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A Very Long Engagement by Sébastien Japrisot
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A Very Long Engagement

A Novel

$28.34

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Narrator Isabel Keating

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Length 5 hours 8 minutes
Language English
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Now a major motion picture from Amelie's director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and featuring Audrey Tautou and Jodie Foster comes a very different love story: A Very Long Engagement based on the acclaimed novel by Sébastien Japrisot

A runaway bestseller in France and winner of the 1991 Prix Interallié, Sébastien Japrisot's novel about World War I was acclaimed as "a latter-day War and Peace" by The New York Times.

Set during and after the First World War, A Very Long Engagement is the tale of a young woman's search for her fiancé who she believes might still be alive despite having officially been reported as "killed in the line of duty." Unable to walk since childhood, fearless Mathilde Donnay is undeterred in her quest as she scours the country for information about five wounded French soldiers who were brutally abandoned by their own troops. A Very Long Engagement is a mystery, a love story, and an extraordinary portrait of life in France before and after the War.

SEBASTIEN JAPRISOT was the penname of Jean Baptiste Rossi. He wrote several novels including One Deadly Summer, The Sleeping Car Murders, The Passion of Women, and The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun.

Isabel Keating won the Drama Desk Award and was nominated for the Tony Award for her Broadway turn in The Boy from Oz, for which she also won a Theatre World Award.  She also starred in the long-running hit Hairspray, and made her Broadway début starring in Enchanted April.  Off Broadway she has appeared at Primary Stages, the Atlantic Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Ars Nova, among others. Her films include The Nanny Diaries and The Life Before Her Eyes, and on television, she guest starred in 3 lbs. and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Isabel has recorded a number of Earphones award-winning audiobooks.  Some of the titles she's read include Bill Floyd's The Killer's Wife, Nicholas Sparks's The Guardian, Jackie Collins's Lovers & Players, and Sebastien Japrisot's A Very Long Engagement.

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In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

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Reviews

“Riveting...A fierce, elliptical novel that's both a gripping psychological thriller and highly moving meditation on the emotional consequence of war.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A classic mystery...Only the best historical fiction can make the journey into a distant time and return with a believable sense of how things really were. That Japrisot's book has done so is a mark of his great talent.” —Paul Watkins, The Washington Post Book World

“Magical...Part romance, part mystery, part history, part exploration of the dogged pursuit of the improbable, it commands attention from first to last.” —The Boston Globe

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Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale