Loving Maria by TR Robinson

Loving Maria is based on the life of the author’s mother. It is set in a rural area in the early 1900s. It was a time when although attitudes toward the role of women and domestic life was generally changing in cities, life in rural areas maintained restrictive attitudes and conventions of society and class structure, including the tradition of arranged marriages.

Maria belonged to a wealthy family with extensive estates. They were a caring and loving family not only towards each other but also their employees and the people of their local village. This care extended to her mother providing healing to the citizens with traditional medicine.

Maria had inherited this natural skill from her mother and, to enable her to better care for her neighbours, went to Vienna to study modern medicine. She had a modern outlook with her own beliefs and needs yet she wanted to do what was deemed right by tradition.

Being at a marriageable age, her beauty and intelligence were attractive to men. With her mother’s blessing, she resisted convention of a loveless, arranged marriage to a man considered worthy of the family and who may want to take her away from the family estates.

Three men desiring Maria feature in the story. One is a quiet farm boy who admires from afar contrasts with a cruel stalker. The third, whose love for her becomes an obsession, manoeuvres the situation to ensure no one else will win her hand in marriage.

Does anyone win her hand in marriage? Will she be forced to leave her beloved home? I won’t spoil the story; you’ll have to read it for yourself.

I have read all TR Robinson’s books to date. Whether it is a short story, full length novel or biography I have enjoyed each one. Loving Maria is no exception.

My rating 4*

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