The engagements : a novel
(Book)

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.