Another great book from Diane Chamberlain. I’ve read other books by this author this one was just as good as those. I really enjoyed the story and the characters were well thought out.

I loved it! I wasn't sure I would, I'm not usually a big fan of historical fiction, but I really enjoyed this. The characters were great, and I learned so much about a time and a place that we can no longer really imagine, with not just a war going on but a time and a place where inter-racial relationships were illegal, children outside of marriage unacceptable and a marriage just about impossible to end.

I have read many novels by Diane Chamberlain and have enjoyed all of them, so I will continue to look out for her work.

I have always been a fan of Diane Chambelain and get really excited when she has a new book out. This book was set in my favourite era for historical fiction surrounding World War II in the USA. This book was another brilliantly researched book that had me gripped from the first page and I just had to keep reading.

A fascinating read that provides brilliant insight into the difference between women in the 1940's and the women of today. I highly recommend this brilliant book!

When life takes an unexpected turn it can sometimes work out for the best. Tess is training to be a nurse and is engaged to Vincent who is a doctor. She takes a trip with a friend that changes the course of her life for ever.
She meets Henry a rich business man and is soon stuck in his life, with his family in Hickory. Tess comes up against new challenges that she never had to face in her old town of Baltimore. She shows them who she really is and changes the lives of those close to her.

Similar in style to Jodi Piccoult who gets to the nitty gritty of the heartstrings and evokes new perspectives within her novels. Thank you NetGalley.

Diane Chamberlain is one of my favourite authors - I think I have read all of her many novels. I was excited to start this book - and I wasn't disappointed.

Well written and researched, I knew very little about this era in American history and enjoyed learning more about it. I love the author's attention to detail. I found the story heartbreaking but also heartwarming and compelling reading.

One small stupid mistake can change your life forever - just as the lead character's life was changed. I loved the character of Tess and felt for her throughout the story. A wonderful well developed interesting cast of surrounding characters.

Highly recommended - as all of Diane Chamberlain's books, all fantastic reads.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review: I have read a few of Diane's books so knew a little of what to expect. This was a good read once into it. It is written well with depth that turns the pages. The plot just keeps on giving and is full of interesting knowledge. A good historical women's fiction.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Stolen Marriage is about Tess, set in Baltimore and Hickory in 1944. Tess is engaged to her childhood sweetheart, Vincent. Vincent is a doctor volunteering in Chicago during the polio epidemic. Tess is a student nurse. 
On one monumental night, Tess has a drunken one night stand with Henry in Washington. Tess ends up pregnant, not seeing any way out she ends her engagement to Vincent through a letter and makes her way to Hickory to ask Henry for some money for her to start over elsewhere and bring up her child. To her surprise, Henry asks her to marry him so they can bring up their child together.

Although I've had Diane Chamberlain on my TBR shelf for ages, and actually own some of her novels, this is my first experience. I definitely wasn't disappointed. The book did take me a while to read which was a combination of it being on the kindle, real life getting in the way and watching tv rather than reading as it uses less brain power, rather than the book being in any way bad. I'll have to pull my finger out and get around to reading the others now!

I finished this book by Diane Chamberlain in record time - a real page turner! I really enjoyed the flow of the story, I felt that I was taken back into the time it was set and I found all of the characters believable. Highly recommended.

The Stolen Marriage was the third or fourth book I have read by Diane Chamberlain and I always enjoy how easily they are able to engage me. The Stolen Marriage was different from the other books I had read by her in that it was historically set.
Tess has been engaged to her childhood friend Vincent for a year and is busy choosing a dress for their wedding. Then a polio outbreak takes Vincent to Chicago to volunteer his doctor skills and Tess begins to find herself doubting his commitment to their relationship.
Less than a year later Tess finds herself living in Hickory, North Carolina. She is married to a beloved furniture factory owner named Henry Kraft. Tess herself is an outsider in the town and is unhappy in her loveless marriage.
She hopes that over time they will come to love each other but Henry is cold and distant, reluctant to share aspects of himself and even more reluctant to share a marital bed. Added to that Tess suspects that his claims of working all night in his factory are far from truthful and she is disturbed to find that he has a stash of money hidden in their bedroom.
Desperate for comfort Tess turns to a local medium despite being sceptical of his gift. In doing so she finds a friend among a sea of hostile townsfolk.
When an outbreak of polio occurs in the small town the towns folk pull together to build a hospital and Tess finds meaning volunteering as a nurse.
Tess was a likeable character in a lot of ways and it was easy to feel sorry for her when she first arrived in Hickory.
“It’s a terrible feeling, being despised, from the moment I set foot in Hickory, I felt the suspicion, the distrust, and outright hostility of most of the people I met. Even my new sister-in-law regarded me with disdain.”
As the story progressed there were many more times when I felt pity for Tess but there were also a few where I felt she wasn’t a particularly likeable. The most notable of these was when she expressed distaste for inter-racial relationships. However, because of the time period the book is set in she wouldn’t have been alone in the view.
Likewise, there were many times when I thoroughly disliked Hank. I found him to be a very controlling character and almost every time he was involved in the story I found something that got my back up. Small things like him telling her where to shop annoyed me as much as the bigger things like him making her discard her Catholicism and his protests over her continuing with nursing after their marriage. Again, though he was very much a product of the time they lived in.
My favourite thing about the book was the author’s fascinating account of polio and the efforts of those trying to combat it before the vaccine was developed. It was also interesting to learn about the ignorance surrounding the disease.
I would definitely recommend this book for fans of historical fiction.

