SHARON OWENS

Mags and Julie are partners at Dream Weddings, catering for the over-the-top and sometimes downright bizarre requirements of Belfast's brides and grooms to be. They rub along well but are as different as chalk and cheese. Mags is married to the love of her life, has four kids and a complicated extended family. Julie is impossibly glamorous, and doesn't remotely believe in love or marriage. When Julie embarks on a life crisis, running away from her live-in lover and throwing herself in to a hair-raisingly sexy fling with Jay, it is Mags who is left to pick up the pieces. When Julie eventually comes back, she brings Jay with her, and that is where the real trouble starts. Add to the mix Dream Weddings' most high-profile celebrity clients yet, and the biggest, most ambitious wedding they have ever organised, and the fireworks really begin...

Struggling artist Brenda sits penning letters to Nicolas Cage and dreaming of a better life. Sadie finds refuge from her diet and her husband's infidelity in Daniel's famous cherry cheesecake. Clare returns home from twenty years in New York, still cherishing the memory of the one night she truly loved - and lost. And Penny herself discovers a secret from the past - and a sexy estate agent very much in her present.

Shirley Winters is a daydreamer who loves vintage clothes and 80's music. She is also in love with gorgeous Declan Greenwood and can't believe her luck when her crush is rewarded with a swift marriage proposal. Older sister Kate, who enjoys collecting handbags and lovers with equal relish, is less than pleased with this news. There is no chance she is playing bridesmaid to Shirley's bride, so the rush is on to find a husband of her own. Handsome Johnny Hogan owns the ballroom on Magnolia Street, and still pines for Marion, the woman he loved and lost many years ago. And when he finds out that Declan is the son Marion had by him, he insists on playing a major part in the wedding. But little does he realize that Kate intends making it Belfast's double wedding of the year ...

With an introduction by John White and an essay by Milan Kundera, this text is the first part of Hermann Broch's "Sleepwalkers" trilogy - a portrayal of the neuroses and militar

On a hot summers night in 1967, Johnny Hollywood Hogan parked his pale blue Lincoln continental on Portstewart Strand and solemnly told his girlfriend Marion that he would always love her. But Johnny didnt ask her to be his wife. Marion, pregnant and terrified of a scandal, fled to the safe embrace of gentle baker Eddy Greenwood. Seven months later, Declan was born. Too late, Johnny realised what he had lost. He consoled himself with running his precious ballroom on Magnolia Street and dreaming of the day when Marion would come back to him.

Beautiful Lily Beaumont and her husband Jack are owners of a genuine Victorian tavern, situated on one of Belfast's few remaining narrow cobbled streets. It's a favourite among the locals who love the quiet atmosphere, good beer and simple food. Then one day, Dublin-based developer, Vincent Halloran arrives with big plans for Maple Street. The other traders are keen to sell up and retire, but Jack and Lily aren't ready to call 'time, please' on their beloved tavern. Instead, Lily hires four pretty barmaids to bring in the customers. Enter pint-sized, man-eater Bridget, lazy art-student Daisy, neurotic Trudy and painfully shy Marie. And if the stakes for Lily and Jack weren't already high enough, there's a secret about the Maple Street tavern that has yet to be discovered. A secret that will redefine the meaning of love, friendship, and family in the most surprising ways...