This book has such a full world. The characters are excellent spins on standard character archetypes without seeming cliché. The strong grandfather holding a secret; the mother who doesn't know how to love her children; the young boy who grew up to fast to father his younger sibling; the sick grandmother holding family lineage together and the racial identity issues of being part of a biracial family with an absent white parent. There is also richness of cultural and spiritual beliefs that run through the stories and tie together the generations through ghosts of the family and outside. I didn't realize that the author had other books when I checked this out, but I look forward to reading it!