No1 novel set in in Ceylon 1920s/30s

• Book: The Tea Planter’s Wife
• Location: Dickoya
• Author: Dinah Jefferies

Review Author: tripfiction

There is good reason why The Tea Planter’s Wife has been no.1 on the Sunday Times Bestseller list in the Autumn 2015 and featured in the Richard and Judy Book Club. It is simply a stunning read set in 1920s/1930s Ceylon.

Gwendolyn Hooper, newlywed at only 19 years, arrives in the tea plantations at Dickoya, where she has to adapt – virtually overnight – to a very different life from home in the UK. It is hot and humid, life is governed by searing heat or thundering monsoon rains. Living in the hills overlooking a lake, the house is tended by servants and Gwen has to find her footing, supervising proceedings, adapting to colonial life and trying to understand her new husband, Laurence and the life he has built for himself amidst the tea plantations. A hugely daunting task for one so young. But she is a determined young woman and as she starts to make headway, she soon finds there are some things that don’t quite add up. And Dinah is skilful at weaving little incidents that may or may not have significance into the narrative, they thread their way through the storyline, like a snake in the grass, and provide an unsettling nuance that just adds to the pathos of the narrative.

Gwen soon falls pregnant and after the birth she finds herself having to make choices that no Mother should have to make. She opts to keep her marriage stable and intact, but at great cost to herself. The guilt of what she has had to do is like a gnawing pain, always present. Dinah skilfully portrays a woman on the edge who could all too easily fold in on herself.

It is clearly a well researched novel that has the dust moats dancing in the hot and stuffy living rooms of th house in Dickoya, the wildlife teaming beyond the door and the dripping vegetation steaming all around – a brilliant setting beautifully brought to life in which Dinah has set a story of human relationships, foibles and skulduggery. All set against an increasingly turbulent time, history in the making, the unease between the Tamils and the Sinhalese is always ticking in the background, always palpable.

This review first appeared on our blog – and the author’s travel company, who she used for her research talk about Sri Lanka.

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