other. Brad constantly keeps the line busy, playing the same tune over and over for his numerous admirers, while Jen, forced to listen to it all, is unable to make or receive calls, so she gets upset and complains to the phone company. Millionaire Jonathan Forbes is unsuccessfully courting Jen; as it happens, he is also Brad’s friend and sponsor. One day, he tells Brad about his girlfriend and the crazy guy she has to share a phone number with, and the womanizing composer realizes he’s talking about him. The description of the unfriendly woman on the other end of the line intrigues him, and when he accidentally runs into Jen at a restaurant and recognizes her voice, he decides to try to woo her by pretending to be someone else.
Twenty years ago, journalist Andy Sachs worked as an assistant to Miranda Priestly, editor of the fashion magazine *Runway*. Now, as traditional newspapers and magazines are in decline due to new technologies, her entire department is being downsized, and she loses her job. When Andy receives an offer from the publisher to return to the magazine’s editorial office, she accepts. The still-tough Miranda must once again deal with her creative assistant, and together they try to save *Podium* and stand up to the onslaught of Emily Charlton—another former assistant who now holds an important position at one of the fashion houses and is trying to take advantage of the decline of the print media.
Life in Madagascar, fraught with danger, did not live up to the expectations of the animals—Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippo—and the friends decide to escape from the island. By chance, the whole group ends up in Africa, where Alex reunites with his family, from whom he was separated as a cub. To his surprise, Alex realizes that after living in the zoo, he has much less in common with his relatives than he would have liked...
After their first date, due to circumstances beyond their control, the mutual attraction between Bee and Ben quickly turns to hatred. Six months later, they’re invited to a wedding, and Bee and Ben are once again forced to put up with each other. This time, however, for personal reasons, they decide to call a truce and pretend to be a couple.
Barnabas Collins, the owner of Collinvood Manor, is rich, powerful, and reputed to be an incorrigible Casanova—until he makes a fateful mistake by breaking Angelique Bouchard’s heart. A witch in the literal sense of the word, she condemns him to a fate worse than death—turning him into a vampire and burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is accidentally freed from the crypt and finds himself in the vastly changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood and finds the once-majestic mansion in ruins. The pitiful descendants of his family are in little better shape than the family estate, and each of them has their own skeletons in the closet.
The story takes place in the summer of 1979 in Santa Barbara. Dorothea Fields is raising her teenage son, Jamie, and trying to give him the very best. She draws her maternal wisdom from her relationships with two women: Abby, a photographer immersed in the punk movement who has returned to her family home, and Julie, a smart, mischievous 16-year-old and a friend of Dorothea’s son. Each of them plays a role in shaping Jamie’s journey into manhood.
After his mother’s death, Oliver learns some unexpected news from his father. It turns out his father had been gay his whole life. He realized this as a teenager, but due to the prejudices of the time, he was forced to get married. And now he plans to change and start his life over. New clothes, new friends, new hobbies, new love.
