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Book Signing + Q&A with Jonny Garza Villa
June 18, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
We’re very excited to announce that Jonny Garza Villa will be coming to Amarillo on June 17 for a community Q&A and book signing of their newest contemporary YA romance Ander & Santi Were Here!
WHEN: Saturday, June 17 @ 1PM CST
WHERE: Metropolitan Community Church (2123 S Polk St, Amarillo, TX 79109)
HOW: Click the Ticket link to register. RSVP to reserve your seat OR RSVP with book to reserve a seat and a copy of Ander & Santi Were Here that can be picked up at the event and signed by the author. Choosing to RSVP with the book helps support our store and future programming. If you choose to RSVP with book, please find us at the event to receive your book or contact us through Instagram (@chapterhouse_bookstore) or email (hello@chapterhousebookstore.com) to arrange an earlier pickup.
About the Book
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets The Sun is Also a Star in this YA contemporary love story from Jonny Garza Villa, Ander & Santi Were Here, about a nonbinary Mexican American teen falling for the shy new waiter at their family’s taqueria.
Finding home. Falling in love. Fighting to belong.
The Santos Vista neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas, is all Ander Martínez has ever known. The smell of pan dulce. The mixture of Spanish and English filling the streets. And, especially their job at their family’s taquería. It’s the place that has inspired Ander as a muralist, and, as they get ready to leave for art school, it’s all of these things that give them hesitancy. That give them the thought, are they ready to leave it all behind?
To keep Ander from becoming complacent during their gap year, their family “fires” them so they can transition from restaurant life to focusing on their murals and prepare for college. That is, until they meet Santiago López Alvarado, the hot new waiter. Falling for each other becomes as natural as breathing. Through Santi’s eyes, Ander starts to understand who they are and want to be as an artist, and Ander becomes Santi’s first steps toward making Santos Vista and the United States feel like home.
Until ICE agents come for Santi, and Ander realizes how fragile that sense of home is. How love can only hold on so long when the whole world is against them. And when, eventually, the world starts to win.
About the Author
JONNY GARZA VILLA (they/them) is an author of contemporary young adult literature with characters and settings inspired by their own Tejane, Chicane, and queer identities. Whatever the storyline, Jonny ultimately hopes Latines, and, more specifically, queer Mexican American young people will feel seen in their writing. Their debut YA novel Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun was a Pura Belpré Honor Book and a Kirkus Best YA Fiction of 2021 selection. When not writing, Jonny enjoys reading, playing Dungeons and Dragons, visiting taquerías, listening to Selena, and caring for their many cacti children. They live in San Antonio.