El dodecaedro del zodíaco
Durii Editorial · Juvenil · Los cuatro elementos · 1 · Infantil y Juvenil · Adultos (+18 años)
Synopsis
Clara Romera is eleven years old, the owner of an extraordinary cat named Silvia, and remarkably gifted at being bored on June afternoons. Everything changes when her family goes to watch her cousin Victoria perform and she learns that Victoria's childhood friend, Phillipe Dot — a French boy with a progressive visual impairment that does little to stop him moving through the world with an ease others might envy — is returning to Madrid the following day. His father, Rafael, one of the world's foremost experts in Sumerian archaeology, is responsible for a newly discovered artefact that until recently was thought to exist only in legend: the Dodecahedron of the Zodiac, twelve pentagonal stones joined without mortar, each representing one of the twelve signs of the zodiac as conceived by the priests of ancient Mesopotamia.
The night before the piece is to be unveiled at the Royal Palace, it disappears without explanation. No camera captures anyone entering or leaving; no alarm sounds; the only footprints belong to the museum's own staff. Raúl, Clara's older brother — methodical to a fault but generous with it — Victoria, a precocious actress who refuses to believe that her father, presumed dead after a fire, is truly gone, and Phillipe resolve to investigate themselves, convinced that something about the behaviour of the exhibition's curator and his young assistant doesn't add up. Clara, despite being the youngest, refuses to be sidelined.
Their enquiries — which involve breaking into a stranger's flat, setting telephone traps and staking out offices through the night — lead them to a hidden door inside the Royal Palace itself: the entrance to a network of centuries-old tunnels where the thieves have concealed the Dodecahedron while they wait for the summer solstice, the one moment when, according to legend, the artefact grants unlimited power to whoever holds it. Discovered, threatened at gunpoint and separated in the darkness of the underground passages, the four friends must survive a pursuit that will test their ingenuity, their courage and, above all, the trust they have placed in one another over just a few days.
When the clock strikes the precise hour of the solstice, none of them will be prepared for what the Dodecahedron reveals about themselves, their own families and the true reach of the legend they were chasing. The first book in the Los Cuatro Elementos series, with a prologue by Nieves Concostrina, the novel combines the pace of a detective mystery with Sumerian mythology and an honest, unsentimental look at disability, grief and teenage friendship.
Machine translation, pending review.
Selling points
- Primer libro de una tetralogía escrita a lo largo de veinticuatro años, con prólogo de la divulgadora Nieves Concostrina.
- Representación honesta de la discapacidad visual a través de Phillipe, sin idealización ni lástima, con detalle técnico verosímil.
- Divulga la civilización sumeria y el origen del zodíaco de forma entretenida, sin sonar a lección de historia.
- Estructura de cuatro elementos que asigna a cada protagonista tierra, fuego, aire o agua, ideal para clubes de lectura.
- Combina misterio detectivesco, thriller de persecución y fantasía mitológica en un mismo libro, ampliando su público potencial.
- Ambientada en Madrid con localizaciones reales, lo que facilita rutas literarias y actividades de club de lectura.
- Gata protagonista con un misterio propio que engancha tanto a lectores infantiles como a sus familias.
- Final abierto que garantiza continuidad de saga y fideliza a los lectores para los siguientes tres libros.
Comparable titles
- Skandar y el ladrón de unicornios, A.F. Steadman
- Aru Shah and the Song of Death, Roshani Chokshi
- The Storm Runner, J.C. Cervantes
Technical data
- ISBN
- 978-84-10075-36-8
- Format
- Softcover
- Pages
- 180
- Dimensions
- 152 × 228 mm
- Weight
- 405 g
- RRP
- €18.00 (VAT included)
- Publication
- 23 October 2025
- Edition
- Edition 1
- Legal deposit
- M-20221-2025
- Language
- es
- Imprint
- Durii Editorial
- Series
- Juvenil
- Age
- Adultos (+18 años)
- Ebook
- 978-84-10075-37-5 · €8.00
Classification
Fantasía mitológica basada en culturas antiguas · Aventura y misterio detectivesco · Realismo mágico juvenil con elementos especulativos
For bookshops and distributors
The price shown includes VAT. Trade terms and orders are in the
Distribution: Azeta in Spain · Panoplia de Libros in Latin America · Direct distribution from the publisher
Rights
Translation rights available for all languages.
