Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
When the new managers of the Paris Opera House ignore their predecessors' warnings about the hideous 'Opera ghost' stalking the theatre, it is a fatal mistake. The Phantom haunts the imagination of the talented singer Christine Daae, appearing to her as the 'Angel of Music' - a disembodied voice, coaching her to sing as she never could before.
John, aged sixty, suffered a stroke and recovered fully, except in one respect: although he can see perfectly, he can no longer recognise faces, even his own reflection in a mirror.
Whenever Francesca touches a particular texture, she experiences a vivid emotion: denim = extreme sadness;
1932. The remains of a young American cartographer, listed as missing in action, are unearthed in a French field, and his devastated parents engage investigator Maisie Dobbs, hoping she can find the unnamed nurse whose love letters were among their late son's belongings.