ALL IN A CUP weaves together how lives, careers and classes cross and connect.

A few blocks from a Portland coffee shop called All in a Cup, Tim Geiberson and Sarah Ehrenfeldt’s fenders collide. Tim is arriving from Seattle in a rusted-out station wagon looking as if he’d just rolled out of bed. Sarah is the well-pressed pharma-rep scrambling to cover compounding debt. When Tim offers to write a check for the damage and call it good, Sarah refuses, setting off a clash of lifestyles that awakens egos and pushes the edges of civility. The real Tim isn’t what Sarah sees. Instead of the financial wiz hoping to regain meaning after the loss of his wife and daughter, Sarah sees a man who is one gas tank away from living on the street.

When a young barista at All in a Cup is gunned down --  rocking the entire city -- the tragedy links Tim and Sarah to the victim in surprising ways. This is a novel -- in the tradition of Pete Hamill, Armistead Maupin and Anne Tyler -- that shines a soft light on what happens when people come together to find common ground, rediscover purpose, and open their hearts.