Set in a fictional province in the Philippines, the novel tells the story of the Arguelleses, the Visbales, and the Monsantillos-and their eventual downfall.
The three families are members of powerful, wealthy haciendero clans that have long stood uncontested by those in their midst. But beneath the gleam and glitter of their lives lie age-old secrets that speak of deceit, greed, and corruption. Sins amassed over generations will come to a head, calamities and death will wreak havoc on the land, transgressors will face vengeance-and so the cycle goes on.
The Maps of Camarines is a chronicle of the forces that have and continue to assail Philippine society today, as well as the consequences if they are left to fester in the time to come.
Eggs for Dinner encompasses business innovation through a touching personal journey.
This book is timely addressing the impact of COVID-19 and the essentials on how to survive in this precarious environment. Guy’s journey via Israel, Europe, the USA, Thailand, and finally the opening of the highly successful restaurant, Wild Honey in Singapore, has given him a wealth of experience in the restaurant business.
Wachs gives a vivid and touching account of growing up in Israel the son of a restaurateur, failed ventures, the rigours of hotel school in the Black Forest in Germany, and his time working in New York. Accounts of meeting movie stars to driving Russian presidents to secret locations are some of the colourful experiences he shares. His journey took him to Thailand where a successful stint in Bangkok and a move to Singapore culminated in his lifelong dream of opening his own restaurant. Surviving the worst of the pandemic focuses Wachs on the future of both his business and his personal life.
A must-read for anyone who wants to go into the restaurant business, this is also ultimately a story about navigating difficulties coping with failure and how a humble dishwasher managed to achieve his dream. While so many restaurants have become casualties of COVID-19, Wild Honey continues to be a popular destination, and the reasons for its continued success can be found in the pages of this memoir.
A pioneering book, Unfiltered: The CEO and the Coach, for the first time, opens the doors that normally shield the confidential world of coaching conversations. The book, through its candour, helps readers fully grasp the life-changing impact that coaching can have. Conceived as a leadership development book, the authors share the narratives (both individual and mutual) of their partnership over the course of five years. The resultant narrative provides not just unique insights that executives and entrepreneurs will find useful for their own development but also deep insights into how, by understanding ourselves, we move towards mastery over the world at large.
A collection of short fiction on love, longing and loss written in the realist and fantastic modes
A young boy and his sisters gather beautiful shells on the beach as mementos of a country they will leave behind. A girl who loves the Beatles sees dwarfs that are drawn charcoal-black on a white plate. A rich matron in Singapore discovers a primeval thing in her ritzy penthouse. A poor woman in the boondocks gives birth to a mudfish. Dead lovers buried beneath a hotel ruined by an earthquake reach out to each other. And a woman poisoned in Scotland centuries ago still haunts a hilltop castle, looking for her dead lover.
These and other memorable characters inhabit Danton Remoto’s book of stories and tales. Some of the stories are written in the realistic mode. They poke fun at a colourful but violent dictatorship or track the same-sex love in a young man’s heart. The others are written in the fantastic mode-fables, parables, origin tales, cheeky rewriting of rural lore and urban legends. The length of the stories also varies. Some are flash fiction, while the others have the sweep of a novella.
The stories are meant to entertain but also to instruct: why the present is just a re-looping of the past, why love remains constant and true even beyond death. Written with daring and with dash, this book comes from the pen of ‘one of Asia’s best writers’.
This novel asks the questions about the role of women in marriage, the burden of cultural inheritance, the oppression inherent in being a minority and ultimately, the costs of not being true to oneself.
Set in the 2010s of Singapore, the story begins with protagonist, Saloma Salem, an entrepreneur who believes that her ethnicity has impeded her success in life. As a result, she steadfastly rejects her race and culture.
This strains her relationship with her mother who still lives alone in their small family flat. Determined to be independent, she leads a simple life despite Saloma’s generous allowance. Their fractious relationship breaks down when she forces her antiquated beliefs about a wife’s role on Saloma. The story tells how far Saloma would go to deny her culture, the efforts she takes to save her marriage and to maintain the image of a perfect life. But her plans go awry, forcing her to confront her own demons.
An immortal spirit cycles through multiple lives as a tree, a naga, a deer, a rock, and a human. A doctor suffers a stroke and embarks upon a quest for justice in the afterlife. A wife and mother lives out the soap opera of her dreams. A ghostwriter deals with the violent tragedy that befalls his family by turning it into fiction. A woman from the future struggles to break free from a life shaped by her lineage.
The Fabulist is an epic novel by Uthis Haemamool. Spooling out of the district of Kaeng Khoi in Saraburi, Thailand, this book follows four generations of narrative threads as they bluff, conceal, confess, and rewrite themselves into the history of a nation that has long relegated them to the margins of its story.
Set in Singapore, this is a tale about Rose, her relentless pursuit of success and money and the price that she pays for it. The enormous wealth that she accumulates loses its meaning for her when disillusionment with her failed marriages and guilt about her own perceived failure as a parent torment her. She eventually gains wisdom and peace through two unlikely women, connected to her past.
Northern Malaya, 1825. Princess Toh has been left in charge of the palace while her brother is away fighting, but her violent husband is causing trouble in her court. Meanwhile, Aashif, who was trekking through the jungle, stumbles upon a girl who has been brutally assaulted and left to die. Back at the palace, the traumatised young man decides to escape and seek freedom; together with Princess Toh’s maid, he sets out on a perilous journey. Distraught at this news, Toh pledges to do anything she can to bring the runaways home – even if that means resorting to help from the magical spirits that guard the kingdom. And all the while, a murderer is on the loose…
The Last Great Love Song is a magical tale of secrets and lies, a bewitching story that will convince the reader of the power of love – and magic.
Malaysia in the 1960s. A newly independent nation, full of early promise.
On the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, young Ah Tat dreams of a life beyond the kampong. Earnest, bookish and a little naïve, he sees his path clearly: he will study hard at the Methodist school, enter university and one day become a man of consequence. It is his duty to guide his wayward cousin, the darkly charismatic KC, on a similar path to success. But when KC’s fascination with the local triads results in his sudden disappearance, Ah Tat is left with nothing but questions and regrets.
Years later, the estranged cousins are reunited in a much-changed country. Ah Tat, now a successful engineer and future captain of industry, discovers KC has become a powerful underworld figure. Vowing to haul his cousin back from the moral abyss, he is instead drawn into an escalating rivalry with KC as the two men vie for wealth, status, influence and the love of the enigmatic June Teh.
But could a bizarre weather event stay the inevitable reckoning?
The Snow in Kuala Lumpur is a tale of two men-fierce adversaries who ought to have been brothers-and two peoples, the Malays and Chinese, who forged a new nation while walking the thin line between kinship and a destructive rivalry.
EVERY DAY of the years of a murderous occupation, Simone has kept her head down, living and working in the peaceful surroundings of the Botanical Gardens ignoring the horrors that lie outside, waiting for it all to end.
UNTIL TODAY, when a blue feather reminds her of lost friends and sends her on a quest which can lead them all into disaster.
Against the clock and with a Japanese officer on their trail, seven young women are called on to rekindle their bonds of loyalty and trust to save the child of one of their own.
