The Engagements

By: J. Courtney Sullivan

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

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.

Nothing Truly Sparkles Here

This book was too wordy and complicated. The best part was learning about Mary Frances Gerety and how she came up with the slogan, "A Diamond is Forever". The various characters and their assorted lives and problems did come together a bit in the end, but they were tied together so loosely that I was hoping the author would have wound the story tighter instead of leaving the readers with quite a large leap of faith.

An ok showing from an author I like.

I read J. Courtney Sullivan’s “Saints for All Occasions” and loved it. I would recommend that book over this one. The story lines in this one are a little all over the place, making it somewhat hard to follow. Some characters are endearing and you want to keep following them. Others are self-righteous and annoying making those parts of the book unappealing. I’ll give one of her other books a try.

Nice little story

Didn't knock my socks off, but a solid and entertaining story. Ending especially was lovely. Little slow to tie the strings together.

This story required some brain exercise.

Any additional comments?

Maybe it was the fact that this was an auditory mode of reading the story, but I found it difficult to keep the stories straight while driving. I listened to this book on a long road trip, and I sometimes had difficulty transitioning between all 4 stories and remembering what had occurred in a particular story line earlier in the book. In the end, though, it wrapped up nicely. Maybe I could follow it better in cinema as I could attach a character's face to their story.

Bit confusing to follow on audio

I felt it was a bit hard to follow on the audio version it may be easier with defined chapters you can read into. I also didn't like that the author could not pronounce Dorchester ( a boston neighborhood) and that her Boston accent was not Boston at all and more like the Kennedy accent and Maine accent mixed together. It was strange and annoying a bit. I'm from Boston and don't have the accent but know it well from my mother, family, friends, neighbors, etc.