The Loneliness of a Starless Sky (La soledad de un cielo sin estrellas)

A young editor reunites, years later, with the poet who marked her adolescence during an unforgettable summer. As they work on his new book, they relive a love story once interrupted by fear and confront the wounds of the past. A tender and moving love story.

Emma, an editor by vocation, never imagined that the next poetry collection she would work on would bear the signature of Enzo Morelli—the poet who had marked her life when she was just seventeen. They first met in Dawn Lake, the small town where Emma spent her summers with her mother and younger brother. He was the bad boy of the place, the one who sold weed at parties and carried the weight of an alcoholic and violent father. But behind that façade of rebellion and hardness, Emma discovered a wounded, quiet boy, full of words he had never shared with anyone.

Their bond didn’t begin suddenly, but at a slow and secret pace: readings by the lakeside, confessions in the night’s shadows, endless walks beneath the trees. They fell in love almost without realizing it. Emma, with her insatiable curiosity and love of books, encouraged him to shape his poetry, to write beyond himself. Enzo, in turn, found in her a refuge, far from his father’s shouting and the town’s contempt. With him, Emma learned to grow up, to find her voice in a hostile environment. They shared intense afternoons, a first kiss in the rain, moments of desire and tenderness, and a love that seemed capable of resisting everything.

But reality was relentless. Jason Harper, the town’s stereotypical rich kid, harassed Emma after feeling rejected, provoking a public humiliation that triggered a fight and left Enzo blamed. His friends beat him up, he lost his job, and with a father drowning in debt, he was dragged back into the drug trade. Emma tried to hold him up—she entered him in a literary contest, proposed they keep their love alive at a distance. And just when everything seemed to have a future, Enzo collapsed. Fear, guilt, and low self-esteem led him to break up with her without explanation. Emma left without saying goodbye, carrying the weight of a broken love and the burning memory of a summer impossible to forget.

Years later, fate brings them together again. The publishing house where Emma works is releasing The Loneliness of a Starless Sky, Enzo’s new poetry collection. He is no longer the same: he has gone to therapy, succeeded with his verses, and seems to have left behind the lost boy she once knew. But when they meet again, everything unspoken resurfaces: attraction, guilt, memories, desire. Between secret encounters, trips to Italy, and confessions that reopen old wounds, both face the past that shaped them. And that poem Enzo never stopped writing finally finds its place.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Elena Montagud is a philologist and writer. She first found notable success as a self-published author, and her stories—mainly in the erotic romance genre—have won awards and been included in several anthologies. She has established herself as one of the most important voices in romance, Young Adult, and New Adult fiction in Spanish.

The Loneliness of a Starless Sky is a beautiful novel, with fragments that soften the heart, characters with a strong sense of identity, and a feel-good ending.

The novel addresses universal and highly relevant themes such as first love, family violence, bullying, mental health, and personal growth. Enzo is a character full of inner conflict and evolution, while Emma represents stability, empathy, and emotional reconstruction.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Feature Film, TV Film.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.