Susan Carol Davis

A shy boy is unable to make friends in Yazoo City, Mississippi in 1942, until his parents give him a terrier puppy for his ninth birthday. The dog, which he names Skip, becomes well known and loved throughout the community and enriches the life of the boy, Willie, as he grows into manhood.

Ruby and her husband Claude are a working-class couple who live in suburban Arkansas. As crazy as they are for each other, their relationship is far from harmonious. (The lack of money doesn't help matters, either.) In fact, their whole family is fraught with unresolved conflicts. Then Claude's uncle is arrested on a felony charge, and everyone rallies round. Ruby's mother Jewel and flirtatious sister Rose (Claude's ex-girlfriend) even fly in from Tennessee; but, far from being a source of support, Jewel seems only to want to break up Ruby and Claude.

A convicted killer races to prove conspirators framed him for his girlfriend's murder.

Latchkey kids lose touch when one of them moves away, only to reconnect years later without realizing it, having changed their names to escape their pasts. Once they realize who each other are; they are able heal the wounds of their pasts.

Cassandra Berry brings music to public park stages, to worshiping congregations, to neighborhood bars and to many places in between. Her family's legacy of song knows no boundaries, no racial divide or no age that's too young or too old. Mother Jerusha Smith wraps every day and every person in prayer. Together they sing out and the take away? The world listens.

Looking down on her friends and family isn't a way of life for Mary Alice Young... it's a way of death. One day, in her perfect house, in the loveliest of suburbs, Mary Alice ended it all. Now she's taking us into the lives of her family, friends and neighbors, commenting from her elevated P.O.V.

Adrian Monk was once a rising star with the San Francisco Police Department, legendary for using unconventional means to solve the department's most baffling cases. But after the tragic (and still unsolved) murder of his wife Trudy, he developed an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now working as a private consultant, Monk continues to investigate cases in the most unconventional ways.

The close-knit Walker family deals with struggles and triumphs.