I found The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jeffries whilst searching for books set in Sri Lanka, having had a fantastic holiday there last year and in the hope of going again next year. It is set in the hills around Nuwara Eliya where I stayed and amongst the tea factories and plantations I visited.

The story centres around young Gwen Hooper, who arrives in Ceylon in 1925 to join her new husband on his tea plantation. From the beginning, secrets swirl around the cast of characters. Her husband Laurence’s American friend Christina, who never misses a chance to flirt with him, and may be hiding something, his sister Verity, a spoiled young woman who tries to usurp Gwen’s place in the household, the memory of Caroline, Laurence’s first wife who died at her own hand, and Savi Ravasinghe, who Gwen meets on her steamship as she arrives in Colombo and who Laurence cannot stand. As Gwen settles into plantation life she waits for the arrival of her twin babies, but when they are born everything is thrown upside down and she finds herself with a secret of her own to keep.

This was a very enjoyable read and I was glad to be transported away from a grey English winter and back to the beautiful hills of Sri Lanka.