“Even though I couldn’t have him or touch him or talk to him or even look into his eyes. I needed his presence.”
Set in 1944, The Stolen Marriage is a 2017 historical fiction book by Diane Chamberlain, brimming with secrets, betrayals and forgiveness. Pregnant and alone, Tess DeMello is forced to give up her career as a nurse and her engagement to the love of her life. Turning to the father of her child for help, she moves to the rural town of Hickory, North Carolina. And when one of the town’s golden girls suddenly dies in a tragic accident, all fingers are pointed at her. When a polio epidemic strikes, Tess defies her new husband’s wishes and throws herself into working inside the town’s new hospital. Through this work, she finds purpose, meaning and a new lens to view her husband’s increasingly alarming behaviour. If you love emotional narratives, strong female leads and historical mysteries, join us at What We Reading for the best books like The Stolen Marriage!
Before We Were Yours – Lisa Wingate
Kicking off our list of books like The Stolen Marriage is Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours. Set in Memphis in 1939, readers are introduced to twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings who all live an idyllic life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when Rill is left in charge one night, strangers arrive in droves, take the children from all they know, and throw them into a Tennessee orphanage. At the mercy of the home’s cruel director, Rill is forced to fight to keep her family together.
In the present, Avery Stafford appears to have all the wealth and privilege anyone could ever need. However, when she returns home to help her father overcome a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with a series of uncomfortable questions that lead to her taking a tour through her family’s long-hidden history. Based on one of the most devastating scandals in US history, Before We Were Yours is a captivating tale of how the heart never forgets where we belong.
Where The Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
The so-called ‘Marsh Girl’ haunted the small fishing village of Barkley Cove for years. So when in 1969 the body of the popular Chase Andrews is discovered, the locals all immediately suspect the wild girl who is unfit for polite society. But Kya is not what everyone says she is. A born naturalist with just a single day of school behind her, she has all the skills to live in solitude forever. Yet, she still longs to be loved.
Drawn to two young men from the town, who are equally intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself up to an alien new world – until the unthinkable happens. Similar to The Stolen Marriage, Delia Owens weaves together a haunting mystery and a powerful coming-of-age story in her 2018 bestselling novel, Where the Crawdads Sing.
Check Out The Best Books Like Where The Crawdads Sing
The Secret Life Of CeeCee Wilkes – Diane Chamberlain
If you loved The Stolen Marriage, you may want to check out another one of Diane Chamberlain’s best books, The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes. In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell vanished. Two decades later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. Yet, there is no sign of the unborn child anywhere. CeeCee Wilkes knows exactly how Genevieve died; because she was there.
And she also knows exactly what happened to the missing infant. Because twenty years ago she made the fateful choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is being faced with the death penalty, and CeeCee has another devastating decision. To tell the truth and destroy her family, or let an innocent man die to protect a lifetime’s worth of lies.
Orphan Train – Christina Baker Kline
Nearly eighteen years old, Molly Ayer knows that she has one last chance. Months away from ‘ageing out’ of the child welfare system, and therefore kicked out of her foster home, a position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the sole between her and a lifetime of juvie or worse. Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the Maine coast, but her attic, buried in trunks, are reminders of a far more turbulent past.
As she helps her sift through the possessions and memories, Molly realises that she and Vivian are far more alike than she first realised. And the closer the two become, the more parallels Molly discovers tying to her own life. Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have followed her across her life. Answers that promise to ultimately free the pair fo them. Similar to The Stolen Marriage, Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train is a sweeping and epic in-scope historical fiction story of second chances, unexpected friendships and the secrets that show us who we truly are.
The Light Between Oceans – M.L. Stedman
After four long years of fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock. Tom brings with him a young, bold and loving wife, Isabel. Years on, after a series of unsuccessful attempts to have a child, a grieving Isabel hears a baby crying in the wind. A boat washes up, carrying aboard a dead man and a living baby.
A man used to sticking to the rules, Tom wants to report the man and baby immediately. Yet, against his judgement, they claim her as their own, naming her Lucy. When she turns two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that other people exist in the world and that their decision has devastated one of them. M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans is a mesmerising historical fiction novel featuring compelling characters who demonstrate how one person’s justice is another person’s tragic loss.
The Lost Wife – Alyson Richman
During the last few moments of calm in pre-war Prague, a young art student named Lenka and a medicine student named Josef fall in love. With the promise of a better life, the pair marry. However, the Nazi invasion of the country shatters their dreams and the two are torn apart by the war that envelops their nation.
Now a successful obstetrician in the US, Josef has never forgotten the wife he believes died during the Second World War. But, in the Nazi ghetto of Terezin, relying on her skills as an artist and the memories of a husband she would never see again, Lenka survived. Then, decades later, a chance encounter in New York City leads to an inescapable realisation that fate has given Josef and Lenka one more chance. Like The Stolen Marriage, Alyson Richman’s The Lost Wife uses the beauty of life in Prague to the horrors of Nazi occupation to pay homage to the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring power of memories.
The Kitchen House – Kathleen Grissom
When a white servant girl goes against the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the very best and very worst in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned whilst on board a ship sailing from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives at the tobacco plantation. Here, she is set to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Cared for by Belle, the master of the plantation’s illegitimate daughter, Lavinia forms an incredibly deep bond with her adopted family; though she is always set apart from them thanks to her white skin.
Gradually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house. The master is absent, the mistress battles an addiction to opioids. She finds herself delicately balancing across two very different worlds. And when she is forced to make a fateful choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are brought to light and entire lives are put at risk in Kathleen Grissom’s The Kitchen House.
The Giver Of Stars – Jojo Moyes
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve, hoping to escape her dreary life in England. But, life in small-town Kentucky soon proves equally suffocating for her, especially when living alongside her new father-in-law. So when the opportunity to deliver books as a part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s travelling library arises, Alice signs up immediately.
The leader of the women is Margery, a self-sufficient who has never asked for a man’s permission to do anything. The pair are soon joined by three other like-minded women, who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky. Across their breathtakingly beautiful and occasionally brutal surroundings, Jojo Moyes’ The Giver of Stars follows the women and their commitment to bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives. Like with The Stolen Marriage, The Giver of Stars is an epic novel of women’s friendship, true love and resilience.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
