A Strong Woman Overcoming Circumstances Novel

Margaret Rose longs to escape her family’s poverty so against her domineering father’s wishes, the determined young woman elopes with an older man only to have tragedy strike.

The Scent of Gardenias chronicles the struggle of a Twentieth-Century woman carving her place in society. If you like raw emotional battles, family drama, and gut-wrenching dilemmas, then you’ll love Lorraine Haas’s tale of courage and tenacity. Inspired by a true story.


America, the 1940s. Margaret Rose longs to escape her family’s poverty. So against her domineering father’s wishes, the determined young woman elopes with an older man. But shortly after the US enters WWII, her grand ambitions sink when her husband’s ship is torpedoed.

Training to become a nurse to give herself a future, Margaret’s despair deepens when she discovers she’s pregnant and must quit to have the baby. And now without income to support a child, the desperate widow marries a man who takes her far from home… and into disaster.

Will Margaret rise above catastrophic misfortune and create the life she deserves?

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