THE TEA HOUSE ON MULBERRY STREET (Sharon Owens)

Penny Stanley and her husband, Daniel, run Muldoon's Tea House in Belfast.  While she longs for beauty and a family, he saves every penny and refuses to redecorate or consider having a child.  An assortment of characters, including a young woman obsessed with Nicholas Cage, a magazine editor searching for her lost sweetheart, and a lonely married bookshop owner whose wife is preoccupied with money and status, frequent the shop despite its dreary, outdated decor and somber atmnosphere.  This book didn't "wow" me, but I always enjoy the concept of disparate characters coming together on common ground to work through life's problems.