Today We Need Diverse Books revealed the cover for Secret of the Moon Conch by Guadalupe García McCall and me! The cover was designed by Jeanette Levy from an image created by illustrator Luis Pinto. The book drops on May 16, 2023 from Bloomsbury. Preorder it here.
Description: Award-winning authors David Bowles and Guadalupe García McCall join forces to craft a sweeping fantasy romance about falling in love despite all odds.
In modern-day Mexico, Sitlali has no family left and has caught the attention of a dangerous gang leader. She has no choice but to make the perilous trip across the US border to track down her long-absent father. The night before her journey, she finds a beautiful conch shell detailed with ancient markings.
In 1521, Calizto is an Aztec young warrior in Tenochtitlan, fighting desperately to save his city from Spanish imperialists. With his family dead and the horrors of war surrounding him, Calizto asks a sacred moon conch for guidance.
Connected by the same magical conch in different times, Sitlali and Calizto can communicate across centuries, finding comfort in each other as they fight to survive. With each conversation, they fall deeper in love, but will they be able to find a way to each other?
A WORD FROM THE AUTHORS:
In 2017, Guadalupe García McCall came up with the idea of a YA supernatural romance along the lines of the films The Lake House and Your Name, with two characters communicating and falling in love across time. One would be a teenage Mexican girl in the present; the other, an Aztec boy in the past. Daunted by the research that would be required to depict the Aztec Empire in 1521, Guadalupe reached out to her friend and fellow writer David Bowles, asking if he’d be interested in co-authoring. Excited at the prospect, David brought to bear his knowledge of the period and of Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs (and millions in modern Mexico as well).
After two years of planning bits and pieces of the novel between our own projects, we hammered out an outline and got to writing! The looming 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec Empire gave more urgency to our work. We were delighted when the great folks at Bloomsbury expressed a desire to publish the novel, which we think will resonate with everyone fascinated by history, the modern struggle of immigrants, deep ancestral magic, and love that transcends space and time to bring two fated hearts together. — David Bowles & Guadalupe García McCall