Saturn Returning
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Product Details
Publisher: Bindery Books x Sapph-Lit
Release Date: May 5, 2026
Formats: Paperback, Ebook
ISBN: PB: 978-1-967967-08-7; EB: 978-1-967967-09-4
Trim: 5.5 x 8.25
Page Count: 320
Kim Narby
A smoldering, soul-splitting debut that tracks three friends through the celestial chaos of adulthood, love, and queer identity.
Jordan Caleb is a freshman at McCallen College when she meets Trace. From the moment the confident, tattooed Trace compliments Jordan’s Alanis Morissette T-shirt, their friendship feels fated and electrically charged. When the two friends meet mercurial transfer student Silvia, she catches Trace’s eye. Their instant attraction eclipses the nascent pull between Jordan and Trace, forming a messy constellation among the three women.
Over the course of a decade, their orbits send them to opposite coasts: Jordan builds a life in New York City, while Trace and Silvia get engaged in Seattle, yet the three remain linked by the gravitational pull of the past. As they approach thirty and the apogee of their Saturn return, their bond splinters when Trace calls Jordan with a shocking revelation, exposing a web of heartache, secrets, and unspoken desires.
Saturn Returning charts the complex paths of human connection and queer friendship, questioning how we define ourselves against the relationships that have shaped our lives.
About the Author
Kim Narby is a queer writer from Seattle. She is an alum of the Tin House Summer Workshop and is a contributor at Write or Die Magazine. Kim has organized with the New York City Dyke March, and she currently lives in Brooklyn with her cocker spaniel, Georgia. Saturn Returning is her first novel.
About the Tastemaker
Nina Haines is a writer, freelance marketer and content creator, and the founder of the sapphic book club and imprint Sapph-Lit. With thousands of members from over sixty countries, Sapph-Lit’s community is a safe space where queer women and nonbinary folks can come read sapphic books, chat about life, ask for and offer support, and celebrate their identities.
Reviews
“With Saturn Returning, Kim Narby has accomplished the near impossible: crafted a book so delicious that it’s nearly impossible to put down. What does it mean to love someone for so long that you’re no longer capable of seeing what they’ve actually become? I loved these beautifully messy characters and their twisty, years long friendship. Gorgeously written and wonderfully funny, Saturn Returning is a sexy stunner of a novel.” —Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things
“If you’ve ever wished Chappell Roan’s ‘Kaleidoscope’ was a novel, Saturn Returning is for you. Kim Narby’s debut brings a delicate spareness to sapphic love as it traces the messy intricacies of a trio of college friends as they grow into adulthood while falling in and out and in love again. ‘It’s complicated’ never felt so satisfying.”
—Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
“Reading Saturn Returning felt like having drinks with an eloquent lesbian as she spills her intimate, messy, and vulnerable gossip. Propulsive and lyrical; a vivid, tender, and incisive story about aging, queer love, and friendship.” —Emily Austin, author of We Could Be Rats and Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
“The lines between true love and true friendship queerly blur in this tender and beautiful debut. With a laser focus on the painful years between finding yourself and becoming an actual adult, Kim Narby deftly weaves a messy love triangle that entangles the reader as much as her finely wrought characters. I can’t wait to read more from her.” —Gabrielle Korn, author of Yours for the Taking and The Shutouts
“In Saturn Returning, Narby taps into the sapphic collective unconscious. What appears to be a book is actually a mirror for any woman who has ever loved another woman. You won’t be able to look away.” —Casey Tanner, author of Feel It All
“Saturn Returning is, affectionately, a big queer mess. Addictive, sexy, and psychologically astute, I couldn’t put this book down. The characters are incredibly alive, [and] the prose vivid and honest. Narby writes with clarity and wisdom about attachment, identity, and the turbulence of life, love, and friendship, capturing the pain and joy of queer relationships that resist easy categorization. It’s hard to believe this is a debut novel. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.”
—Marisa Crane, author of A Sharp Endless Need
“Saturn Returning perfectly depicts the messiness of relationships, the depth of sapphic friendship, and the delightful lesbian drama that can surround both. Kim Narby has written a truly excellent debut: a book I didn’t want to end and am still thinking about long after the last page. I’m now intimately bonded to these three women, the lasting impact of their Saturn returns, and the many ways they break and heal one another’s hearts.” —Genevieve Hudson, author of Pretend We Live Here and Boys of Alabama
“Tender, intimate, and raw, Kim Narby’s novel is an ode to the messy and life-sustaining complexities of found family. I felt like I was growing up alongside Trace, Jordan, and Silvia; they reminded me that to be a friend is to be in love.” —Jade Song, author of Chlorine and I Love You Don’t Die
“Kim Narby’s Saturn Returning explores a love triangle over the span of ten years and calmly, sweetly asks us to consider relationships as The Argo—but how many kinds of change can they endure before they are no longer the same ship that set sail?” —A. E. Osworth, author of Awakened
“Overflowing with heart, humor, and enough dyke drama to power a fleet of Subarus, Saturn Returning is the novel I didn’t even let myself dream about wanting, because who would ever write a book this gay? I devoured it in one breathless, voyeuristic sitting. Saturn Returning is a stellar debut, and Kim Narby is a refreshing new voice in lesbian fiction. I will read anything she writes.” —Mia Arias Tsang, author of Fragments of Wasted Devotion