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.