The Jilted Countess

This novel was inspired by a true story. [See the author's website for the background.]
 
Roza Meszaros arrives in America from Hungary. Born an aristocrat, she’s also been a celebrated ballerina and is eagerly looking forward to seeing her soldier fiance, Joe, for the first time in two years, and marry him. However, when she arrives at her destination in Minnesota, there is no sign of Joe. Instead she is met by a Hungarian couple, Jakab and Mariska Wykowsi who will have difficult news. Roza is devastated to discover Joe has married an old girlfriend. She’s been jilted.
 
The option is to return to Hungary, but it is now under the Communist iron fist and would expose her to new dangers. Roza is desperate to stay in America. She resorts to a plan to find someone else to marry her before her visa runs out. She approaches a local newspaper and the editor spots a great human interest story. He publishes her appeal and Roza receives well over 1,000 proposals. She narrows them down to just five. Eventually, she chooses stoic and quiet war veteran, Finn Ericksen. It’s a rocky road for both, however, as it is complicated by Finn’s shell shock (now better known as PTSD) and Roza’s difficulty in adjusting to the role of a housewife, not helped by her lingering feelings for Joe and her own psychological war damage.
 
Roza is an interesting, complex woman, someone who was born with a silver spoon but who must learn how to be ordinary, deal with a new culture, improve her strengths and face up to her weaknesses. And it is so refreshing to read a novel with an appealing male character like Finn. He has his own demons and faults, but is determined that the marriage should succeed.
 
What may appear to be a modest, romantic novel, has far more layers than you expect. It also enlightens readers about what life was like for many individuals and refugees who had to flee from oppression in Europe and elsewhere after World War II.
 
With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.
 
Four stars
 
(As a personal aside - this novel initially caught my attention because of my fascination with marriages of convenience since first becoming aware of at least of two in my parents’ circle of friends in post-war Africa. One was our neighbour’s “mail-order” bride from Greece whom the husband had never even seen, but it seemed the marriage worked and I believe they stayed together for life. The other was of a Polish woman who’d married a South African soldier after the war, also partly in order to escape family persecution by the Communists. It was another marriage that seemed happy and their son was a playmate of mine. Although she wasn’t aristocratic, her traumatic background involving the Nazis was not dissimilar to Roza’s.)


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