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A Great Marriage: A Novel Audiobook
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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.
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"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
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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 -
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 -
We’ll follow the author Frances Mayes anywhere, whether that’s under the Tuscan sun or through her native South.
— Garden & Gun -
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
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About Frances Mayes
Frances Mayes is the author of several fiction and nonfiction books, including the classic Under the Tuscan Sun, which was on the New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years and was the basis for a major motion picture starring Diane Lane. Her writing has been translated into more than fifty languages.
About the Narrators
Carrington MacDuffie is a voice actor and recording artist who has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, received numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has been a frequent finalist for the Audie Award, including for her original audiobook, Many Things Invisible. Alongside her narration work, she has released a new album of original songs, Only an Angel.
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.
Dan Bittner is an actor and voice talent and winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards for audio narration. He has starred on stage and on the screen, in movies such as Men in Black, Adventureland, and the Producers: The Movie Musical. He has also appeared onstage as Macbeth and Sherlock Holmes in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Eileen Stevens is a voice-over actress whose voice can be heard on cartoons, promos, programs for English-language learners, and audiobooks. An Earphones Award–winning narrator, she is also an audiobook director and producer.
George Newbern is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a television and film actor best known for his roles as Brian MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, as well as Danny in Friends. As a voice actor, he is notable for his role as Superman on the Cartoon Newtork series Static Shock, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. He has guest starred on many television series, including Scandal, The Mentalist, Private Practice, CSI: Miami, and Numb3rs. He holds a BA in theater arts from Northwestern University.
Xe Sands has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art, including recordings of the Nightwalkers series from Jaquelyn Frank. She has received several honors, including AudioFile Earphones Awards and a coveted Audie Award, and she was named Favorite Debut Romance Narrator of 2011 in the Romance Audiobooks poll.
Karissa Vacker is a multiple AudioFile Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator and actress. After graduating with a BFA in acting from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, she performed in regional theaters across the country before moving to Los Angeles. She has guest starred in network television shows and films and continues to work on screen and stage. Her audiobook credits include romance, young adult fiction, and mystery thrillers.
JD Jackson is a theater professor, aspiring stage director, and award-winning audiobook narrator. He is a classically trained actor, and his television and film credits include roles on House, ER, Law & Order, Hack, Sherrybaby, Diary of a City Priest, and Lucky Number Slevin. He is the recipient of more than a dozen Earphones Awards for narration and an Odyssey Honor for G. Neri’s Ghetto Cowboy, and he was also named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of the Year for 2012 and 2013. An adjunct professor at Los Angeles Southwest College, he has an MFA in theater from Temple University.
Carrington MacDuffie is a voice actor and recording artist who has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, received numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has been a frequent finalist for the Audie Award, including for her original audiobook, Many Things Invisible. Alongside her narration work, she has released a new album of original songs, Only an Angel.
Will M. Watt was determined not to be one of those penniless artists that his parents warned him about, so decided not to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Fate had other ideas, however, and that dream ruthlessly pursued him instead. A decade later, and Will now makes a living recording audiobooks, commercials, and video games, but admits that he’ll never be much good at writing about himself in the third person. Will’s accidental stumble into the world of voice acting has led him from a humble bedroom studio in Oxford, England, to the bright lights of New York City where he now lives with his two four legged roommates, Sara and Rachel.