The Tea Planter’s Wife: A Novel

Gwendolyn has just become The Tea Planter’s Wife. She’s only nineteen, and her new husband is thirty-seven and owns a tea plantation in Ceylon. There are secrets surrounding the death of his first wife, but Gwen decides to ignore those and travels to her new and exotic home. It’s not long before she becomes pregnant and she has her own secrets to hide. It’s 1923 and racial tensions are high. Gwen has to find her own path in a changing world and deal with both her secrets and her husband’s, as well as with a troubled sister-in-law. She is far from home and has to navigate this life mostly on her own.

I really enjoyed this book. Oftentimes, you don’t even need a mystery or murder to make a story great. People are so complex and full of secrets that they can easily provide material for a book worth reading. I enjoyed Gwen’s character. She changes quite a bit throughout the story as she is forced to conceal her own secrets and try to make the right choices.

The book is a compelling read that looks at the secrets we’ll keep to protect those we love and to avoid losing them.