Anastasia Steele, an English literature major at Washington State University, agrees to interview for the college newspaper a billionaire, Christian Grey, as a favour to her roommate, Kate Kavanagh. During the interview, Christian Grey takes an interest in Anastasia. Soon after it, he visits the hardware store where Anastasia works and offers her to do a photo shoot to accompany the article for which Anastasia had interviewed him. Later, Grey invites her to a cafe and also sends her first edition copies of two Thomas Hardy novels, including Tess of the d'Urbervilles, with a quote from the latter book about the dangers of relationships, on an accompanying card. His pursuing eventually brings a result - Anastasia and Grey start dating. In the course of their troubled relationship Anastasia slowly comes to uncover Grey's troubled past and realises that he is not good for any woman, let alone for himself. Although, she enjoys the bondage sex with Grey, she feels that she has to make a step that will take her all her strength and courage, for Christian Grey is a very dangerous man.

In 1969, an aging priest suffering from early onset dementia, a struggling African American female singer, a talkative salesman on vacation and an unfriendly young woman who may or may not be a hippie, arrive by chance on the same day at Lake Tahoe's "El Royale", a once glitzy but now rundown roadside motel lying on the very border between California and Nevada, and operated by a single troubled staff member who holds many dark secrets. Throughout the day, it becomes increasingly clear that almost no one there is exactly who they seem, but things really go from bad to worse in the evening when heavy rain hits and someone much worse than those inside arrives to find "a friend" and bring hell to all those unlucky enough to be there at the time.