1787, France. While investigating a series of mysterious murders, Joseph Guillotin - the future inventor of the world famous ‘Guillotine’ - uncovers an unknown virus: the Blue Blood. The disease quickly spreads amongst the French aristocracy, driving them to murder ordinary people and soon leads to a rebellion.

Summer 1996. A small town nestled in the shadow of a gigantic factory. Ben, a shy eleven year old boy, lives there alone with his mom when she leaves him to strike. The coming of the troubling Eva in his bunch disturbs him a little bit more, especially when she mentions the legend of a mysterious creature hidden under a nearby lake's pontoon. As a game, Eva challenges Ben: walk through the "pontoon of the death", and come back. But Ben fails miserably. At night, the Creature appears to him.

In the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of France, taken to the hospital for a broken leg from an accident, twelve-year-old Maurice Gutman is narrowly spared from the mass roundup that will take his family from him and leave them imprisoned in a distant death camp. At the hospital, Dr. Daviel diagnoses him with tuberculosis and imposes a long treatment, perhaps a humane ruse to prevent him from being deported. Over the course of two years, while living with the hospital staff, Maurice and eight other young boarders unforgettably experience friendship, solidarity and extraordinary courage. These are the children of luck.

Vincent Machot knows his life by heart. He shares it between his hair dressing salon, his cousin, his cat, and his too-invasive mother. But life sometimes holds surprises, even for the most prudent of people... He crosses paths with Rosalie Blum by accident. She is a mysterious and solitary woman whom he is sure he has already met. But where? Intrigued, he decides to follow her everywhere, in the hope of knowing more about her.

In a country where women are in charge, a man goes to unusual lengths to make his dream of marrying the daughter of a military leader come true.

Since his beloved violin was broken, Nasser-Ali Khan, one of the most renowned musicians of his day, has lost all taste for life. Finding no instrument worthy of replacing it, he decides to confine himself to bed to await death.