In this superb example of southern gothic literature, the dead continue to exist if they still have a story to tell. The more their story is told the lighter they become until they moves on. During this interim period, the dead in ghostly forms are not idle; they are responsible for "the weather, the tides and the seasons."

Normally these wraiths go about their business unseen; however, not to Finch Nobles who regularly talks with them in her role as a groundskeeper of a small community's cemetery. This paranormal ability may be because she was traumatized and disfigured when she pulled a pot of boiling water onto her when four-years-old. She grew up teased, friendless, and lonely. As Finch enmeshes herself in the stories of some of the cemetery's resident's stories she begins to heal.

I highly recommend this well crafted bit of literary fiction with themes of emotional pain and isolation but also friendship, acceptance and redemption. ( )

I love storytelling. I am not a storyteller in the sense that I get up in front of groups of people and tell memorized, rehearsed stories, but I have been known to spin a yarn or two among friends. And I truly appreciate the skill it takes to tell a story as rich as this one. Finch Nobles is a caretaker of the dead, literally and figuratively. She tends the grounds of the cemetery in her town, but she also tends the souls of those people buried there. Finch is feared by the locals, mostly due to her disfigurement from a burn suffered when she was a child, but also because of her “I don’t give a damn” attitude. However, both obstacles are overcome by her relationships with the spiritual inhabitants of the cemetery and the live people who visit them. Reynolds weaves a gentle but riveting tale of love, hate and redemption that stretches the veil between the living and the dead. This is one I’ll remember for a long time… ( )

A girl is burned when she pulls a pot off a stove. her mother blames herself and the guilt slowly kills her. The father is the town cemetery caretaker and when he dies, the girl, Finche Nobles, takes over.
She can hear and see the dead and through them she learns many things.
The book is about accepting people, seeing the good in people, undertanding we all have stories to tell.
This was a fabulous read! ( )

I have no idea how to explain this story.... I know it made me feel light even within its tragedy, for the tragedy led to redemption. It was flowing and bending, based in this world and the beyond. It speaks of the lies we tell ourselves so that we might get through to the end of our lives in a semblance of peace. It tells of the hypocrisy of "christianity" and the hatred and fear we have of those things we find ugly and cannot/will not understand.

It is the story of Finch Nobles, cemetery keeper, burned & scarred as a child and her relationships with: Leonard the local police officer (a childhood nemesis); Lois Armour and her dead daughter Lucy; Reba Baker, grocery store owner & local christian zealot/hypocrite; and the dead buried in the graveyard she care takes.

It's a story of pain & healing and life and death. It's a story of philosophy and understanding of life beyond the physical realm.

**************************QUOTES**************************

"There's a job for everybody, on any given day. The Dead are generous with their gifts to the living. Unless. of course they are angry, then they call the bees away so that nothing will bloom. When they are angry the Dead catch the rain in their hands, bury it in their pockets, and laugh when the ground cracks"

"Energy is neither created or destroyed"

"'In the living world, there is so much fear and hatred,' She says. 'When we were a part of that world, we held within us that fear and that hate. When we were in the living world, we could not see what they cannot see: the things they hate and fear are around them all the time in the things that they love.'"

"Sometimes something comes along and tears your roots right out of the ground, and that's when you know you've been planted too long."

"Sometimes you been growing one thing in your garden for too many years, and then everything dies. You got to give the soil time to replenish itself."

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Disclaimer/Spoiler: The one page about the attempted mercy killing of a dying cat was not as bad as I believed it to be. In fact, although I had intended to skip that page (I had been forewarned) I read it through....because I had completely forgotten about that part even being in this book until I had read it. Thankfully it was just a natural part of the story and not added as gratuitous violence. ( )

Finch Nobles is the cemetary caretaker in her little Southern town and she is also a lonely woman that most of the town fears. When Finch was a child she pulled a pot of boiling water from the stove and the resulting burns have hideously scarred the right half of her body, most especially her face. The children in the town thinks she looks like a witch and the adults can barely look at her. Finch is not without friends, however. She regularly converses with the dead in her graveyard listening to their stories and generally helping them come to terms with their deceased state. When the good Chrisian ladies of the town find out that a recently dearly departed gentleman had an unsavory hobby they react badly which both saddens and angers the ghostly gent. Finch tries to appease both sides in the matter as well as dealing with a runaway beauty queen who wants Finch to convince the girl's pushy mother that she died at her own hand and trying to soothe a 30-year-dead baby who wails and cries constantly. There is a budding romance with the local policeman to be dealt with as well but Finch is much more comfortable around her dead friends than with real live people.

This was quite an inventive and imaginative story and quite sweet in its own way. Finch is a likeable character and one with great inner strength given the life she has led since her accident. Her interactions with her ghostly friends are depicted very well as is the way she stands up to the townspeople who have shunned her for years. I would have given this book 4 stars except for a short passage about a cat that bothered me a bit, thus the 3 star rating.
( )