San Antonio based, award winning author Jonny Garza Villa will release their first adult romance novel, Futbolista this month. The book will be released on Tuesday, April 15. The title follows a string of contemporary young adult novels inspired by Villa’s own Tejane, Chicane and queer identities including their debut novel Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, Ander & Santi Were Here and Canto Contigo, which recently won the Stonewall Book Award for young adult literature.
Futbolista is a classmates-to-friends-to-lovers romance that’s centered on college football (or soccer, to many) with queer and Mexican-American identitiesemixed into the narrative. The story follows the first semester of one guy’s freshman year of college, navigating who he is, who he’s allowed to be and who he wants to be.
Gabriel Piña is a college goalkeeper, a future Liga MX or MLS star and definitely straight. He’s starting his freshman year with a lot of eyes on him and even more potential, but he’s got this. Nothing will have him straying off the path to greatness.
That is, until his philosophy classmate Vale volunteers to tutor him.
As a friendship blooms and the two spend more and more time together, Gabi finally begins to recognize something about himself.
He realizes that as a brown, Mexican futbolista with dreams of playing for El Tri— he can’t also be bisexual. He’s seen the way his teammates and community react to queerness in their sport. That could keep him from his fulfilling his dreams in the sport.
Villa was born and raised near and along the Gulf Coast and currently lives in San Antonio. They are a Literary Death Match champion, a member of Las Musas—a collective of traditionally published Latina authors and Latine authors of marginalized genders writing children’s and young adult literature—and has been a mentor with the Write Team Mentorship Program and SmoochPit. They have participated in numerous festivals including the Texas Book Festival, the Latinx KidLit Book Festival, the San Antonio Book Fest, Bronx Book Fest, the Bookmarks Festival of Books & Authors, the Columbus Book Festival, YALLwest and YALLfest. Learn more at JonnyGarzaVilla.com.
Villa will embark on a Texas book tour this month.The Futbolista tour will stop in Dallas to promote the title at Whose Books in Oak Cliff on April 26. Stay tuned for updates on their Instagram.
–From staff reports