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A Novel
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 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.
"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)
"[T]he stakes feel relatively low for most of the novel, until a surprising and effective twist offers much to consider about forgiveness and love. Patient readers will be rewarded." —Publishers Weekly
"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
This information about A Great Marriage was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: francesmayesbooks.com
Frances Mayes is the author of the classic Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years and became a movie starring Diane Lane. Her other international bestsellers include Bella Tuscany, Every Day in Tuscany, A Year in the World, and three illustrated books: In Tuscany, Bringing Tuscany Home, and The Tuscan Sun Cookbook. Mayes is also the author of two novels, Swan and Women in Sunlight, six books of poetry, and The Discovery of Poetry. Her most recent books are See You in the Piazza and Always Italy. Frances Mayes's writing has been translated into more than fifty languages.
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