The Secret to Hummingbird Cake by Celeste Fletcher McHale

It’s about Sunday morning Christians facing life’s difficulties and those difficulties challenging even those with strong faith. This is a story about small town life in the South, where everyone know what you are up to – sometimes before you do – and a man from Mississippi is a ‘foreigner.’ It’s about friendship and devotion. She trusted him completely, without reservation… I had nothing to say to God. I nodded in agreement, but I wasn’t interested in talking to God. Laine then advised me to go to God with my guilt, and release it. She also shares her questioning and struggle with faith, as we witness her growth and change through difficult circumstances. She readily admits that, though she’s attended church from childhood, she is a Sunday morning Christian. Carrigan, as a reliable and candid narrator, presents us with all of her faults and (some extremely) poor decisions. Infidelity, drinking, fighting and softball games – content that might be surprising to readers of Christian fiction, but part of what makes this novel so real and touching. In writing this story, McHale doesn’t shy away from including all of the poor choices and peccadilloes of the characters. …where we come from, your immediate daily included aunts, uncles, cousins, that one guy who came for the summer five years earlier and never left, and your crazy Great-Aunt Doris who really needed to be in a home but just continued to sit on the front porch under the watchful eye of family and neighbors. The very southern-ness of this setting aids in the mood and the humor of the story. In flashbacks and current happenings, this very Southern small town and the various inhabitants enhance the tone of the story, serving as both backdrop and minor plot points. 14)īeyond this trio, Carrigan and Ella Rae’s husbands, and all of their families, there is the town of Bon Dieu Falls, Louisiana. I love her, God knows I do, but she’s so…responsible.” – Carrigan to Ella Rae ( pg.

Carrigan, our narrator, is headstrong while Ella Rae is brash and Laine is the quieter, more sensitive one. Quickly we get to know the three friends and identify their places within the dynamics of the friendship. What starts out as a story of a wife whose suspicions about her husband’s fidelity lead to her and her friends hiding her own indiscretion from him, turns into a tale of love and friendship that had me laughing and crying in turns. Celeste Fletcher McHale took me on a roller-coaster of a ride with this tale of three lifelong (well, ages 5 to 30) friends in a small southern town. Rarely do I just start reading a book knowing so little about it, and then to find it this surprising and compelling turned it into a 4.5 star (or 9 tissue) read.

The Secret to Hummingbird Cake by Celeste Fletcher McHale