Haunting Jasmine

Ay, Ganesh! Only the Hindu god of removing obstacles and creating new beginnings could help lovely, suffering Jasmine Mistry, still smarting after her divorce from handsome, unfaithful, and ruthless Robert. Bengali-American Jasmine reluctantly leaves her L.A. money management job to manage her Auntie's dusty, relic-stuffed bookstore in a decrepit Victorian Queen Anne mansion on an island in Puget Sound. Then Connor Hunt, a rugged, windswept stranger, appears in Auntie's foyer, Ganesh's enigmatic answer to Jasmine's angst. Jasmine dodges her overbearing parents and memories of Bengali culture as she tries to recover from "Robert the dung heap." Banerjee's opulent prose is as colorful as Auntie's cherished keepsakes, and gently ironic supernatural elements—such as Jane Austen's ghost telling Jasmine "We love, and we lose, but we can love again"—add dimension to a romance that spins refreshingly into a quirky, surprising denouement. (Feb.)