It is one thing to be named after a flower, and another to be named after a poisonous one. But this is not the only mystery in Korobi Roy’s life.

Oleander Girl is about Korobi, an 18-year-old orphan who must connect the dots to solve the anonymity that surrounds her parents. Brought up in her maternal grandparent’s house in Kolkata, Korobi sleeps in her mother’s bed, covering herself with the same sheets, as her mother once did. Sarojini and Bimal, her grandparents, are elusive and touchy about the subject, so all she knows is that her mother died giving birth to her, a few months after her father, a lawyer, died in an car accident.