Once Upon a Sunset


Tif Marcelo - 2020
    As a Washington, DC, OB/GYN at a prestigious hospital, she uses her career to distract herself from her grief over her granny’s death and her breakup from her long-term boyfriend after her free-spirited mother moves in with her. But when she makes a medical decision that disparages the hospital, she is forced to go on a short sabbatical.Never one to wallow, Diana decides to use the break to put order in her life, when her mother, Margo, stumbles upon a box of letters from her grandfather, Antonio Cruz, to her grandmother from the 1940s. The two women always believed that Antonio died in World War II, but the letters reveal otherwise. When they learn that he lived through the war, and that they have surviving relatives in the Philippines, Diana becomes determined to connect with the family that she never knew existed, though Margo refuses to face her history. But Diana pushes on, and heads on a once-in-a-lifetime trip that challenges her identity, family history, and her idea of romantic love that could change her life forever.

Dumot


Alan Navarra - 2011
    Like the last kiss from a scorned one-nighter. Like the walls of inch-thick dirt that have been there for 14 years. Redundant conversations in a basement that echo for months on end. A staircase with old, stinky wood. Prime time kabobohan. 4-day old socks. Reflective surfaces in moments of discomfort. Blood all the wrong places. A painful gut. And just like the pain of process-oriented frustration, I hate it.

Her Billionaire's Bargain


Yvette Hines - 2016
    Whether in business or his personal life. Not many people tell him, “No.” Until Kourtney Deen, a striking beauty, refused to sell her business to him so that he could put up a luxury spa and golf course. Business is business that’s what Zac has always believed. He refuses to get caught in the marriage trap like his cousins. However, the day he meets the feisty shop owner face to face, he can’t resist the attraction he has for her. Kourtney refuses to allow herself to get distracted. No matter how tall, grey-eyed and handsome he maybe. That road has already been traveled. Years ago, she made some mistakes and had to make some tough choices. Now, the only two things she cares about are her daughter and the success of her shop. In Zac’s structured life, things have always gone how he planned it, but one unexpected event leads to another. When he discovers that nothing is what it seems and there are secrets, yet revealed, he learns quickly that it is not his wallet he has to lean on, but his heart.

The Shadow Box


John R. Maxim - 1996
    But a series of inexplicable and violent events begin to rob him of everything he loves. First the man who raised him is brutally murdered. A few days later, Michael's fiancee is gunned down during a convenience store hold-up. Finally he is fired from his job with no explanation. And now it seems strangers are trying to kill him. Fleeing to the island of Martha's Vineyard, Michael hopes for a new beginning--and possibly even a new love with the enigmatic Megan Cole. But little does he know that his entire life has been built on lies--and a vast conspiracy of corruption. And his pursuers are about to strike again. . .

Hard to Die


Andra Watkins - 2016
    When she disappeared she fell into an in-between called Nowhere. For her soul to rest, she has one assignment: Help someone navigate a life-changing crossroad or be forgotten forever.Theo is running out of time when she encounters Richard Cox, a West Point cadet who’s desperate. After someone from Richard’s past presents him with an impossible ultimatum, he has two choices: Return to spying on the Russians…or die.As Theo and Richard battle adversaries, treachery collides with their growing passion. Can they trust each other enough to elude their enemies? Or are they pawns for a bigger foe determined to destroy them?Hard to Die is the first book in the Nowhere Series, a speculative blend of riveting suspense, forgotten history, and a dash of paranormal fiction. If you like edge-of-your-seat action, compelling characters, and white-knuckle emotion, you’ll love the first installment in Andra Watkins’ page-turning series.Buy Hard to Die today and discover your next favorite read!

The Unexpected Groom: Country Brides & Cowboy Boots


Lucy McConnell - 2017
     Lime Peak Ranch is home to the Dumont and Ruggles families who raise cattle, train horses, and compete in PRCA rodeos. Life down the dirt road isn’t as perfect as it seems and secrets have roots deeper than the maple trees.   Ellie Dumont is in love with the wrong man. Logan Labrum is the son of her family’s biggest business rival Joe Labrum. Joe’s made things difficult for the Dumont family for years but that doesn’t stop Logan from turning Ellie’s head. They’ve been dating on the sly for months. As their love deepens, Ellie is torn between family loyalty and the man who stole her heart. George Dumont wants one thing: to have his family under one roof again. Carol left, taking their son, Levi, a couple years ago. Unsure how to approach a reconciliation with the redhead who lights a fire in his soul, George stumbles forward.  After a tractor accident cost Olivia Dumont the use of her left hand, she learned to hate doctors and the limitations they laid before her. Which is why she takes an instant dislike to their new renter, Dr. Robert Canton. Robert signed up for the Lime Peak Ranch experience and she’s going to make sure he gets it. Hauling five acres of hay bales in from the field is a good start. But Robert doesn’t complain and he doesn’t tell her she shouldn’t be using her hand or baby her like her family does. But Robert is holding back and Olivia can tell. The closer they get, the bigger the questions become. Bonnie Ruggles is the heart of Lime Peak Ranch, but her heart isn’t in it anymore. After years of carrying the burden of infertility and mysteries that started long before she married Dallas Ruggles, Bonnie is worn thin. Will their history together be enough of a reason to stick around or will the past be what pushes her off the ranch? Follow this family full of heart and love and loyalty as they work to navigate the bumpy roads ahead.