Another fantastic book by Diane Chamberlain. The book concentrated on Tess an Italian American hoping to become a nurse. She has been in live with Vincent since a teenager and is very much looking forward to marrying him, until Vincent has to go away to help with the polio crisis and Tess takes a trip to Washington making the worst mistake of her life while there she leaves her home town and heads to Hickory, where she married into a loveless marriage and difficult family. The book is beautifully written I lived the story from the beginning to end and didn’t want it to end, I would have liked to have found out what happened to Tess’ best friend and boyfriend did he come home from war did they marry etc, but other than this one loose end the story is fantastic.

Blown away as usual.
Diane Chamberlain NEVER fails to write a fabulous story. Absolutely drawn in from the first word.

Diane is one of those authors who's book I will pick up and read just because it has her name on the front of it. I don't even need to know what the story is about, I don't need to read reviews. She is fantastic at what she does and I'm truly grateful for receiving an ARC of this book.

100% recommend it and I will be telling everyone I know to read this book. It's definitely become a favourite

Another fabulous book by Diane Chamberlain. Really good intriguing story that had me hooked from beginning to end. Highly recommended.

I’ve read several novels by Diane Chamberlain and this one is up there with the best. It’s about a young girl who makes a mistake and ends up marrying a man who, although kind to her, never loves her. She sacrifices her first love and throws herself into the marriage she knows she must have, showing determination to make it a success. The novel has many storylines running through it and I learned so much about the history and prejudices of the time.

Tess DeMello is 23 years old, studying to be a nurse, in love with Vincent and planning their wedding. Vincent is studying to be a doctor and leaves town for an extended period to help in the fight against polio. When Tess's friend, Gina, proposes a weekend trip out of town to Washington, DC, Tess can't imagine how accepting is going to change her life. She ends up moving away and marrying Henry but he has his secrets. I enjoyed this story as Tess is determined to go against the grain and work as a nurse, Henry is also willing to go against tradition, in his own way. The background of racial tension and the polio epidemic makes for a very interesting story.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-book ARC to read and review.

First off I confess that I’m an enormous fan of Diane Chamberlain’s writing and this is Chamberlain at her very best. A departure from her usual contemporary fiction, Chamberlain transports us to Hickory, North Carolina in the 1940s, weaving a compelling plot of love and betrayal, secrets and small town prejudice. We sink into the past following Tess DeMello, a young nurse, who on the cusp of marrying her childhood sweetheart, is forced to tie herself to another man. But this is so much more than a brilliant love story. Tess’s journey centres on a true event, when the residents of Hickory came together to establish a temporary hospital for polio patients, in only a few short hours. A story of bravery and compassion, it was shocking to be reminded of the constraints placed on both women and people of colour during that period in history. An enlightening five star read.

I loved this book, set in the 1940s. We meet Tess who is engaged to her childhood sweetheart Vincent but circumstances change their life plan when Tess finds herself pregnant after a drunken night out. The father of her baby Hank agrees to marry her and Tess moves to a small town in North Carolina. Things are not happy ever after and there are a few twists in the tale.
Another great book by Diane I can’t wait for the next one.

I've read many of the books by this author and am never disappointed. The stolen marriage is just the perfect romantic read to curl up with.

It take us back to the 1940s in Southern America, where we meet Tess DeMello an Italian American girl who has her life all mapped out, engaged to be married to the lover of her life boy next door Vincent, bound by their family ties, background and plans to work together in a medical practise as he is a fledgling doctor and she a trainee nurse.

But Vincent is called away to work in far away Chicago where he is needed to help treat victims of the outbreak of polio.

Tess's best friend Gina tries to take her mind off his absence and stop her moping and the 2 girls head off for the bright lights of Washington, where Gina's aunt owns a staid and well chaperoned boarding house, for a girly weekend together.

But Gina is a tad more flighty than Tess and the girls plans go badly awry and end up changing the course of Tess's life.

Events result in her breaking up with Vincent and heading off down South to a small town called Hickory, where she marries Henry, a virtual stranger, whose wealthy family see her as a usurper, are unwelcoming, set in their ways and harbour deep prejudices and she feels she will never fit in.

Henry is a secretive, though not unkind man, who nevertheless expects her to conform and be a demure housewife and give up on her dream of being a nurse.

But as we watch Tess face tragedy after disaster we see her grow and as she unravels the secrets which surround her new husband and find her place in the world.

It's a lovely story, beautifully told, with a gentleness and much old-fashioned drama which seems outdated now but was so relevant to everyones lives back in this era. It tackles many issues, racial tension, stillbirth, bereavement, death, the polio outbreak, mediumship and prejudice. I found it a quick and easy yet thoroughly enjoyable read.

Tess is all ready to marry her sweetheart Vincent - the only man for her - when one mistake brings everything tumbling down - set in 1944 there were far loss options available.

Finding herself married to Henry she is determined to make the most of it in the small town of Hickory but Henry's family do not welcome her at all, he was expected to marry one of her own and the town are not happy that someone new has been brought in. Henry himself always seems totally disinterested in her so her life is not happy - he does not want her to work and she feels that this is a total waste of her nursing training that she worked so hard to get. She is also not used to having servants waiting on her and the total segregation of black and white populations of the deep South

I loved this book - as with all others by this author - it makes you realise how different life was in such a comparatively short time ago - the effects of a polio outbreak and how it could devastate whole areas, something that would never happen now. I was completely draw into it from the beginning and loved the twists along the way

A really really good book!
I love Diane Chamberlain books, she writes about emotive issues and she gets to the crux of things. I love where she pitches her books and the settings.
This book kept me awake into the small hours as I was desperate to finish the book to see what would happen. I loved the little twist near the end, totally surprised me, I had guessed one part and was correct, but, not the other.
Great writing and a lovely clear message.

Thanks to NetGalley, Diane Chamberlain and Macmillan, it was a privilege to read this book.