If you have ever been asked “What’s your sign?” you have Linda Goodman to thank—or blame. America’s first New Age celebrity, Goodman’s 1968 book, Sun Signs, sold over 60 million copies, while the advance for her second book, Love Signs, broke an unprecedented $2.25 million. And yet, while Goodman was teaching the world how to search the skies for clarity, her gaze was fixed upon her own dark, mysterious pursuit.

In 1973, Goodman’s daughter was found dead and the police declared it a suicide; Goodman believed otherwise. She spent years depleting her fortune, chasing down leads that might uncover the real truth about her beloved daughter’s death. Headlines criticized and discredited Goodman, ultimately overshadowing the revolutionary nature of her work.

Courtney Ann LaFaive first discovered Goodman’s books as a teenager. Reading her astrological wisdom decades after its heyday, LaFaive contemplates the redemption of Goodman as a literary and spiritual figure, all the while reckoning with her own impulsive forays into love and relationships. Follow the Signs asks what it means when facts become stranger than fiction and who we become when we must walk away from those we love.

Available now via Bookshop or the University of Iowa Press.

Press in The Astrology Podcast, The Great Smokes Review, Isthmus, Literary Hub, The Modern Witches Podcast, The New Yorker, Publishers Weekly, ABC’s Sunday Extra, Worms Magazine, and Volume One Magazine.