To the Moon and Back
A Reese's Book Club Pick about a Cherokee woman's queer coming-of-age and impossible astronaut dream
Published on 2. September 2025
448 pages
978-1-5299-3959-0 (ISBN)
Description
'Will break your heart and take you to the stars. I loved it.' Kiley Reid
'A breathtaking debut about family, identity, and love across generations.' Reese Witherspoon
===
Steph Harper was born running. Now she is reaching for the moon.
When Steph was five, her mother fled with Steph and her little sister to a small Cherokee community, searching for safety, home and a future.
Years later, Steph has one impossible ambition: to become the first Cherokee astronaut. To get there, she is willing to leave almost everything behind - her past, her family, and the people who know her best.
But ambition has a gravity of its own. As Steph chases the stars, the women closest to her are pulled into their own reckonings: Kayla, her brilliant younger sister; Hannah, the mother guarding a buried family history; and Della, the girlfriend who challenges Steph's idea of escape.
Spanning decades, continents and one unforgettable family, To the Moon and Back is a sweeping literary family saga about queer love, Cherokee identity, mothers and daughters, sacrifice and the price of chasing a dream when home still has a hold on you.
A Reese's Book Club Pick for readers who love emotionally powerful book club fiction.
'A singular, sonorous, wholehearted novel, one I wanted to devour and savour at once.' Claire Lombardo, bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had
'A powerful story about the mixture of combativeness, compromise and love that forms the heart of a family.' Kaliane Bradley, bestselling author of The Ministry of Time
'A breathtaking debut about family, identity, and love across generations.' Reese Witherspoon
===
Steph Harper was born running. Now she is reaching for the moon.
When Steph was five, her mother fled with Steph and her little sister to a small Cherokee community, searching for safety, home and a future.
Years later, Steph has one impossible ambition: to become the first Cherokee astronaut. To get there, she is willing to leave almost everything behind - her past, her family, and the people who know her best.
But ambition has a gravity of its own. As Steph chases the stars, the women closest to her are pulled into their own reckonings: Kayla, her brilliant younger sister; Hannah, the mother guarding a buried family history; and Della, the girlfriend who challenges Steph's idea of escape.
Spanning decades, continents and one unforgettable family, To the Moon and Back is a sweeping literary family saga about queer love, Cherokee identity, mothers and daughters, sacrifice and the price of chasing a dream when home still has a hold on you.
A Reese's Book Club Pick for readers who love emotionally powerful book club fiction.
'A singular, sonorous, wholehearted novel, one I wanted to devour and savour at once.' Claire Lombardo, bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had
'A powerful story about the mixture of combativeness, compromise and love that forms the heart of a family.' Kaliane Bradley, bestselling author of The Ministry of Time
Reviews / Votes
A singular, sonorous, wholehearted novel... Eliana Ramage is a dynamite writer. * Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had and Same As It Ever Was * Ramage will break your heart and take you to the stars. * Kiley Reid, author of Such A Fun Age * Bittersweet, thrillingly perceptive, multi-threaded, enormously funny... a powerful story about the mixture of combativeness, compromise and love that forms the heart of a family. * Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time * Eliana Ramage is a formidable talent, and writes with so much heart and hope: I loved it. * Cecile Pin, author of Wandering Souls * With characters so perfectly rendered that you'll want to hug them or give them a shake, Eliana Ramage explores what it means to belong in this immersive and exciting debut. * Amanda Peters, author of The Berry Pickers * Passionate and compulsively readable... a stellar debut. * Margot Livesey, author of The Road to Belhaven * A soaring masterpiece... Every character in this novel will stay with you forever. * Casey Plett, author of A Dream of a Woman * A captivating debut about family, queer identity, love, career and heritage. This novel has something for everyone. * De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills * A brilliant, faceted, warm-hearted novel, with characters to love and truly root for, and pages that seem to turn themselves. * Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of the National Book Award Finalist All This Could Be Different * This author is as ambitious as her protagonist: there are three novels worth of material here, all good. The moon or bust! * Kirkus Reviews *More details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Edition type
New edition
File size
2,02 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-3959-0 (9781529939590)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Eliana Ramage holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Lambda Literary, Tin House, and Vermont Studio Center. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she lives in Nashville with her family. To the Moon and Back is her first novel.
