Click HERE for not only an excerpt, but also an audio excerpt.
Released in 2017, now in Paperback.
St. Martin's Press
Steeped in history and filled with heart-wrenching twists, The Stolen Marriage
is an emotionally captivating novel of secrets, betrayals, prejudice,
and forgiveness. It showcases Diane Chamberlain at the top of her
talent.
One mistake, one fateful night, and Tess DeMello’s life is changed forever.
It
is 1944. Pregnant, alone, and riddled with guilt, twenty-three-year-old
Tess DeMello abruptly gives up her budding career as a nurse and ends
her engagement to the love of her life, unable to live a lie. Instead,
she turns to the baby’s father for help and agrees to marry him, moving
to the small, rural town of Hickory, North Carolina. Tess’s new husband,
Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, hides
money from his new wife, and shows her no affection. Tess quickly
realizes she’s trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way
out.
The people of Hickory love and respect Henry but see Tess as
an outsider, treating her with suspicion and disdain. When one of the
town’s golden girls dies in a terrible accident, everyone holds Tess
responsible. But Henry keeps his secrets even closer now, though it
seems that everyone knows something about him that Tess does not.
When
a sudden polio epidemic strikes Hickory, the townspeople band together
to build a polio hospital. Tess knows she is needed and defies Henry’s
wishes to begin working at there. Through this work, she begins to find
purpose and meaning. Yet at home, Henry’s actions grow more alarming by
the day. As Tess works to save the lives of her patients, can she
untangle the truth behind her husband’s mysterious behavior and find the
love—and the life—she was meant to have?