In the Frederick Douglass Housing Projects, the name Butler is synonymous with drama. From the cigarette-selling grandmother, Ms. Pat, to little Ashanti, who can't seem to stay out of trouble, there's always something going on with the Butlers--especially Jada. With five kids by five men, Jada is the poster child for a failing system. But when Uncle Mookie comes home from prison and hooks back up with his old partner, Fish, Jada finds herself challenged as heir to the throne of ghetto antics.

Malika is a young, single mother living in public housing and trying to make the best out of what she has to work with, which isn't much. From educated parents who turned their backs on her for becoming a teenaged mother, to the older man who wants nothing to do with her or her son, to the gang-infested projects she tries to protect her son from, Malika has had it rough. Things finally start to look up for her when she meets a man named Teddy who promises to give her the world and make an honest woman of her. The only problem is that he s already married.

Gucci is back in New York and has become somewhat of a local celebrity thanks to her fiance Animal's new found success. Animal went from a street punk to a rising star in the music industry. Gucci is beyond thrilled when she finds out that his promotional tour will be bringing him back to New York, but what she doesn't know is that it's more than music bringing him back to the city he was once forced to flee.

After her apartment is mysteriously burned down, Tionna is relocated by the Section 8 program to a plush high rise in Upper Manhattan called The Marquis. Aside from the occasional drama with some of the girls in the building, Tionna is finally starting to pull her life together. But when a ghost from her past shows up, things suddenly become complicated.

And what would a Hood Rat novel be without Don B.? Between he and the artists signed to Big Dawg Entertainment, they have a total of five songs on the billboard top twenty charts, and the Don is making money hand over fist. He thinks that his life can't get any sweeter--until someone tries to take it. There goes the neighborhood.....again.