This was a charming book that slowly worked its magic on me. Two girls, orphaned when their mother commits suicide, come under the care of first their grandmother, then their two great-aunts, and finally their aunt, who was previously a drifter. What I liked most about this book was its setting: the town of Fingerbone. Almost a character itself, it is an isolated place, enclosed by mountains bordering a dark, cold lake in which many people—including the girls’ mother and grandfather—died. The train runs right over th elake, offering an escape from this wet, frozen, often flooded place where time does not seem to move forward.