The Planter's Bride — Janet MacLeod Trotter

1922: cousins and best friends, Sophie and Tilly, are looking for love and adventure. Sophie, orphaned at six, when her tea planter parents died suddenly of fever in India, has been brought up by a radical aunt in Edinburgh. Tilly meanwhile has lived a sheltered life in Newcastle. Tilly surprises everyone with a whirlwind marriage to confirmed bachelor and tea planter, James Robson, following him to India. Thinking herself in love with the charming but enigmatic forester Tam, the passionate, independent Sophie decides to follow him when he also goes to India. She longs to discover more about her mysterious parents and her early life in the tea gardens of Assam. But the harsh reality of life in India does not match the cousins' dreams. Sophie's enthusiasm for living in the jungle turns sour when Tam is bedevilled by ill-health and she receives unwanted attention from Tam's bullying boss, Bracknall. Increasingly drawn to handsome and charismatic forester Rafi Khan, Sophie discovers too late that Tam has been keeping secrets from her. Meanwhile city-girl Tilly finds herself pregnant and isolated in a tea planter's remote bungalow. When she begins to delve into Sophie's past, Tilly begins to suspect that all is not as it should be regarding the death of Sophie's parents. As long-hidden secrets come to light, the friends will be tested as never before. Set against the vivid backdrop of post First World War Britain and the changing world of India under the British Raj, THE PLANTER'S BRIDE is a stirring and passionate story of tragedy, loyalty and undying love.