Christmas vacation 1984 is far from festive at the house of eighteen year-old Alejo Sandoval. His parents teeter on the verge of divorce. His final semester of high school looms ahead. He has just found out that his trickster cousin Martin has vanished, leaving no traces behind. And he keeps a secret that could destroy his place within his religious Hispanic world—he and his best friend Bobby Gallegos are lovers.

Independent and exasperating, Bobby is the love of his life. There is no one Alejo would rather have at his side when his mother and aunt send him on a road trip to unravel his cousin’s mysterious disappearance. But what starts as an excuse to get out of Albuquerque and enjoy a romantic road trip soon takes on serious overtones. Martin might have endangered his life by coming out as gay.

Their short fact-finding mission turns into a quest for Martin’s whereabouts through the secretive small towns of New Mexico. Stress and speculation have set Alejo’s eccentric relatives against each other, and Alejo and Bobby are about to walk into the crossfire.

Note: Reach For the Moon (a gay romance) is listed as a prequel to Fall Into the Sun, but only in the sense of having the same characters at a younger age. Think of Fall Into the Sun as what might have occurred on an alternate timeline. Meanwhile, Reach For the Moon is what really happened on the main timeline. The events of Reach For the Moon do not fit into the backstory of Fall Into the Sun, and can be read as a stand-alone novel.