“Everyone has their own skeleton in their closet.” This phrase becomes reality for Avery, a successful businesswoman, the youngest daughter of the influential Senator Stafford, when she comes home from Washington due to her father's illness. The girl’s life is planned to the smallest detail, she is predicted to have a serious political career, but at one of the events in a nursing home, an old woman named May pulls an old bracelet off her hand... And from this bracelet, with the random slips of Grandma Judy, Avery’s journey into the distant past begins. Many years Back on the Mississippi River, a poor, friendly and cheerful family lived on a houseboat: mom, dad, Rill, her three sisters and brother. Soon another replenishment was expected - and one stormy night Rill's parents went along the river to the maternity hospital. And the next morning the police kidnapped the children directly from the boat. And they became little prisoners in one of the shelters of the Tennessee Children's Home Society and an expensive commodity for its head, Miss Georgia Tann. The boys suffer beatings, bullying and separation that could become eternal. Empathizing with old May and trying to restore justice, Avery reveals a shameful secret about his family. But tact, sincere affection for her parents and grandmother, and even sudden love help a young woman maintain harmony in her relationships with her family and hear “the melody of her life.” Based on the real tragic events of the last century, the novel by American journalist and writer Lisa Wingate caused a huge resonance: it became a bestseller and was awarded several prestigious awards.