The Engagement Party by RJ Gould
When eight parents, step-parents and partners are invited to Wayne and Clarissa’s engagement party a catastrophe is on the cards.
With one week to go before their families are to meet for the first time, making the celebration a pleasant experience for all is going to be tricky. In fact, the obstacles seem insurmountable. Number One: the two families are from vastly different social backgrounds. Number Two: there are severe tensions between the exes. Number Three: some of the new relationships are falling apart.
During the week leading up to the party things are going from bad to worse as events unroll and histories are unearthed. Doubts, lies and misunderstandings abound and the stress of it all is threatening Wayne and Clarissa’s relationship.
This satirical dive into family life, laced with wry British humour, will help the reader appreciate that however bad things are in their own family, it could be a lot worse!
Reviews for The Engagement Party by RJ Gould
“R J Gould does a nice humorous line in awful men and tough, resilient, stroppy women. If you thought your own family were embarrassing, just read this. There are so many scenes where you think the characters couldn’t get more impossible, but they do. The characters are amusing, but they’re also interesting. Gould has made the reader look forward to the next appearance of even the obnoxious Reginald, to see what further disaster awaits him, using accident, misunderstanding and the sheer perversity of fate to keep you wanting to read on. He also shows how each turn and twist in the story inevitably follows from what the characters are like.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and read it in one sitting. Then I read it again, and I saw new meanings in scenes that I hadn’t spotted the first time round.” – David Franks – Five Stsr Review on Amazon (October 2012)
“I found this wonderful book quite by chance. It was on promotion in the kindle 100 free bestsellers list, and, as it had 4 and 5 star reviews, I thought it should be quite good. It was REALLY GOOD. It involves Wayne and Clarissa, who are going to be having an engagement party and concerns the week building up to the function. Various members of each family will be coming together to meet the happy couple for the first time. This is a great read. Well structured, it consists of chapters from each different character’s point of view. It builds really nicely involving various scenarios eg. broken marriages/step families etc. Highly recommended, I would definitely read more by this author.” – Julie Haigh – Five Star Review on Amazon (February 2014)