'Remember, if you have the strength, then you will face the hardest lessons in life. That is the main teaching of all our holy texts. Krishna is testing you. Are you going to put desire before duty?'
The Rajput princess who became a Bhakti saint, Mirabai, was convinced to marry with scripture being quoted to her. The novel imagines three jades of Lord Krishna that once belonged to her. Of them, one, the blue jade, was stolen and, years later, it fell to an art dealer, engaged in selling stolen artefacts as (she believes) a means of protecting them, to follow in the path of the saint to return the jade to its rightful place. In doing so, she faces treachery and assault, and develops an understanding of the saint's life.