The men and women in these stories, and perhaps most of all the children, make their own sense of a world where "There are forces at play so simple, natural, and accidental that nobody can figure them out and see them coming." It is a world, too, in which "there's lots more sorrow flying around people's heads than there is joy." That sorrow may be heartbreaking, occasionally it is horrific; but the reader is constantly reminded, with the quiet, clear-eyed and sometimes mischievous irony of Harriet Richards' voice, that in this world and - in the least likely places - we may entertain angels unawares.