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Births, Deaths and Marriages

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Zoe, Al, Rachel, Rob, Yas and Indie. Six friends who were inseparable at university, who have all had their secret or not so secret passions for each other, their own hopes and fears.

Over the years, they have gone their separate ways. Rob is a history teacher, with a string of broken relationships behind him. Yas is a surgeon and very much her own woman. Indie is married and a successful coffee entrepreneur. Rachel is a stay at home mum with two children. Al, widowed young, is about to take over his father's funeral business.

When Rob's engagement party throws the gang together once more, some passions are reignited, old connections and resentments resurface. Over the next twelve months, there will, among the friends, be a birth, a marriage, and a death – but whose?

Set over one year and told from multiple perspectives, BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES is an era-spanning, globe-trotting novel about love, friendship, and how to stay at least relatively sane in an ever crazier world. It’s about a group of friends growing older, a pair of sometime lovers finding their way back to each other, about kindness and joy. It’s about births, deaths, marriages, and everything in between.

© Laura Barnett 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 City Life Coming of Age Family Life Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Urban Marriage

Critic reviews

This is exactly the book I want to hold me, with its thoroughness, its thoughtfulness… gentle, moving, immensely readable.
Births, Deaths and Marriages is my first read by Laura Barnett and it won’t be my last. About family, friendship, love and grief it follows the lives of a group of friends and their gloriously imperfect lives. Richly written and so moving.
A book to sink into... a nuanced, compelling and comforting read that reminds us about the power, support and importance of found family
A luminous life-affirming read.
I loved Births, Deaths and Marriages. Laura’s ability to jump between so many different lives and to keep those strands alive in the reader’s mind reminded me of Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors.
Through tragedy, triumphs, the settling of old scores and the blossoming of love, the nuances of their friendship are beautifully portrayed. A perfect, can't-put-down summer read!
A must-read.
A lovely, absorbing read
Full of life's ups and downs . . . There'll be a lot of head nodding as you read this; it will bring you back to house sharing with friends and memories of being a student and feeling invincible.
Immersive ... It's so good at capturing the feeling many of us have that life hasn't quite worked out as planned - so relatable.
All stars
Most relevant
Such a fan of The Versions of Us and Gifts. Loved this novel. I only wish it could’ve been longer as was utterly captivated by the characters and simply wanted MORE! Brava Laura Barnett another great read 👏👏👏

Beautifully bittersweet

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Not exactly edge of your seat stuff. didn't feel invested in any of the characters,, lacked a strong anchor keeping me invested. finished for the sake of it. probably wouldn't choose another book by the author or the narrator

Bland

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Loved this. The characters, their stories, their reunions, their relationships. It’s well written and the narrator does a great job too.

Just gorgeous

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I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I loved how it captured this group of friends from when they started uni to them turning forty, with glimpses at the decades in between. The author captures people amd relationships in a uniquely accurate and somehow surprising way. it was an intelligent read, and yet every time I read chapters or it, I found a combination of realism, relateability and a simulatanrous magical escapism in its pages. It felt like spending time with old friends, and made me want to do exactly that. It was devastatingly sad, surprisingly happy and ultimately life-affirming.

Beautifully written, nostalgic and thought provoking

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I’m only halfway through, so things might change. Terribly pedestrian tales of midlife romance and the ups and downs of mostly ordinary middle class lives (there is one multi-millionaire, naturally). Worthy and thoughtful views are expressed throughout. Appropriate repetition of stock remarks on how hard working/ overworked/ selfless are all NHS workers. No trigger warnings required. But, uninterestingly banal in all respect. Who can care about the stirrings of a forty somethings heart? Who can relate to the wearying consequences of the choices people make … I suppose we all can. But that is the trouble. It’s more boring than everyday life ever could be. The reader is fine, though not inspiring. I do feel sorry for poor old Rob whose bisexuality (if that is real word) functions as a figure for his acquisitive/selfish nature. I’m not sure whether we are supposed to take Gabe seriously or laugh at the folly of youth. Most absurd are the episodes of painfully sincere funereal activism, though that gets quickly forgotten. I’m hoping the whole uninteresting collection of cut-out characters come to a particularly grisly end. But middle age life isn’t like that so we’ll probably just have to plod on down cemetery road together.

Update…. It just kept getting grimmer and more ludicrous…. I feared it might not end.

Some will enjoy … but I began to fear it might never end!!!

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