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  • Published: 9 February 2023
  • ISBN: 9781529198836
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $32.99

Signal Fires





The breakout novel from New York Times bestselling author and podcast queen Dani Shapiro - a riveting, deeply felt story that examines the ties that bind families together, and the secrets that can break them apart

One night. One fateful choice. A constellation of lives changed forever.
On a summer night in 1985, the lives of three teenagers are shattered by a horrific car crash in which a young woman is killed next to the sprawling oak tree that marks the perimeter of 18 Division Street. For the Wilfs, it will become the deepest kind of family secret, one so dangerous it can never be spoken.

Secrets preside over the neighborhood along with the majestic oak. As we move through the decades, watching this family change and grow, we see how each of them is haunted by what they choose to ignore. Their lives become deeply entwined with the Shenkmans across the street, a couple with their own secrets and a lonely son who is captivated by the stars and a need to break free. As their stories collide in ways they never could have imagined, the past comes hurtling back to Division Street, setting in motion a spellbinding chain of events that will transform both families forever.

Signal Fires is a work of haunting beauty, an exquisite portrait of one family's world, and a testament to the human capacity to experience love and loss. With wry tenderness it shows how we are all connected through time in ways that are at once mysterious and profound.

  • Published: 9 February 2023
  • ISBN: 9781529198836
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $32.99

About the author

Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir, Inheritance. Her other books include the memoirs Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. In February of 2019, Dani launched an original podcast, Family Secrets, in collaboration with iHeartMedia. An iTunes Top 10 podcast, the series features stories from guests who - like Dani - have uncovered life-altering and long-hidden secrets from their past. Along with teaching writing workshops around the world, Dani has taught at Columbia and New York University, and is the cofounder of Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. Find her at danishapiro.com.

Also by Dani Shapiro

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Praise for Signal Fires

Wears its philosophical intentions on its sleeve; well-developed characters and their interesting careers seal the deal.

Kirkus

A wonderful novel, full of insight and compassion

MARY LAWSON

The wisdom and beauty in these seamlessly-braided narratives form a singular emotional experience for the reader that is both immediate and everlasting.

Simon Van Booy

A beautiful exploration of the connections between two families and the reverberations from a teenager's lie...Shapiro imagines in luminous prose how each of the characters' lives might have gone if things had turned out differently...an intriguing meditation

Publishers Weekly

Gripping

People Magazine

Shapiro writes with compassion and a deep understanding of the damage that secrets wreak

Library Journal

Shapiro returns...with a beautiful exploration of the connections between two families and the reverberations from a teenager's lie... Shapiro imagines in luminous prose how each of the characters' lives might have gone if things had turned out differently. It's an intriguing meditation.

Publishers Weekly

Shapiro delivers keen perceptions about family dynamics via fictional characters that exude a rare combination of substance and delicacy. Stunning in depth and breadth, this luminous examination of loss and acceptance, furtiveness and reliability, abandonment and friendship ultimately blazes with profound revelations

Booklist

The queen of family secrets

BookPage

Shapiro's characters' interweaving stories grapple with the ways that guilt festers when it's not dealt with - and, ultimately, the unexpected paths that can lead to healing and redemption

Time

Gripping, unexpected and beautiful

Jamie Lee Curtis

A powerful work that delves into the consequences of a long-hidden lie . . . Shapiro's novel offers the comfort of a view from the stars

Washington Post

Masterful and poignant

Today Show US

Gorgeous

BookPage

Beautifully composed

New York Journal of Books

Wise, deeply perceptive, suffused with light

CLAIRE MESSUD

What a treat. I don't know of anyone who writes about family with the same generous understanding

Gary Shteyngart

Lyrical and propulsive . . . hard to put down

Oprah Daily

A stunning future classic

LISA TADDEO

Signal Fires is an urgent and compassionate meditation on memory, time, and space. In Shapiro's elegant convergence of narrative threads, she creates a world that's as wrenching as it is wondrous

RUTH OZEKI

Haunting, moving, and propulsive

MEG WOLITZER

Tender and philosophical

Observer

Lyrically examines the ways a single event can alter many lives for ever . . . wonderful

Joanne Finney, Good Housekeeping BOOK OF THE MONTH

Gripping from the start... beautifully written, Shapiro explores time, memory and our human interconnectedness to create a tender, moving portrayal of the ripple effect one event and on person's actions can have on many lives

Woman & Home *Book of the Month*

Signal Fires is a great novel, but it's also something rarer: a good novel, one that shines with deep truths about what it is to love someone, lose them, and live on

Alex Preston, Financial Times

Beautifully written, Dani Shapiro explores time, memory and our human interconnectedness to create a moving portrayal of the ripple effect one event and one person's actions can have on many lives

Woman's Weekly

Shapiro weaves a compulsive, tender narrative that flits between viewpoints and time frames in its quest for connectivity

Mail on Sunday

Lyrical and sharp

i

Beautiful... a family saga, but a book about destiny too, the unavoidable push and pull of choice and chance

Francesca Steele, i News

Signal Fires is an exquisite portrait of two families, and a testament to the human capacity to experience love and loss. With wry tenderness it shows how we are all connected through time in ways that are at once beautiful, mysterious, profound and full of hope.

Mummy Pages

A subtle, compelling and expansive book about family, love and the devastating power of secrets. I love the way Shapiro writes relationships, the ambition of having so many concurrent narratives and the deft way she draws her characters.

NELL FRIZZELL
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