Hey Family Secrets Family, I'm here with a special treat for you.

My way of thanking you for being such a wonderful, supportive and inspiring community.

I couldn't do what I do without you.

So without further ado, here is a special sneak peek of the first chapter of my new novel

Signal Fires.

The book doesn't come out until October 18th, but I want to do to get a taste of it before

anyone else.

Everything I know about Family Secrets is in the story I'm about to tell.

I hope you love it.

August 27th, 1985.

Sarah and Theo.

And it's nothing really, or might be nothing, or ought to be nothing, as he leans his head

forward to press the tip of his cigarette to the car's lighter.

It sizzles on contact, a sound particular to its brief moment in history, in which cars

have lighters, and otherwise sensible 15-year-olds choke down Marboro Reds and drive their mother's

Buick's without so much as a learner's permit.

There's a girl he wants to impress.

Her name is Misty Zimmerman, and if she lives through this night, she will grow up to be

a magazine editor, or a high school teacher, or a defense lawyer.

She will be a mother of three, or remain childless.

She will die young of ovarian cancer, or live to know her great-grandchildren.

But these are only a few possible arcs to a life, a handful of shooting stars in the

...