Joan Liang's life is a series of surprising developments: she never thought she would leave Taiwan (and for all places, California), nor did she expect her first marriage to implode - especially as quickly and spectacularly as it did. She definitely did not expect to fall in love with an older, wealthy American and become his fourth wife and mother to his youngest children.

Through all this she asks herself the question familiar to so many of us: what are we living for? And are we ever truly satisfied?

Vivid, comic and intensely moving, The Satisfaction Cafe is a novel about all of the joy, sorrow, betrayal and beauty that come with marriage and family - and above all, about life's endless capacity to surprise us.