The Silent Sister, by Diane Chamberlain.
This book was an enjoyable easy read. I liked the contrast between young Riley, who was lost after she broke up with her boyfriend and her father died, and Lisa, as she tries to make a new life for herself.
Riley’s sister was silent because she was silenced by her abuser. A child prodigy violinist, she never told her parents that her music teacher started molesting her when she was small. When he came to get the baby he’d forcibly made with her, to raise her with his infertile wife, she shot him dead. She’d lost all reason, seeing him bouncing her child on his lap.
I like the way the story switched back and forth from each sister’s perspective. Lisa gave up a lot to save herself and her family.
It was understandable that the brother was angry, and that Riley thought her mother was cold. Parents often withdraw from the remaining children when one child dies or is sick. They focus everything on that child, while the others don’t get their basic needs met.
Every character was well-drawn, even though some, like Christine, Jeannie, and the Kyles, were unlikeable. Christine and Jeannie were too intent on pushing Riley to sell her father’s house.
I like that Danny’s anger went unresolved, and that the Kyles didn’t get the land. Not every detail needs to be wrapped up tight. All that mattered was that Lisa could go on with her life with Riley in it.
No, you can’t get back time with a child you don’t raise.
The Stolen Marriage, by Diane Chamberlain
This was another book where people run away to have a real life. This book was also enjoyable, and easy to read.
Tess, a young woman in Baltimore, Maryland, is about to get married to her childhood sweetheart, Vincent, a young doctor. She’s been training to be a nurse, hoping to work with him when he opens a practice. When he goes to Chicago to work on an infantile paralysis epidemic, he keeps extending his stay. Bored and lonely, Tess takes a trip with her best friend and ends up drunk and having a one-night stand with Henry, a man she hardly knows.
She gets pregnant and is too ashamed to tell Vincent. She travels to Henry’s home in Hickory, North Carolina, to ask for money to start a new life. He insists that they get married.
Being pregnant outside of marriage was considered shameful in those times. Her mother disowns her and then dies. Tess tells Vincent that she loves another.
I had a lot of sympathy for Tess. Though she tried to make the best of things, it was clear that Henry would never love her. Her troubled intensified when his sister dies in a car accident with Tess at the wheel, and Tess suffers a miscarriage.
Henry wasn’t likeable. He uses Tess to live a lie. He didn’t care if he married her or a woman from his childhood who was after his money. Despite his handicap (missing fingers), he was just another white male who reeked of patriarchal privilege.
When a polio epidemic strikes Hickory, Tess volunteers as a nurse, saving many lives. Henry realizes her value and what she’s lost; and makes decision that ensures happiness for them both.
The ending was very satisfying.