#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - 1920s Ceylon: A young Englishwoman
marries a charming tea plantation owner and widower, only to discover
he's keeping terrible secrets about his past, including what happened to
his first wife, that lead to devastating consequences
In this lush, atmospheric page-turner, nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn
Hooper has married Laurence, the seductively mysterious owner of a vast
tea empire in colonial Ceylon, after a whirlwind romance in London. When
she joins him at his faraway tea plantation, she's filled with hope for
their life together, eager to take on the role of mistress of the house,
learn the tea business, and start a family. But life in Ceylon is not
what Gwen expected. The plantation workers are resentful, the neighbors
and her new sister-in-law treacherous. Gwen finds herself drawn to a
local Sinhalese man of questionable intentions and worries about her new
husband's connection to a brash American businesswoman. But most
troubling are the unanswered questions surrounding Laurence's first
marriage. Why won't anyone discuss the fate of his first wife? Who's
buried in the unmarked grave in the forest? As the darkness of her
husband's past emerges, Gwen is forced to make a devastating choice, one
that could destroy their future and Gwen's chance at happiness.
