A Great Marriage, Frances Mayes
A Great Marriage, Frances Mayes
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A Great Marriage

Author: Frances Mayes

Narrator: Sid Sagar, Will Watt, Cassandra Campbell, Eileen Stevens, George Newbern, Dan Bittner, Carrington MacDuffie, Karissa Vacker, Xe Sands, Annie Q. Riegel

Unabridged: 11 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/13/2024


Synopsis

When a perfect wedding is called off just days before the big event, it sends two people—and their families—reeling, in this poignant novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun and Women in Sunlight

“A moving immersion in love and loss.”—People

A great marriage is an elusive thing, and only a few know the secret to making one.

Dara Willcox, in New York for a weekend, meets Austin Clarke at an art gallery. If love at first sight can happen, it happens to them. These two vivid, ambitious people are on different courses—he’s British, working temporarily in New York. She’s from North Carolina, set on law school. They don’t care. They will make their lives together happen. At their April engagement dinner at Dara’s family home, her mother, Lee, sets a beautiful table, and the family and close friends gather to celebrate. Rich, Dara’s father, raises a toast. Suddenly, Lee spills the wine, a brilliant red stain splashing onto the tablecloth and onto Austin.

Days later, Austin hears unsettling news from London that wrecks their plans. Dara abruptly cancels the wedding. She refuses to reveal the reason, not even to her best friends or her parents or grandmother, disrupting their family tradition of openness. As everyone knows, Lee and Rich have a great marriage, and Charlotte, her grandmother, had a colossal one, to the late Senator Mann.  Charlotte literally wrote the book on the subject: She’s the author of international bestsellers on what makes a good or possibly a great marriage. 

While Dara escapes to California and Indigo Island, South Carolina, Austin, back in London, faces a major tragedy, the consequences of which are life-altering. But it’s Lee, Dara’s mother, whose impulsive visit to London alters their fate.

With her signature warmth, humor, and incisive style, beloved author Frances Mayes creates a multigenerational probe into the complexity of love and the great mystery ride of marriage. A novel of casual choices and fateful consequences, A Great Marriage introduces two unforgettable families and the arrival of a stranger who rearranges their futures.

About The Author

Frances Mayes is the author of four books about Tuscany, including the now-classic Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years and became a Touchstone movie starring Diane Lane. It was followed by Bella Tuscany and two illustrated books, In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home. She is also the author of the novel Swan, six books of poetry, and The Discovery of Poetry. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Her most recent books are Women in Sunlight and A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kasa on June 10, 2024

Initially I chose this because of my admiration for the author, who took the world by storm with her captivating memoir detailing the acquisition and modernization of a structure in Tuscany, complete with sensual overloads of descriptions of meals taken outside in timeless settings. Under the Tuscan......more

Goodreads review by Karen on December 10, 2024

I have never read a book by Frances Mayes. I just saw the movie, which I absolutely loved, that was based on one of her books, “Under the Tuscan Sun.” After I saw the movie, I remember checking out the book from my local library, but I just couldn’t get into it. I think I was too in love with the mo......more

Goodreads review by Barb on June 19, 2024

In "A Great Marriage," Frances didn't write the ending I wanted to read. Instead, she delivers an overly sweet resolution tied up neatly in a pretty bow. Readers are going to love it. I didn't. Dara and Austin are set to wed when consequences from his stupid actions upend their storybook romance. Apar......more

Goodreads review by Leah on June 18, 2024

Dara Willcox and Austin Clarke are, at first glance, the perfect pedigree couple. A meet cute at an art gallery, a romance set against the buzzing backdrop of New York, a wedding for the ages in the works; nothing seems like it could possibly upend the young couple's future. Until suddenly something......more

Goodreads review by Literary on April 20, 2024

This poignant new novel by the Under the Tuscan Sun author beautifully reveals the complexities of love and marriage. Highly recommended!......more


Quotes

Praise for A Great Marriage

“A grand love story with plenty of surprises . . . The pleasure of this book is in its rare combination of eloquent writing, human insights, and page-turning storytelling.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Mayes’ talent for creating engaging, empathetic characters coping with the challenges of modern love is on full display in this supremely satisfying escapist love story.”Booklist​


Praise for Frances Mayes

“Beautiful, thought-provoking.”BookPage

“Vivid and heartfelt . . . [Mayes’s] writing is infused with this rare communal quality.”Bookreporter

“Mayes delivers a soulful meditation. . . . Spellbinding . . . This rich testament to the pleasures of wanderlust and permanence is a gift.”Publishers Weekly

“Tuscany may have found its own bard in Frances Mayes.”The New York Times

“Those who want to find parts of themselves they didn’t know existed, take risks, have an adventure . . . and discover another culture altogether, with its different rhythms, tastes, smells, and ways of being human—those readers will find in Mayes a kindly, eager, tough-spirited guide.”Houston Chronicle

“Mayes’s writing about Italy is the next best thing to a plane ticket.”People

“Frances Mayes is, before all else, a wonderful writer. . . . She never loses sight of the fact that millenniums-old Tuscany, with its immemorial customs and folkways, is not to be domesticated or made familiar. Her Italy remains intransigently foreign, exotic, a continuing revelation of strangeness and unexpected beauties.”Chicago Tribune

“Mayes displays a gift for conveying everyday life through her writing . . . perfect for those with the yen but not the means for a second home . . . [and] presents a simpler, less frantic version of how to live one’s life.”USA Today

“Mayes [has] perfect vision. . . . She has, by the sweat of her brow and the strength of her vision, become a layer in the history of this place.”Los Angeles Times