2024 Eisner Award Nominee for Best Publication for Teens
2024 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens
2024 Children's Book Council's Young Adults' Favorites Award
2024 Texas Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List
Mateo makes the dangerous journey back home to the United States through the Sonoran Desert with the help of a new friend, a ghost named Guillermo, in a supernatural borderland odyssey by debut graphic novelists Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo.
As long as he remembers to stay smart and keep his eyes open, Mateo knows that he can survive the trek across the Sonoran Desert that will take him from Mexico to the United States. That is, until he's caught by the Border Patrol only moments after sneaking across the fence in the dead of night.
Escaping their clutches comes at a price and, lost in the desert without a guide or water, Mateo is ill-prepared for the unforgiving heat that is sure to arrive come sunrise. With the odds stacked against him, his one chance at survival may be putting his trust in something, or rather someone, that he isn't even sure exists.
If you'd asked him if ghosts were real before he found himself face-to-face with one, Mateo wouldn't have even considered it. But now, confronted with the nearly undeniable presence of Guillermo, he's having second thoughts. Having spent his afterlife guiding migrants to safety, Guillermo knows things about the Sonoran Desert far beyond what could be explained by a mere hallucination. But even as Mateo forms an uneasy partnership with Guillermo, survival is still uncertain.
The Sonoran Desert, with its hostile temperatures and inhabitants, is teeming with danger as the Border Patrol and rogue militias prowl its deadly terrain. As his journey stretches on, Mateo will have to decide exactly what and who he's willing to sacrifice to find home.
Julio Anta is the author of many graphic novels, including the Eisner Award-nominated Frontera; Sí, Se Puede: The Latino Heroes Who Changed the United States; Speak Up, Santiago!; and This Land Is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story. Julio was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and currently resides in New York City, where he works to tell narratively rich stories about a diverse range of Latinx characters for readers of all ages.
Jacoby Salcedo is a comic book illustrator who is based in Olympia, Washington. He is the artist of the DC Comics graphic novel This Is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story with frequent collaborator Julio Anta. He is the cocreator of Frontera with Anta. Jacoby is also the artist on the Dark Horse miniseries It's Only Teenage Wasteland with writer Curt Pires. Jacoby has also been featured in multiple comic anthologies such as DC's Legion of Bloom, Graphic Mundi's COVID Chronicles, and the GLAAD award-winning Young Men in Love.
