The Tea Planter's Wife: A Novel

I have really enjoyed reading this book. Yet it seems to me that like in all of her other books, Dina Jefferies sometimes tries to embellish the plot she authors by adding too many juicy details to keep the readers deeply engrossed in their read. Some of these details, I feel, are a bit superfluous and even gratuitous, and leaving them out could still produce a wonderfully written story. As for the book I have read, I felt aghast and appalled by the racial views held by the British white society back in those days that judged people according their skin colour.

It's a good read, wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea - excuse the pun! Would make a good TV series. I'd been to Sri Lanka and stayed in a converted tea factory surrounded by tea plantations so I could relate very well to environment. The story was potentially good but once you guess it, it seems to drag a bit. Well written, easy read, not too flowery. An enjoyable holiday book.

I don't usually like historical fiction and didn't expect to like this book. However, when I realized it wasn't all about getting a guy because the guy was already "got" I liked it better. And there was a slight promise of a forbidden romance for quite awhile, but happily, that went away.Great location and interesting and unusual story. I ended-up liking it. Maybe not the best book of the month, but a short, easy and interesting read.I had to laugh at negative reviews that said something like, "I wanted to learn about tea plantations". Why would you buy a novel to learn about tea plantations? Buy a nonfiction book about tea plantations.

The ending was not at all what might be expected. A book that was hard to put to one side in order to do other things. Wonderful!!1

This book started out slow, but once the character developments are done with, I found non stop intrigue in this book. Also, Jefferies makes the reader feel as if they are back in time in Ceylon.I look forward to more of her books.

Good read. Book club had mixed reviews but generally liked it.

An interesting book, but the twist in it made it somewhat sad. .One of these books you want to see how it ends, but when it does you are disappointed it has finished! I think this might be the first book I have read by Dinah Jefferies, but I will look forward to reading more of her novels.

How many times can you use the phrase "twisted around" to mean turn? I counted at least 10 times, and then gave up. Way too many repeated descriptive words. Hey, you are a writer, come up with something new. It was too long of a "romance" novel for the simple story. It was mostly about how the main character could get her husband in bed, and then to manipulate him and lie to him...No surprise in the end. Just boring. I really couldn't care about these weak characters, weak plot. I struggled to finish it for my book club. the only thing that was semi-interesting was the locale and even that should have been more colorfully expressed. A real disappointment. Sorry.

The narration of the story is excellent. Even a person like me who is not so much used to reading novels and books, could read and understand the story well enough to feel the burden ND pain that Gwen had been carrying in her chest since Liyoni's birth and later Laurence felt at the end.

Romanzo avvincente; riesce a far immergere il lettore nell'atmosfera esotica del paese e dell'epoca in cui è ambientato. Lo consiglio a chi ha bisogno di una lettura spensierata, capace di far dimenticare lo stress giornaliero , immergendo il lettore in luoghi completamente diversi dai nostri in tempi non troppo lontani.

A great read.....very evocative of the time and place. It is well written and really captures the 'flavour' of life in Colonial Ceylon ( Sri Lanka ). The characters are well drawn and sympathetic.

My book group seems recently to have selected a number of books that might be regarded as ‘literary fiction’. I have to express a feeling that I have had for many decades that sometimes literary fiction is an excuse for offering the reader something that is either dreary or depressing, and some of our recent choices have confirmed this to a certain extent.Now, I don’t know if The Tea Planter’s wife is regarded as lit fiction or not, but I do know that it was a page turner - a book with a plot - with a real story - and despite its 400 plus pages, I whizzed through it, in just a few days, eager to pick it up each evening.The story takes place in Ceylon, as it was then, in the early part of the 20th century. Gwen, who arrives there from England, having married tea planter, Lawrence, faces a conflict that causes her to keep secret from her husband something that has occurred. He also seems to be keeping something from her and these secrets are only revealed at the end of the book. In the meantime, her husband is unhappy with her friendship with a Sinhalese man, while she is angry with what seems to be his relationship with an American woman. Gwen also has to put up with an irritating and badly behaved sister-in-law, Verity.Initially, I could see comparisons with Jane Eyre and Rebecca - in that Gwen is a young innocent at the start of her marriage to a possible Rochester/de Winter, with the first wife throwing a shadow over the relationship, or even becoming a rival. Like Mrs Danvers, the sister in law, Verity, is antagonistic. But the story doesn’t remain an echo of those earlier models. Gwen develops during the course of the book - you can see her naivety dissipating - and she becomes more assertive, although she still struggles with the same problems, until the secrets come out at the end.The setting is, of course, completely different and important in its own right, although I felt there was a bit too much description at the beginning of the book. Apart from that, there is occasional repetitiveness, and rather too much of a summing up/explanation at the end, when the two main characters reveal their stories to each other in a rather emotionless way. There were also some unlikely events, where the reader had to seriously suspend disbelief.However, I would still give it 9/10 or 4.5 stars, because it was a very good read.

I was very much interested in the setting in Ceylon on a tea plantation as I had never read anything of that sort. The author did a wonderful job of weaving a story of love and heartbreak, while dealing with racial problems. It was a page-turner.