The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain
Fiction
Published: October 3, 2017. St. Martin’s Press
Set in 1943, Tess DeMello is a twenty-three-year-old who grew up in Little Italy, Baltimore, Maryland. Ever since she was a teenager she has dreamed of marrying her next door neighbour, Vincent Russo. The two love each other, they’re already engaged and making wedding plans – they even know how many kids they want to have! It has also been the couples dream work together in the medical field. Now Vincent has recently become a doctor and Tess is so close to finishing up her nursing school – what could go wrong? Since he doesn’t have a steady job, Vincent takes this opportunity to travel to Chicago for a couple of weeks to volunteer with the polio epidemic. But what start with him leaving only for two weeks turned into three… and then four… and so on and so on.
Gina Farinola, Tess’ best friend, talks her into traveling to Washington to the weekend for some fun to forget about their men troubles. But this one weekend – one night to be exact – will change Tess and Vincent’s life forever. Let’s just say Tess was mending an aching heart because she missed her fiancé with alcohol, she and Gina met some guys and well… we all know how it goes. Two months later, Tess finds out she’s pregnant, resulting in her ending the engagement, packing up her stuff and traveling to Hickory, North Carolina. All she wanted to do was talk with Mr. Hank Kraft of “Kraft Fine Furniture,” but instead she finds herself marrying him instead. It’s far from the perfect marriage. Hank is a mysterious man, controlling, and protective but distant and clearly hiding secrets from his new wife. Not to mention it must be hard when everyone woman in the town want to get their hands on her husband while she must put up with his disapproving and resentful mother and sister. Things become worse when rumor has it that another woman was meant to have married Hank, and Tess has stolen their marriage.
Tess finally finds some solitude when she throws herself into her nursing when a hospital is set up for the polio epidemic. This is where we see Chamberlain did her research of the time period and I learned quite a few interesting facts regarding the polio epidemic and treatments – such as the “Sister Kenny Method.” This involved moist, hot compresses to ease muscle spasm pain and gently exercising paralyzed muscles instead of throwing the leg into some heavy metal brace and leaving the patient. Learning about the way the epidemic was handled back then was truly fascinating.
Diane Chamberlain has done impressive research of the period, capturing the culture and true life events of the time and combing them into a story of love, loss, marriage, tragedy and redemption. The character of Tess captures the situations, attitudes to and expectations of women in this period of time. It was also a nice change to read and learn about a crisis other than the war from this era.