Wild Romance: A Victorian Marriage Story, Court Trial & Self-Made Woman - Historical Fiction Novel for Book Clubs & Literature Lovers

This book is a true story that begins with a scandal involving a soldier and a young woman who met by chance on a boat crossing the English Channel in the late 1800s. It apparently received world-wide attention and was quite a huge deal back then, but has long since been forgotten with the passage of time. The author begins by explaining how she became fascinated by these two people and what the events surrounding their story revealed about social structure, morals, and attitudes during the Victorian era, and decided to write this book as a result. While it is an interesting enough story as far as scandals go, I don't feel as though she was able to convey exactly what it was that made these people come to life for her. It was certainly difficult for me to understand why this guy was so attractive to Theresa in the first place. I never really got a feel for him and what he was like, other than being a self-serving jerk. The scandal itself is somewhat murky as far as what really happened, and I doubt that anyone would be able to say who was definitely in the right, either then or now. I am sure that the author did the best she could with what information she could ferret out after all this time, but the trial kind of fell flat for me.However, after the dust settles, the author follows Theresa's life from that point on up until her death, and that is a whole story unto itself. She travelled all over the world, and did and experienced a lot of things that would be considered out of the ordinary today, much less for a woman in that day and age. She is an enigma in many ways, and the life she led was certainly not one that anyone would have thought possible in a time when women were essentially considered to be nothing more than a man's wife and mother of his children. It is quite an unusual life, and though it struck me as being somewhat lonely and forlorn, it is worth reading just because of that. I'm not sure if it really warrants 4 stars but 3 doesn't seem like enough, either, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, because I ended up liking Theresa and rooting for her when all was said and done.