To the Moon and Back

One young woman's relentless quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut will irrevocably alter the fates of the women she loves most, in this tour de force of a debut about ambition, belonging and family.

BIG BUDGET AND MAJOR AUCTION: This is Avid Reader's lead fiction title and we plan to make the same level of noise about it as we did for The Ministry of Time in Summer 2024: We are committed to spending $100k+ on advertising. We won this book in a hard-fought, week long auction and received multiple notes of misery/congratulations from other houses after winning.

INTRODUCTION OF A NEW LITERARY STAR: We envision this publication as the debut of both a brilliant, book club-worthy novel, and a powerful new voice who will be part of the literary world for decades to come and we envision a campaign similar to the ones that introduced us to Kaveh Akhbar, Yaa Gyasi, and Tommy Orange. We will be aiming for opportunities to spotlight Eliana Ramage as a rising star author, and her book as an absolute must-read of the year via profiles, best of the year picks and all the major awards.

UNIQUE HOOK: What will truly make this book stand out to readers and media is its portrayal of a young woman astronaut, which we rarely see outside of sci-fi. We follow Steph from the reservation to an elite New England college, to studying geology on the slopes of an Italian volcano, to a year spent in a "space habitat simulator" on a volcano in Hawai'i, to a research station hundreds of miles underwater, and beyond. You've never read about this character taking on these particular challenges before.

SWEEPING FAMILY STORY WITH UNIVERSAL THEMES: At its heart, To the Moon and Back is a sweeping contemporary family story that covers three generations and should appeal to readers of Brit Bennett, Celeste Ng, and Ann Napolitano. It's about the push and pull between mothers, daughters and sisters, between family and individuality, and between history and ancestry, as three very different, but entangled young women attempt to find themselves in the context of those who came before, over the course of 30 years. There are long-held family secrets, petty sibling rivalries, chaotic romances, but at the heart of it all are Steph's impossible choices, always straining the family bonds to their breaking point, before the women are pulled back together again.

BOLD AND ACCESSIBLE EXPLORATION OF INDIGENOUS IDENTITY: There, There showed many non-Native readers just how little they understood about the contemporary indigenous experience and since then they've proven to be hungry for more, demonstrated by the success of the movie adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon, FX's Reservation Dogs, and The Berry Pickers. Refreshingly, To The Moon and Back showcases three women with very different interpretations and expressions of their identities, each of which Ramage explores with fierce wit and vigor.