The Tea Planter's Daughter (India Tea Series #1) by Janet MacLeod Trotter : ARC Book Review

Title: The Tea Planter's Daugter
Series: India Tea #1
Author: Janet MacLeod Trotter
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published Date: June 21st 2016
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance
Page Count: 430
Format: Kindle

My Rating: ★ ★ ★.5

Publisher Summary: 

Lush, green, fragrant: the Indian hills of Assam are full of promise. But eighteen-year-old Clarissa Belhaven is full of worry. The family tea plantation is suffering, and so is her father, still grieving over the untimely death of his wife, while Clarissa’s fragile sister, Olive, needs love and resourceful care.
Beautiful and headstrong, Clarissa soon attracts the attention of young, brash Wesley Robson, a rival tea planter. Yet before his intentions become fully clear, tragedy befalls the Belhavens and the sisters are wrenched from their beloved tea garden to the industrial streets of Tyneside.
A world away from the only home she has ever known, Clarissa must start again. Using all her means, she must endure not only poverty but jealousy and betrayal too. Will the reappearance of Wesley give her the link to her old life that she so desperately craves? Or will a fast-changing world and the advent of war extinguish hope forever?

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 My Review:

“Clarrie refused to let small-minded people upset her. She had more right to live here than any of them and she loved her home among the Assam hills with a passion. “

Clarrie’s father Jock is a horrible business man, since the death of his wife he has turned to alcohol and drugs to help him deal with his loss. This leaves both Clarrie and Olive on their own with the servants and to try and make sure the tea plantation keeps going with the little access to information about the plantation that they had. One day though when Clarrie was out riding her horse through the hills she meets Wesley and his friend, who are from England and tea planters as well. They start up a sort of friendship, but it is a complicated one, considering who Wesley is and how her father feels about his family.

When disaster strikes through and they lose everything besides each other, and have to move to Newcastle, England with cousins they have never met before. This is when I started not enjoying this story as much. The cousin’s wife was awful and needed to stop being so angry all the time. I get it was jealousy, but sometimes enough is enough. I did really like how Clarrie tried to stay hopeful and held the memories of India close to help her get through the days.. I really don’t know how Olive managed having to spend so much time with the cousin’s wife and her abuse. She was so much stronger than anyone gave her credit for.  

Clarrie somehow is able to make friends, and finds a way out. I liked when things changed from living with the awful cousins to a different family that they became servants for. This is when I stopped liking the story very much as well. I just didn’t like the way Clarrie got to be a little full of herself, and then when a marriage of convenience happened I started to lose even more interest.  Once things started to change though and Wesley came back into the picture sort of I started to gain more interest and hoped that certain things would happen.

Personally I loved the chemistry between Wesley and Clarrie and wished she had accepted his proposal instead of letting her father’s hate for his family make her choice for her. When that didn't happen though I liked how feisty Clarrie stayed in order to provide for her and Olive. I liked most of the friendships she made and how close she became with Will and loved him like a mother. 

Overall I enjoyed this book, and will read the second book later this month.

“Nothing and no one, she vowed, would ever take away her precious memories.”

Thank you to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for an E-Arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.