Dermaphoria


Craig Clevenger - 2005
    With steadily increasing doses of a strange new hallucinogen, Eric finds that the drug allows him to reassemble his past in broken fragments. But as he begins to lose touch with the present, his distinction between truth and fantasy begins to crumble, creating a world where divisions between love and loss, violence and tenderness, and fact and fiction are less discernible than they ought to be.

Drama Queen


Abi Aquino - 2003
    It never quite plays out as beautifully as I imagine this scene to be. I am still a normal girl, after all, and in my head I've blocked it perfectly: We wake up with a slow stretch, cuddle for a few minutes, conduct a short conversation with our husky sleepy voices..."Even for a struggling actress like 26-year-old Kach, love doesn't come easy. Especially if your timing is off and you miss your cue and forget to deliver the right lines at the right time...Beautiful, talented and starving, theater actress Kach, who has a real penchant for drama, lives off the refrigerators and affection of her childhood friends: Nats, a chef who has taken it upon herself to play mother to Kach, and Jorge, an overachieving research genius who balances off Kach when she starts overreacting and who gladly supplies much-needed warm hugs when her world - or her tiny Makati apartment - dramatically turns cold.Now Kach has finally landed a legitimate role costarring an intense, sexy and brooding young stage actor named Sanchez. Their onstage chemistry quickly reaches boiling point and overflows into real-life, and suddenly Kach finds herself in a super-kilig affair, complete with snatches of smooches behind closed stage curtains.But their romance takes a dramatic turn when Kach discovers that Sanchez isn't tailor-made for the role of her real-life leading man...and that someone else is ready and willing to audition!

Confidential


Jack Parker - 2013
    After being forced into hiding until the trial, Heidi finds Camdon, someone who changes her :Making her new life more than bearable, he makes it perfect.Now she has to decide if it's worth giving up the perfect life she has to testify, if it's worth it to go back to the old life she had before, and if she can keep lying to the only person that she's ever loved.

America Is Not the Heart


Elaine Castillo - 2018
    Her uncle, Pol, who has offered her a fresh start and a place to stay in the Bay Area, knows not to ask about her past. And his younger wife, Paz, has learned enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. Only their daughter, Roni, asks Hero why her hands seem to constantly ache.Illuminating the violent political history of the Philippines in the 1980s and 1990s and the insular immigrant communities that spring up in the suburban United States with an uncanny ear for the unspoken intimacies and pain that get buried by the duties of everyday life and family ritual, Castillo delivers a powerful, increasingly relevant novel about the promise of the American dream and the unshakable power of the past. In a voice as immediate and startling as those of Junot Díaz and NoViolet Bulawayo, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful telenovela of a debut novel. With exuberance, muscularity, and tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave home to grasp at another, sometimes turning back.

Si Inggolok at ang Planeta Pakaskas


Rene O. Villanueva - 1997
    It’s so delicious that its inhabitants can’t stop eating it up and only Inggolok is smart enough to know what will happen next.

The Bamboo Dancers (Filipino Literary Classics)


N.V.M. Gonzalez - 1959
    Gonzalez’s characters are discovered rather than explained. They present themselves without comment from the author. Such subtlety and disciplined self-restraint keep Gonzalez’s fiction far from the ordinary “literature of protest” ... Perhaps Gonzalez’s constant attentiveness to the manner of speech, and even to silence, owes much to his culture’s reliance, for unobtrusive communication, on courteous consideration of others... Gonzalez’s craft is perfectly expressive of these Asian aspects of Philippine folkways.- Leonard Casper, Critical Survey of Long Fiction

The Losers


David Eddings - 1992
    Damon Flood was a scoundrel--a smooth, smilling, cynical devil, as devious and corrupt as Raphael was open and innocent. The day Raphael met Damon was the day he began his mysterious fall from grace. And the golden boy fell very fast and very far....

When the Elephants Dance


Tess Uriza Holthe - 2002
    forces battle to possess the Philippine Islands, the Karangalan family hides with their neighbors in a cramped cellar, where they glean hope from the family stories and folktales they tell each other. These stories of love, survival, and family blend the supernatural with the rich, little known history of the Philippines, the centuries of Spanish colonization, the power of the Catholic church, and the colorful worlds of the Spanish, Mestizo, and Filipino cultures.As the villagers tell their stories in the darkened cellar below, Holthe masterfully weaves in the stories of three brave Filipinos--a teenage brother and sister and a guerilla fighter--as they become caught in the battle against the vicious Japanese forces above ground.Inspired by her father's firsthand accounts of this period, Tess Uriza Holthe brings to magical and terrifying life a story of the hope and courage needed to survive in wartime.

Broken Grace


E.C. Diskin - 2015
    But she’s left with a traumatic brain injury and a terrifying reality: she can’t remember anything.Left in the care of her sister, Grace returns to the family’s secluded old farmhouse to recover—but within an hour of her return, the police arrive. Grace’s boyfriend has been murdered. Without any memory, Grace has no alibi.With suspicion weighing heavily on her and flashes of memory returning, Grace searches for clues to her past. But with every glimpse, her anxiety grows. There is something about the house, her family, her childhood…perhaps the accident isn’t the only reason she can’t remember. Are the dark recesses of her mind hiding something even more sinister and terrifying than she could ever imagine?And someone is watching. Someone willing to kill again to protect a secret.