It is 1865, and the Russian America Company has kept Ivan Lukin busy working as a boat captain and dog teamster on the treeless Bering Sea coast at Fort St. Michael. His wife has left him, and with the return of his teenage daughter from boarding school he is thrust into a new life as a single parent. The ocean wind is cold and the monster graven into the face of the moon continues to watch his every move.

Then a ship from the United States pulls into the harbor carrying two dozen Americans in blue uniforms. They've been sent to lay a telegraph wire from Siberia, through Russian America, and down to San Francisco. Or so they claim. When Lukin is assigned to serve as their guide, the Company makes one thing clear: His job is to watch everything they do and report on their movements, just in case. Because a rumor has been spreading through Russia's North American colony, something that, if true, will change everyone's lives forever.

Based around real events in Alaska's past, Signals is Book Two of the series Seasons of Want and Plenty.