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Fates and Furies

New York Times bestseller

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Every story has two sides.
Every relationship has two perspectives.
And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but more complicated than it seems from the outside.

As the years pass, stunning revelations threaten to destroy everything they've built together; but the strongest marriages are those that survive the greatest blows. Some secrets are better left in the dark. Others must be torn into the open, no matter how dangerous they are.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
BARACK OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR
A FINALIST FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
AMAZON.COM's 2015 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

'A really powerful novel' BARACK OBAMA
'Enough betrayal, vengeance and sex to read like one of the Greek tragedies' OBSERVER
'Rich, lyrical and rewarding.' PAULA HAWKINS, author of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, Guardian Books of the Year

© Lauren Groff 2015 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Contemporary Contemporary Romance Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Fiction

Critic reviews

Enough betrayal, vengeance and sex to read like one of the Greek tragedies
Rich, lyrical and rewarding. (Paula Hawkins, author of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN)
A lyrical and, at times, astonishingly beautiful account of how little it is possible to know about those closest to us.
Addictive to read ... Groff has drawn a woman so complex it seems that with every chapter a new layer is revealed, each as deliciously intriguing as the next … The result is a compelling portrait of an unconventional marriage across two decades.
[A] stunning achievement. The plotting is elegant, intricate and assured . . . it will give you much to savour.
Absorbing and beautifully written, this is a riveting study of love, power and creativity.
A truly special novel ... if you haven't read her before, I'm delighted to take the credit for introducing you to one of your new favourite authors.
A searing exploration of how far a person will go for love, loyalty and revenge.
Rare and impressive… Groff has created a novel of extraordinary and genuine complexity…The word “ambitious” is often used as code for “overly ambitious”, a signal that an author’s execution has fallen short. No such hidden message here. Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers – with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout.
A book to submit to and be knocked out by.
All stars
Most relevant
I loved the first half it was so well written it flows so seamlessly from scene to scene character to character. Effortless Exquisitely beautiful. But the twist of the second half threw me. Didn’t enjoy it at all became very far fetched and ruined what could have been a great book

Great first half

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Luckily I always have a physical copy of the book as well as the audio, but if you're just listening to this, be aware that a vital 2 pages of plot explanation (p.375 after "aunt" until p.377 "They showed up") is MISSING entirely. Without it, the following few pages will probably be misunderstood and Antoinette's role not fully clear.

Anyway, this isn't the first Penguin audio book with such a problem and the last one I reported was fixed and my review was taken down, so I hope Penguin responds to this with an updated version of the audio, but if you're reading this review, they haven't done it yet.

Audio is MISSING a vital section near the end

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really enjoyed this. meticulously crafted. aspects of main characters and their stories didn't ring true at times. but it is fiction.

very clever and completely absorbing

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Really enjoyed this book. Story spans the life of two people and has surprising twists. Great writing and reflection on life.

A story through two angles

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certainly disappointing. was expecting so much more. no idea why there is such hype about this book.

certainly disappointing

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