Author(s): Alice Albinia

Fiction

Leela - alluring, taciturn, haunted - is moving back to Delhi after years of exile in New York. She knows her return will disrupt precariously balanced lives. Twenty years ago her sister Meera died, taking a devastating secret with her. Now, as the family gathers for a wedding, Leela must sift truth from fiction. Meanwhile the bride's father plots political conquest, the groom realises that he has fallen in love with his brother-in-law to be, and Ganesh - elephant-headed god and scribe of India's great epic, the "Mahabharata" - claims both Leela and the novel as his own creation. Brilliantly playful and entertaining, "Leela's Book" weaves a poignant tale of contemporary life in an ancient city.