Sharon Owens Books In Order

The Tea House on Mulberry Street

‘They say there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, but of course there is. A perfect marriage is where two people live together for most of their lives until death separates them. What there is no such thing as is an easy marriage. And when it comes to love, people have somehow come around to equating love with ease.’New York food writer Tressa returns from honeymoon worried that she has married her impossibly handsome new husband Dan out of late thirties panic instead of love. In 1930’s Ireland, her grandmother, Bernadine, is married off to the local schoolteacher after her family are unable to raise a dowry for her to marry her true love, Michael. During the first year of her marriage, Tressa distracts herself from her stay or go dilemma by working on her grandmother’s recipes, searching for solace and answers through their preparation. Through the stories of these two women ‘Recipes For A Perfect Marriage’ challenges the modern ideal of romantic love as a given and ponders whether true love can really be learned. ‘This story is written with so much heart, its beat is palpable in every word on every page’ Cecelia Ahern, author of ‘P S, I Love You’

The Ballroom on Magnolia Street

On the heels of her captivating debut, The Tea House on Mulberry Street, comes Sharon Owens’s new novel of passion, romance, and regret-and the winding paths to falling in love.

Johnny ‘Hollywood’ Hogan owns The Ballroom on Magnolia Street, where sisters Kate and Shirley Winters, along with other regulars, go every Saturday night-to escape the realities of Belfast life, and to seek fun and romance.

Free-spirited Shirley has a mad crush on a boy named Declan Greenwood, while thoroughly modern Kate likes plenty of variety in her wardrobe and her love life and is determined to get married before her younger sister. She’ll take anyone who’ll have her, even if it has to be that greasy-though not entirely unattractive-mechanic who has been hanging around lately. The crowd at Hogan’s is always lively, but that doesn’t mean all problems have been left at the door. Johnny’s grandparents are afraid that he’ll retire and shut the ballroom down. Johnny yearns for Marion, his old love and Declan’s mother, while Marion starts to worry that her long-held secret will finally be revealed.

But it doesn’t take long for all of the ballroom’s patrons to discover that, even without velvet-lined balconies and crystal chandeliers, the magic of the twinkling lights and soft music will help them find just what they’re looking for-whether it be family, friendship, or even true love.

The Tavern on Maple Street

An irresistible novel brim*ming with wit, warmth, and Irish humor, about the married owners of a friendly tavern in Belfast and the intimate lives of the customers and employees who band together to save it from demolition. Jack Beaumont and his beautiful wife, Lily, are the owners of The Tavern on Maple Street, a tiny Victorian pub they inherited from Jack’s great uncle Ernest. It’s a quiet place, untouched by the modern world, and that’s why the customers like it so much. But a property developer wants to demolish the tavern and build a shopping mall on Maple Street. Jack and Lily and their little home away from home are suddenly plunged into the limelight, caught in a desperate struggle to save their business from the bulldozers or, with the help of some new employees, to at least make as much money as possible during their last few months as landlord and landlady. In The Tavern on Maple Street, Sharon Owens delivers another delicious sparkler full of love, friendship, relationships, and the day to day lives of ordinary people, one that is sure to satisfy readers’ insatiable appetite for her romantic and quirky Belfast tales.