Two young people and their dæmons, with everything at stake, find themselves at the centre of a terrifying manhunt. In their care is a tiny child called Lyra Belacqua, and in that child lies the fate of the future. And as the waters rise around them, powerful adversaries conspire for mastery of Dust: salvation to some, the source of infinite corruption to others.

In London for his daughter's wedding, a struggling jingle-writer, Harvey Shine, misses his plane to New York, and thus loses his job. While drowning his sorrows in the airport pub, Harvey meets Kate, a British government worker stuck in an endless cycle of work, phone calls from her mother, and blind dates. A connection forms between the unhappy pair, who soon find themselves falling in love.

Students Hayley and James are young and in love. After saying goodbye for Christmas at a London train station, they both make the same mad split-second decision to swap trains and surprise each other. Passing each other in the station, they are completely unaware that they have just swapped Christmases.

A pediatrician and an overseas doctor, meet at a wedding in Philadelphia, but the long distance, family, and their friends may hinder their budding romance.

With a house to sell and no time to be there in person, overworked TV producer Chris Ashworth is forced to leave his incompetent flatmate Bob to show real estate agents around the property. Knowing that Bob is not the most attentive flatmate, Chris tells him to show anyone that calls inside. When Chris finally returns home he finds that Bob has taken him at his word, literally. With four estate agents, some Jehovah's Witnesses, an incontinent American, a corpse and two armed gangsters, Chris's world may look like its falling in, but there's worse to come.