The Actual Star takes readers on a journey over thousands of years—and thousands of miles—collapsing three separate timelines into a single place: a cave in the jungles of Belize. An epic saga, with each story building off—and informing—the others, this novel demonstrates the entanglements of love and hate, family and stranger, from a pair of twins who ruled the Mayan people to a young American abroad on a trip of self-discovery to two very different personalities on a collision course that will determine the fate of the humanity left on earth after an environmental cataclysm. In each era, age-old of questions about existence and belonging and identity converge deep underground. Because only in complete darkness can one truly see the stars. Past, present, and future. Gender identity. Science versus religion. These are constructs we take for granted, but what do they really mean?