She had big dreams. But will war, tragedy, and naïveté ruin her aspirations? 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 grief 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?Poignant and heartfelt, The Scent of Gardenias chronicles the struggle of a Twentieth-Century woman carving a place in a society stacked against her odds for success. Inspired by her mother's true story, Lorraine Haas lays bare a brave and challenging journey of grit and self-discovery you won't soon forget. The Scent of Gardenias is a beautifully crafted women's fiction novel. If you like raw emotional battles, family drama, and gut-wrenching dilemmas, then you'll love Lorraine Haas's tale of courage and tenacity.