EL DODECAEDRO DEL ZODÍACO is the first installment of THE FOUR ELEMENTS, a four-book Spanish middle-grade/YA fantasy saga twenty-four years in the making, with a foreword by beloved Spanish historian and broadcaster Nieves Concostrina. When a legendary Sumerian artifact — a twelve-sided stone said to grant its holder unlimited power once every 3,600 years, precisely at the summer solstice — is stolen from an exhibition at Madrid's Royal Palace, four teenagers who barely know each other decide to investigate on their own. Raúl is methodical and scientific; his cousin Victoria is a rising teenage actress who refuses to believe her father, presumed dead in a fire years earlier, is truly gone; Phillipe, visiting from Paris, has a degenerative eye condition that is slowly taking his sight but never his resourcefulness; and eleven-year-old Clara refuses to be left out, dragging along her uncannily intelligent cat, Silvia. Their amateur investigation leads them into a network of centuries-old tunnels beneath the palace, where two fanatical thieves are waiting for the solstice to claim the artifact's power for themselves. Chased, injured, and separated in the dark, the four friends discover — as the clock strikes the exact moment of the solstice — that each of them may carry an elemental power of their own: earth, fire, air and water. Blending detective-story pacing, real Sumerian mythology, and a notably careful, non-tokenizing portrayal of visual disability through Phillipe, the novel sits comfortably alongside international comparables such as Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series and Roshani Chokshi's Aru Shah novels, while offering distinctly Spanish settings and a mythological source rarely used in the genre. The author, Nacho Hevia, is an actor, playwright and radio fiction narrator for Spanish national radio (RNE), and the complete four-book saga already exists in manuscript form, offering a rare guarantee of a finished, coherent series arc for any rights acquisition.
Nacho Hevia
Madrid · 1978
Born in Madrid in 1978, Nacho Hevia now lives in coastal Cuchía, in the green hills of Cantabria. A restless creative from an early age, his vocation finds expression in both writing and performance. Driven by a philosophy of constant learning and growth, he studied Law at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Drama in Madrid and Barcelona, broadening his training through disciplines as varied as dance, storytelling, dramatic technique, screenwriting and autobiographical writing. Theatre is his primary passion, and his professional career there spans classical repertoire, contemporary dramaturgy and, in particular, socially engaged work. He has appeared in film and television, collaborated with Cadena Ser, and is currently part of the Ficción Sonora team at RNE. He also shares his experience through talks and lectures for the UNED in Vigo and UNATE, the Universidad Permanente de Cantabria. As a playwright he has written seven full-length plays and twelve short pieces. Among the former, "VIPs" won the Premio SGAE 2018 at the II Certamen Mujeres que Cumplen; his work has been staged across a range of venues. Further recognition includes the Concurso Literario Manuel Rivas-Irmandade Galega de Rubí 2022 for his story "Cari", the Premio #ENAMORAM2020 Sant Jordi 2020 for his poem "Et desitjo tant", and a place in the Laboratorios de Dramaturgia e Interpretación at the Centro Dramático Nacional. PUBLICATIONS · EL DODECAEDRO DEL ZODÍACO, Ed. Durii. First book in the saga Los Cuatro Elementos. 2025 · NOCIÓN DEL TIEMPO. Ed. Cuadranta. 2025 · Two stories, MIS ÚLTIMAS VACACIONES and EL HERMANO NIDO, were shortlisted for the III Concurso de relatos cortos organised by Cultura Inquieta, Cursiva and Penguin Random House, and published in an anthology. 2022 · ABSTENCIÓN. Short play published in the antifascist theatre anthology EL VENENO EN EL AIRE, Ed. Invasoras. 2021 · UNIDOS POR EL PLACER DE CONTAR. Anthology of writing from lockdown; he contributed the poem "Pavesas". Editorial Grupo Cero, with support from the Fundación Repsol. 2021 · MEJOR. Short piece published in the anthology UN MINUTO DE JUSTICIA, Ed. Invasoras. 2019
Machine translation, pending review.
