Leela-aloof, taciturn, haunted-is moving back to Delhi from New York. She knows her return will bring turmoil. Twenty-five years ago, her sister was seduced by Vyasa, a young university lecturer. Now Vyasa, an eminent Sanskrit scholar, is preparing the marriage of his son, Ash, to the child of his Hindu nationalist adversary. But Leela is not the only uneasy presence at the wedding. From London comes Vyasa's hedonistic daughter Bharati, reluctantly leaving her cosmopolitan university life to see Ash married. He, meanwhile, has fallen in love with his brother-in-law to be. Thanks to the machinations of Vyasa, and the reticence of Leela, many lives are about to collide.

Gleefully presiding over the drama - indeed, inventing it - is Ganesh, the divine, elephant-headed scribe of the Mahabharata. The family patriarchs may think they have arranged the wedding for their own selfish ends, but Ganesh declares it is he who is directing the course of events - in a bid to save Leela, his beloved heroine, from the wiles of his ancient enemy, Vyasa. Turning to fiction after an award-winning travel book, Alice Albinia has written a brilliantly playful and genre-defying first novel. Fairytale or social comedy? Historical romp or novel of ideas? Leela's Book weaves a tale of contemporary Delhi that crosses religious and social boundaries, reaching far back into the past to engage its characters in an inquiry into the origins of the Mahabharata itself - the epic on which it wittily draws.