I've never lived in a village in rural India, but I was right there with Geeta when she starts thinking about the fact of women living within spaces that other people have defined. KELLY: There was a line that resonated with me. And so while she has had some limited power by herself, when Geeta's world opens up and she has a second chance with friendship - has a second chance with, perhaps, romance, the power there is magnified tenfold.

There's an advantage to not being so isolated, and there's a power in that, too. And throughout the course of the novel, she realizes that there's an advantage to camaraderie. People don't bother her, but that's OK 'cause she doesn't like people. Children don't bother her, but that's OK because she doesn't like children. SHROFF: Well, Geeta - I think she tries to convince herself she doesn't need anybody, and so she convinces herself this is to her advantage. They're scared not to buy her jewelry when she pushes it, and there are advantages to that in such a small village. KELLY: And she does - I want to tease out a little bit just how she uses this to her advantage. And while she's socially mixed with dirt, as is said throughout the novel, her business is thriving, and she tries to convince herself that that's all she needs from an economic standpoint. People are superstitious, and Geeta uses that superstition to her gain. KELLY: And she finds this works very much to her advantage in certain ways. People believe it because Geeta is a pariah, and better her than them. And before you know it, people believe it because they want to believe it. I think it might be a mixed bag, but I do believe, in a village of this size, people love ostracizing. At first, I'm not really sure that people truly believe it. And gossip is a huge theme in this novel and - about one's reputation, which is one's currency when you're in a village this small. He ran out on her five years prior to when the novel begins. SHROFF: Well, Geeta's husband, Ramesh - he disappeared. KELLY: How exactly does everyone in this village come to believe that Geeta murdered her husband? Parini Shroff, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Everything is going well for her until the other women in the village start asking for help getting rid of their husbands, and that is the starting point for the wild ride that is the new novel, 'The Bandit Queens.' It's the debut novel of Parini Shroff. And Geeta is happy for the rumors to stand uncorrected because, well, she likes freedom a lot better than she liked her husband. You see, Geeta is a widow because she killed her husband - at least that is what people think. To new fiction now and the story of Geeta, jewelry maker in an Indian village with a dangerous reputation.

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff