The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni DB 87874 transports you immediately with a literary-sensory explosion of color, scent, and touch to an exotic land of spices. This exotic land is Oakland, California, where a powerful immortal named Tilo keeps shop in a nondescript Indian grocery–disguised as an old woman. Tilo takes special care of each customer: learning their hearts desire, their greatest fears, challenges, and dreams of America. She chooses the perfect spice to complement their needs and aid them in all facets of their lives. We learn to love and root for these mortals, suffer their pain, elate in their joy.

Turmeric for luck, cinnamon the destroyer of enemies.

As a Mistress of Spices, Tilo is bound to an ancient set of rules, and consequences loom if she is to step out of the bounds of her shop and duties. Her mission is to guide her customers through the wisdom of the spices. The power of the spices is only hers to wield as long as she follows their will. But as Tilo learns to love and care for her customers, she finds maintaining a boundary and accepting the spices will is harder and harder to do.

Fennel to digest sorrows and ginger, the root of gnarled wisdom, for strength.

As Tilo strays farther from the will of the spices, consequences in the lives of her customers appear, wreaking havoc on her interventions. And a new complication arises: the Mistress, who is never to engage in mortal connection, is drawn to a lonely American who looks past her gnarled hands and wrinkled face, into her eyes, her soul. The connection is powerful, and it seems an impossible desire, but in this fantastical story of beauty and strength, readers find the will to hope.

Crushed red chili for kisses that will burn and consume, and lotus root, the herb of long loving.

The imaginative description of this book attracted me, and the captivating story kept me turning the pages. If you’re looking for an adventure of the senses, give it a try.