The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies

The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper is newly married to a rich and charming widower, eager to join him on his tea plantation, determined to be the perfect wife and mother.

But life in Ceylon is not what Gwen expected. The plantation workers are resentful, the neighbours treacherous. And there are clues to the past - a dusty trunk of dresses, an overgrown gravestone in the grounds - that her husband refuses to discuss.

Just as Gwen finds her feet, disaster strikes. She faces a terrible choice, hiding the truth from almost everyone, but a secret this big can't stay buried forever . . .

**********

I buddy read this book with Erin, Stephanie, and Heather!

The Tea Planter's Wife is about a young woman named Gwen who arrives in Ceylon to start her new life as a married woman to a tea planter named Laurence who is a widower. But, before we get to met Gwen is there a prolog about a woman with a small child and I wondered what the woman would have for connections to the story.

Gwen meets on the ship Savi Ravisinghe and I was worried for a while that this would turn out to be a love-triangle, but the story thankfully never turned in that directions. However, Savi will have a role to play in the story.

As I stated above did I buddy read this with some friends of mine and that was an interesting experience with us discussed the chapters we had read once every week. But, somewhere along the way the story just didn't move forward at a pleasant pace and suddenly a break in reading and discussing the book happened and weeks passed and we just didn't read more. Then I decided that enough is enough, now I will finish the book. 

So, I'm looking forward to seeing what my friends think about the rest of the books. For me, I was happy to get answers at last, but I still felt that the book story didn't really work for me and my biggest problem was that I never really cared for most of the characters in the book. Gwen just never become an interesting character, and I was constantly irritated by her attitude towards her sister-in-law Verity. And, at the same time, I found Verity highly annoying. So I was constantly frustrated with them both. And, then we have Laurence, Gwen's husband, and to be honest, he was quite dull and even the "mystery" with his dead wife felt a bit dull. The only characters I did like was Gwen's cousin Fran, but she was hardly in the book. 

For me, this book just didn't work. It never really got surprising or engrossing enough to make me truly enjoy the book and the last part of the book I finished just because I had been reading the book so long that I wanted finally to get it off my reading list. I did like it enough to finish the book and I did enjoy part of the book. But, I think the book would have worked better if I had found the characters more likable or at least more interesting. 

I want to thank The Crown Publishing Group for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss!