The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain Published by St. Martin's Publishing Group on October 3, 2017
Genres: Fiction, Fiction / Historical
Pages: 384
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?
A Library Reads Top Ten Book of October 2017
Praise for The Stolen Marriage:
"[A] well-crafted crime-tinged tale." —Publishers Weekly
"The Stolen Marriage is the kind of story that will grab you and refuse to let you go until you turn the last page." —All About Romance
"Readers will be sucked in immediately...you just can't go wrong with a book with [Chamberlain's] name on the cover." —Southern Pines Pilot
The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain is the second book I’ve read for FizzyPop’s ‘Reading Diane Chamberlain’ challenge on Storygraph. And this review has turned out to be quite the challenge for me. Every time I sat down to write, I changed my rating. One day, it was a four-star read. The next, I wondered if it deserved two stars—or even one. Weeks passed before I could finally put into words why I felt so conflicted.
The truth is, I wanted to like this book. Diane has written novels I’ve genuinely enjoyed, and there are certainly compelling aspects here. The historical setting is immersive, the writing is engaging, and I stayed invested in Tess’s story. There were even moments when I wanted to love it.
But as I reflected on the book as a whole, I came back to the same conclusion: Henry Kraft is a rapist, and no amount of empathy garnering is going to change my mind about him.
My issue isn’t simply that the novel features morally complex relationships. My problem lies with how the aftermath of rape is handled. Spoiler: Tess is intoxicated and unable to give meaningful consent, yet the narrative gradually reframes the situation, blurring responsibility and shifting emotional weight onto ambiguity, regret, and self-doubt instead of accountability. While self-doubt is often experienced by those taken advantage of, it doesn’t change the reality that nonconsensual sex is rape—regardless of whether it is violent.
Henry is never meaningfully held to account for his actions. There is no real reckoning, no sustained consequence, and no moment where the narrative fully grapples with the harm at the center of his character. Instead, it softens his character and seeks to elicit empathy for him as a poor, sad figure who isn’t permitted to love the one he loves.
Ultimately, Tess took seemingly full responsibility for what happened to her and concluded that the coupling had been consensual. For me, that did not lessen the impact of the situation—it reinforced how uncomfortable I felt with how it was being portrayed. It felt like being in a court of law where the judge is trying to shift blame onto the female for drinking too much and for how she’s dressed.
This ultimately shaped my rating. It was a missed opportunity to call this out for what it was: rape. Tess even told him to stop, and he did not. Yes, one could argue for historical accuracy. However, the book directly addresses other social issues, such as interracial and same-sex relationships—so why downplay rape?
I can acknowledge what the book does well. The historical backdrop is vivid, and Chamberlain’s writing kept me turning pages even when I was frustrated. Those strengths are real.
But I couldn’t reconcile those strengths with a story that, in my reading, failed to fully confront the moral crisis at its center. The softening of rape through narrative framing comes off a bit like the “boys will be boys” mentality.
The ending only reinforced that feeling. Everything resolves too neatly, and instead of emotional payoff, I was left with a sense that the story was asking me to accept a resolution I never felt had been properly earned.
After sitting with it for weeks, I realized my conflict wasn’t really a conflict at all. I wasn’t unsure—I was trying to negotiate myself into a higher rating because of the book’s strengths, because of the writing that put me in the time and place. But my final judgment is based on the overall experience, not isolated elements.
Ultimately, this is a book I can’t recommend without serious caveats. I can see what it was trying to do, but I cannot separate its strengths from how it handled its most important subject matter.
For me, that puts it at a 1–2-star read, leaning toward 1.
CW / TW:
This piece contains references to:
Racism, Miscarriage, Abortion, Car Accident/death, Sexual Assault, Homophobia, Rape, Grief, Child death
Recommended Age: 16+
About Diane Chamberlain
Diane Chamberlain is the New York Times, USA Today and (London) Sunday Times best-selling author of 27 novels. The daughter of a school principal who supplied her with a new book almost daily, Diane quickly learned the emotional power of story. Although she wrote many small “books” as a child, she didn’t seriously turn to writing fiction until her early thirties when she was waiting for a delayed doctor’s appointment with nothing more than a pad, a pen, and an idea. She was instantly hooked.
Diane was born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey and lived for many years in both San Diego and northern Virginia. She received her master’s degree in clinical social work from San Diego State University. Prior to her writing career, she was a hospital social worker in both San Diego and Washington, D.C, and a psychotherapist in private practice in Alexandria, Virginia, working primarily with adolescents.
More than two decades ago, Diane was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, which changed the way she works: She wrote two novels using voice recognition software before new medication allowed her to get back to typing. She feels fortunate that her arthritis is not more severe and that she’s able to enjoy everyday activities as well as keep up with a busy travel schedule.
Diane lives in North Carolina with her significant other, photographer John Pagliuca, and their odd but lovable Shetland Sheepdog, Cole.
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