Orphaned at birth, seventeen-year-old Korobi Roy has enjoyed a privileged childhood with her adoring grandparents in Kolkata. But she is troubled by the silence that surrounds her parents' death and clings to her only inheritance from them: the unfinished love note she found hidden in her mother's book of poetry. The young woman dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents' and it seems her wish has come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high profile business family. On the night of their engagement party, Korobi's grandfather dies of a sudden heart attack. His death reveals the family's financial problems as well as a dark secret. This secret will shatter Korobi's sense of self and will take her out of her sheltered Kolkata life into a search, in the company of an attractive stranger, across America, a country that she finds at once dangerous, unwelcoming and alluring. What she discovers at the end will force her to make the most difficult choice of her life. No one tells such heart-stopping stories with as much color and emotion as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Oleander Girl is the writer at her very best.

Beloved bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been hailed by Abraham Verghese as a “gifted storyteller” and by People magazine as a “skilled cartographer of the heart.” Now, Divakaruni returns with her most gripping novel yet, a sweeping, suspenseful coming-of-age tale about a young woman who leaves India for America on a search that will transform her life.

THOUGH SHE WAS ORPHANED AT BIRTH, the wild and headstrong Korobi Roy has enjoyed a privileged childhood with her adoring grandparents, spending her first seventeen years sheltered in a beautiful, crumbling old mansion in Kolkata. But despite all that her grandparents have done for her, she is troubled by the silence that surrounds the circumstances of her parents’ death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found, years ago, hidden in a book of poetry that had belonged to her mother. As she grows, Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents’, and it seems her wish has finally come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile business family.

Shortly after their engagement, however, a sudden heart attack kills Korobi’s grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi’s past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents’ betrayal, Korobi decides to undertake a courageous search across post-9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will ultimately thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life.