The Engagements, J. Courtney Sullivan
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The Engagements

Narrator: Kimberly Farr

Unabridged: 16 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/11/2013


Synopsis

From the New York Times best-selling author of Commencement and Maine comes a gorgeous, sprawling novel about marriage—about those who marry in a white heat of passion, those who marry for partnership and comfort, and those who live together, love each other, and have absolutely no intention of ruining it all with a wedding.

Evelyn has been married to her husband for forty years—forty years since he slipped off her first wedding ring and put his own in its place. Delphine has seen both sides of love—the ecstatic, glorious highs of seduction, and the bitter, spiteful fury that descends when it’s over. James, a paramedic who works the night shift, knows his wife’s family thinks she could have done better; while Kate, partnered with Dan for a decade, has seen every kind of wedding—beach weddings, backyard weddings, castle weddings—and has vowed never, ever, to have one of her own.

As these lives and marriages unfold in surprising ways, we meet Frances Gerety, a young advertising copywriter in 1947. Frances is working on the De Beers campaign and she needs a signature line, so, one night before bed, she scribbles a phrase on a scrap of paper: “A Diamond Is Forever.” And that line changes everything.

A rich, layered, exhilarating novel spanning nearly a hundred years, The Engagements captures four wholly unique marriages, while tracing the story of diamonds in America, and the way—for better or for worse—these glittering stones have come to symbolize our deepest hopes for everlasting love.

Author Bio

American author, J. Courtney Sullivan, has been very successful in her writing career. She has written several novels, mostly concerning the relationships among women. She is a self-proclaimed feminist, which explains her choice of themes for her books, both fiction and non-fiction. Sullivan comes from an Irish-Catholic heritage, where women identify by their middle name instead of first names. She had one piece published for Allure magazine under "Courtney Sullivan", but added the J. back in from then forward. She was raised near Boston, Massachusetts, and attended Smith College, majoring in Victorian Literature and received awards for her short stories, and for her work in Women's Studies.

Sullivan graduated from Smith in 2003, after which she moved to New York City to begin working for Allure magazine. After Allure, she worked at The New York Times for four years. Now, her work has made The New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, New York Observer, Men's Vogue, Elle, and Glamour. In 2006, she wrote for the New York Times a column entitled, "Modern Love", that described her experiences in the dating world. Sounds like Sara Jessica Parker's character, Carrie Bradshaw, in "Sex and the City".

Her NYT bestselling novels are: Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, and Saints For All Occassions. Her work has been celebrated with her receiving many different, prestigious literary awards. Her novel, The Engagements, is to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon and distributed by Fox 2000.

Sullivan lives with her husband and their son in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, NY.

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