Births, Deaths and Marriages

Hardback Published on: 12/06/2025
Price: £16.99
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Bookseller Reviews

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Births, Deaths and Marriages
A realistic raw and heartfelt reflection of life
Births, Deaths and Marriages is a masterful exploration of friendship, love, and the passage of time. Set over a year, the novel follows six university fri... READ MORE
Anthony at Waterstones Coventry

Synopsis

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.

Publisher information

  • Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
  • ISBN: 9780857529718
  • Number of pages: 368
  • Dimensions: 225 x 145 x 30 mm
  • Weight: 473g
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews

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Births, Deaths and Marriages
A good read
I really enjoyed Laura Barnett's previous books and was keen to read an arc of her latest. The book spans 25 years of the lives of a group of university fr... READ MORE
Raeofthebooks
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Stunningly astute and relevant
Wow! Just wow! I can’t believe that, when I started this book, I thought, this isn’t for me. It is, of course. It is a book for anyone who has loved, for a... READ MORE
Jakki Moxon
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Lovely
Relatable, funny, moving and hopeful. Births, Deaths and Marriages is a fantastic read that reminded me of Cold Feet and deals with the themes of feeling u... READ MORE
Emma Renshaw
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Touching and Captivating Read
Huge thank you to NetGalley for this wonderful read. I read this as an early release ebook from NetGalley with the promise of my writing my thoughts and r... READ MORE
Shonaigh Mudie
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Film material?
It took a little patience to remember the dynamics of this group of people who originally met as university students.at the funeral of an acquaintance Pete... READ MORE
Jen1010
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Thoroughly good read
Excellent book covering several decades in the lives of 6 people who meet at university. Their paths cross briefly as part of the university social scene b... READ MORE
Cazb
Births, Deaths and Marriages
ok
I found this book quite slow and for me, it was ok. The backdrop of the story is the lives of a group of university friends who stay in touch throughou... READ MORE
Karen Farrow
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Great story and holiday reading!
Tale of six friends from their time at University thrown together by chance twenty odd years ago through to the present day, based around London and Kent. ... READ MORE
Felicity
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Despite what I said, give it a chance
Honestly, I couldn’t really get into this. The story follows six university friends—Zoe, Al, Rachel, Rob, Yas, and Indie—over the course of a year, explori... READ MORE
Savannah
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Realistic character-driven story
If a character-driven story set over an intense year sounds like your kind of story then I recommend Births, Deaths and Marriages by Laura Barnett. It tell... READ MORE
Nicola
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Character-driven story about friendship, love and loss
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld for this ARC. This book is about a group of six friends. Rob, Al, Zoe, Rachel, Yas and Indie meet... READ MORE
Beate251
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Thoroughly enjoyable read
I’m usually a crime or psychological thriller reader but thoroughly enjoyed this step outside my comfort zone into Births, Deaths and Marriages. I didn’t g... READ MORE
Karen Collins
Births, Deaths and Marriages
An enjoyable novel which celebrates the durability of friendships
Laura Barnett writes absorbing, well turned-out fiction, tending towards the commercial end of the scale. Beginning with an engagement and ending with a ma... READ MORE
Susan Osborne
Births, Deaths and Marriages
engaging
A story about a group of friends who initially met at a fellow students wake and ended up sharing student accommodation. We follow their lives and how they... READ MORE
Jenny Dunne
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Relatable premise and something for everyone
The universal themes are attractive and set you up for a promising read. However, I kept veering between genuine curiosity for some characters and storylin... READ MORE
Tina
This reviewer received a free of charge product for review.
Births, Deaths and Marriages
A story of friendship, love and laughter
A story of lifelong friendships made at university. It follows the lives of six individuals as they navigate their way through marriage, divorce and death.... READ MORE
Paula Sterling-stead
Births, Deaths and Marriages
A story of friendship, love and laughter.
A story of lifelong friendships made at university. It follows the lives of six individuals as they navigate their way through marriage, divorce and death.... READ MORE
paula sterling-stead
Births, Deaths and Marriages
A steady read
Written around a group of friends from university, this book explores how dreams and plans can change and going a different direction 20 years down the lin... READ MORE
Lucy C
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Cosy life story of six friends, their loves and their heartaches
Six friends, four women and two men, meet up at university and form a tight knit group, there are liaisons in the group, there are romances and not a littl... READ MORE
TrishAM
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Six friends reunite after 20 years
Six people meet at university - specifically at the funeral for a man/boy who was killed in a car accident just a few weeks into term. They spend the next ... READ MORE
Alison Robinson
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Not for me but I'm sure there's a market out there
We initially meet the six main characters in this book as teenagers at university. Then again 20 years later when Rob becomes engaged. From there over 12 m... READ MORE
Psychoticpat