Secret Language: A Novel (New American Fiction)

At the heart of Secret Language are two sisters, Faith and Constance. Dragged around the country with their parents - egocentric, semi-famous actors who can scarcely take care of themselves - young Faith and Connie learn to rely exclusively on each other.
With years of unspoken closeness behind them, the adult sisters are beginning to drift apart when Isadora, the half-sister they never knew existed, makes her dramatic entrance into their lives. For Connie, Isadora offers a chance to expand her family; Faith, suspicious of Isadora's motives, shrinks from her demanding presence.
But a crisis unexpectedly forces Faith and Connie into their long-forgotten childhood habits, and they begin a slow journey back to each other, blending past and present in a way that compels them to include the other people in their lives.
Secret Language is a first novel of unusual grace and maturity. In it, Monica Wood explores ways of being a family, and of being in a family.