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The Governor's Lover
Life was difficult for Lovinia as the half-Sinhalese, half-Portuguese lead dancer in her father's dance troupe. But when she catches the eye of the newly arrived Governor of the Crown Colony of Ceylon, her fortunes change dramatically.
The autocratic Governor, smitten by Lovinia’s obvious charms but wary of the disapprovals of a narrow-minded British society, builds a stately country mansion on a promontory overlooking the sea close to the village of Galkissa, just a few miles south of Colombo, where she lives. An underground tunnel from the mansion's cellar allows Lovinia to visit him regularly to conduct their affair secretly.
Life on the island is colourful and exotic, but an undercurrent of violence beneath the bright façade brings excitement and danger to her life. Lovinia is caught up in a treacherous mission and is torn between two very different lives. Will she follow her head or her heart?
Set in 1805, during the early stages of British Colonial rule in Ceylon when the middle Kingdom of Kandy was at war with the British Empire, the true love story between the Governor, Major General Sir Thomas Maitland, and mestizo dancer Lovinia Aponsuwa has endured and enchanted people of all ages over the past two hundred years.
The autocratic Governor, smitten by Lovinia’s obvious charms but wary of the disapprovals of a narrow-minded British society, builds a stately country mansion on a promontory overlooking the sea close to the village of Galkissa, just a few miles south of Colombo, where she lives. An underground tunnel from the mansion's cellar allows Lovinia to visit him regularly to conduct their affair secretly.
Life on the island is colourful and exotic, but an undercurrent of violence beneath the bright façade brings excitement and danger to her life. Lovinia is caught up in a treacherous mission and is torn between two very different lives. Will she follow her head or her heart?
Set in 1805, during the early stages of British Colonial rule in Ceylon when the middle Kingdom of Kandy was at war with the British Empire, the true love story between the Governor, Major General Sir Thomas Maitland, and mestizo dancer Lovinia Aponsuwa has endured and enchanted people of all ages over the past two hundred years.
326 pages, Hardcover
Published November 17, 2022
About the author
Roderic Grigson
8 books4 followersRoderic Grigson was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka and lived there until he was twenty-one. Rod’s family were Burghers, descendants of the Portuguese, Dutch and British colonials who ruled the island nation for 450 years. His Scottish grandfather worked for the British before independence and was responsible for managing all Government-owned guest houses in the country.
Rod felt he had no prospects in a country which had become a socialist state run by Sinhalese Nationalists. With the help of a distant cousin, he left Sri Lanka and with ten dollars in his pocket entered the United States on a tourist visa. In New York he obtained a short term job at the United Nations Headquarters, processing documents on the night shift for the Annual General Assembly Conference. Later, with his visa about to expire, was offered a permanent job in the UN Department of Conference Services, where he worked for the next twelve years.
After studying at New York University he joined the UN Technological Innovations team developing French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese language programs on computers and implementing office information systems in UN offices around the world. For a two-year period in the late 1970s he volunteered to join the UN Peacekeeping Forces serving on the Suez Canal during the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty and in South Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War.
Soon after returning to New York from the Middle East, Rod met and married a Tamil girl from Jaffna who worked for the UN Conference on Trade and Development. In the late 1980s Rod and Menaka left their jobs at the UN in New York to migrate to Australia. The year they arrived in Melbourne, they bought a home in a leafy south-eastern suburb of Melbourne where their son Eric was born and where they still live.
Rod felt he had no prospects in a country which had become a socialist state run by Sinhalese Nationalists. With the help of a distant cousin, he left Sri Lanka and with ten dollars in his pocket entered the United States on a tourist visa. In New York he obtained a short term job at the United Nations Headquarters, processing documents on the night shift for the Annual General Assembly Conference. Later, with his visa about to expire, was offered a permanent job in the UN Department of Conference Services, where he worked for the next twelve years.
After studying at New York University he joined the UN Technological Innovations team developing French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese language programs on computers and implementing office information systems in UN offices around the world. For a two-year period in the late 1970s he volunteered to join the UN Peacekeeping Forces serving on the Suez Canal during the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty and in South Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War.
Soon after returning to New York from the Middle East, Rod met and married a Tamil girl from Jaffna who worked for the UN Conference on Trade and Development. In the late 1980s Rod and Menaka left their jobs at the UN in New York to migrate to Australia. The year they arrived in Melbourne, they bought a home in a leafy south-eastern suburb of Melbourne where their son Eric was born and where they still live.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 26, 2023
I enjoyed reading The Governor's Lover.
Rod Grigson has taken the bare historical facts about Lovinia Aponsuwa– the Sri Lankan mestizo dancer whose love affair with British governor Thomas Maitland was the subject of 19th century gossip and the stuff of 21st century legend - and cleverly fleshed it out to create a wonderful historical romance.
Set in the early years of the 19th century – the early stages of Maitland's tenure as Governor of the British crown colony of Ceylon - the author has created a tale that is absorbing and authentically plausible. Why is the village on the outskirts of the capital Colombo still called Mount Lavinia? Why did the Governor build his summer residence on the mount – a still existent palatial building - in which can be found the opening of a tunnel through which his lover is believed to have come in for their secret trysts?
Following on the success of his three previous novels set in his childhood home of Sri Lanka, Grigson’s latest work does justice to an age old legend.
I strongly recommend that you read The Governor's Lover. You will not be disappointed. . .
Rod Grigson has taken the bare historical facts about Lovinia Aponsuwa– the Sri Lankan mestizo dancer whose love affair with British governor Thomas Maitland was the subject of 19th century gossip and the stuff of 21st century legend - and cleverly fleshed it out to create a wonderful historical romance.
Set in the early years of the 19th century – the early stages of Maitland's tenure as Governor of the British crown colony of Ceylon - the author has created a tale that is absorbing and authentically plausible. Why is the village on the outskirts of the capital Colombo still called Mount Lavinia? Why did the Governor build his summer residence on the mount – a still existent palatial building - in which can be found the opening of a tunnel through which his lover is believed to have come in for their secret trysts?
Following on the success of his three previous novels set in his childhood home of Sri Lanka, Grigson’s latest work does justice to an age old legend.
I strongly recommend that you read The Governor's Lover. You will not be disappointed. . .
Displaying 1 of 1 review