this is a wonderful book. Myrtle Charmaine Whitehead Hopewell is a lady every woman should know. She's someone you could put on your houseshoes with and eat food with your hands. Her life has been hard, jagged even. Yet Charmaine still manages to love, despite being abandoned by her pretty waitress mother at age eleven or a string of other tragedies that follow every time she tries to care, to stay. Her love is preserved in part by a special gift, tied up with a bow and placed in her throat by God himself, the voice of a songbird.Lisa Samson never ceases to amaze me with the quiet strength her characters possess as they erase the lines between secular and sacred bringing the reader to a better understanding of humanity as a whole. So many times in this book, I saw something of myself or people I know. No wonder this won a Christy Award. It's magical.