"I kept a big notebook in my file cabinet crammed with little pieces of paper, postcards, and letters my brother sent to me from college and his travels.

"Today I picked a postcard from Grenoble, France, and copied it onto the chalkboard. 'Travel light and you can sing in the robber's face'

"Travel light. My father had told us that was the secret to life. I hadn't understood it. At one time I thought he said it to mock me as I piles our horse trailer high with my belongings to move to New York. And I hadn't always realized who the robber was. I did now." From an exciting new voice in the world of contemporary fiction comes a deeply moving love story that touches our deepest fears and truest longings.

"I woke and wondered if my brother was dead, gone before I could keep my promise . . . "

Everything seems to be going wrong in Summer's life, yet she's a woman who is luckier than she knows.

A dancer turned schoolteacher, she is still recovering from the injury that ended her promising career in the arts. Her lover, Nicholas, fears she's depending on him to fulfill her remaining dreams and hopes. And, most ominously of all, her cherished brother, Todd, is slowly dying.

In the tranquil suburbs of Ohio, Summer's days will be consumed in long hours of watching and waiting . . . watching a terrible disease claim Todd's body, and, of course, waiting for the inevitable.

As these difficult days crawl forward, she will come to terms with life, death, relationships, and her father's enigmatic, long-ago injunction to "travel light." Through her brother's guidance and example, she will teach her students the lessons that come with life's unsolicited and most intense moments. And watching her brother share both his struggle and his joy with his partner, Jacob, Summer will witness love in its most perfect, truest, form . . . and learn how such a love transcends all illness, distrust, and the cruelty of time.

But it will be when she tries to fulfill the promise her brother exacted from her long ago, a promise born of a bond that only siblings can forge, that Summer will meet her greatest challenge - and realize how truly fortunate she is.

A tale of passion in an unfamiliar place, Traveling Light takes you on a journey from tragedy to acceptance and love. And as it transforms Summer and her family, it will transform you, too.