In The Mistress of Spices, Divakaruni tells the story of Tilo, a young woman born in another time, in a faraway place, who is trained in the ancient art of spices and ordained as a mistress charged with special powers. Once fully initiated in a rite of fire, the now immortal Tilo--in the gnarled and arthritic body of an old woman--travels through time to Oakland, California, where she opens a shop from which she administers spices as curatives to the local Indian community.

Although it is her duty to remain emotionally detached, Tilo breaks the rules of the spices and is drawn into the lives of the customers in her shop, helping them through their spirals of trouble: abusive husbands, racism, generational conflicts, drug abuse. And when an unexpected romance blossoms with a handsome stranger, Tilo is forced to choose between the supernatural life of an immortal and the vicissitudes of modern life.

Reserved for a trade with rapturina. I hope you will enjoy it more than I did. (I personally thought it worked better as a movie than as a book.)

Sent today via surface mail

It's here, thank you so much, aunt-sophie! I'm really curious about this book as I saw the movie a while ago and my only thought about the movie was 'this story would work much better as a book'. :D

I was right, the story did work much better as a book. :D In the movie the whole talking to the spices thing looked rather silly, but I thought it worked really well in print. I enjoyed this book, even though the whole Raven story kind of annoyed me. I think the book would've been interesting enough without Raven's background story and I just didn't like the character very much, but other than that I'm glad I got the chance to read it. I really liked Divakaruni's style, so playful and full of colour. I have a few other books by her on my bookshelf and I'm really looking forward to reading those! :D

The book is on its way to Bulan-Purnama as of this morning, as she had it on her wishlist. Happy travels!

Finally, the book arrived today. I have been wanting to read this one for quite awhile. Thank you rapturina for granting my wish and the tea bags together with a nice postcard. Must find time to read this one.