Saraband signs 'timeless' debut novel from Ordorica

Saraband has signed How We Named The Stars, an "intimate and devastating" queer coming-of-age story from debut novelist, Andrés N Ordorica.

Publisher Sara Hunt acquired UK and Commonwealth, English language rights, excluding Canada, from Caro Clarke at Portobello Literary. The novel will be published on 4th July 2024.

How We Named The Stars follows scholarship student Daniel de La Luna who meets Sam Morris, his athletic roommate.

The synopsis continues: "As the two settle into college life, they drink tequila under the stars together, explore freshman house parties and cabaret nights, and inch closer until they find themselves in love. But their blissful first year is over all too soon. Daniel’s summer in Mexico becomes a rollercoaster of revelations before his life is brutally upended by the unimaginable."

Publishing manager Rosie Hilton commented: “Daniel and Sam’s love story has a magical, timeless quality while being entirely grounded in the realities of 18-year-old naivety. As a pair, they are impossible not to fall in love with."

Ordorica added: “How We Named the Stars is a novel of love and loss shaped by the growing pains of early adulthood. I am grateful to the team at Saraband for bringing this novel to the UK, and their enthusiasm for a debut so very much steeped in the specifics of place and queer love, but which speaks to the universality of grief.”