Once a promising legal eagle, heartbroken and unemployed Emily Chung is sent to live with her no-nonsense Uncle Raymond, strange but passionate retired actress Aunt Bridget, talkative oddball cousin Daniel and cunning feng-shui believer grandmother in Penang Island, Malaysia after a devastating incident almost costs her her life. In a bid to help Emily move forward and pick herself back up, Emily’s uncle offers her an internship at Serendipity Sanctuary, a non-profit community food centre for the underprivileged with close ties to the family.
What starts as butterflies in her stomach under the rambunctious pastry chef mentorship turns into a cool-headed environment when she meets Michael Kim, the solo traveller volunteering as a pay-it-forward. The encounter unfurls her past clandestine romance with former renowned K-Pop-idol-turned-soloist Edward Ahn and the devastating heartbreak that led her to cast away a strictly confidential fairy-tale chapter, and, her desire to love again.
As Emily struggles to contend with her past and rebuild her present, she learns that to get a grip is to find courage and strength in spite of the adversities; by replacing attitude with self-respect—from coping with the bad faith of a long-time friend to a near-death experience, she realises the importance of family and unconditional love. But, will she be ennobled by Edward’s unimaginable return? Or will she be swayed by Michael’s warm-heart and benevolence? Can Emily survive the sweet storm and learn to open up once more to what love and life have to offer?
Set against the backdrop of an aging boutique hotel, once a jewel of elegance in the heart of Singapore’s Duxton Hill, a tropical rain storm brings together two unlikely singles, Clara Tan and Nicholas Tate. Their personalities and cultural backgrounds at first seem at complete odds. Unbeknown to them, their futures are very much aligned. Through the twists and turns of a potential relationship, and the trials and tribulations of sorrow, love, friendship, courage and the Duxton Hotel’s fight for survival, Clara discovers that her tendency to fall in love too fast for every single male she encounters, needs some adjustment.
Her life is about to completely turn upside down when she inherits the hotel from its billionaire owner Mr Chan, but through having to lead and re-brand the hotel towards its new beginning, she inadvertently overcomes a sensitive and socially difficult medical condition. In the meantime, her love for Nicholas develops, deepens and blossoms as a result of her new found confidence, on which a new life and hotel empire begins.
Singing Chinese antiquities. Ghosts that only one young man could sense. A house with a sentient A.I. that becomes a part of the family. A cricket that acts as a tragic voice of reason. A man born and bred for neural mass surveillance.
This anthology is a collection of unpredictable stories of various genres—fantasy, science fiction, crime, horror and the supernatural—that touch on courage and fear, loss and resolution, denial and honesty, despair and hope…from an author who writes about being human in a world where the unseen is suddenly exposed. Every story is written in versatile language, with characters sure to elicit sympathy, and perhaps even familiarity, from readers who are sure to recognize themselves or those they know in the unique situations of each entertaining tale.
Bryce and Nora fall in love in their last year of high school. They worry about their relationship surviving after graduation but are separated sooner when Bryce’s father is transferred and Bryce has to leave.
Bryce promises to write but not in a conventional way. He promises to leave messages behind pictures in hotels where his father works. He tells Nora if she finds his messages, they are meant to be together.
Years pass and Bryce leaves messages for Nora as promised, but wonders if it may be more of a habit than anything else.
Bryce and Nora have moved on to other partners over the years and while Bryce still leaves messages for Nora, she has mostly forgotten his promise until she finds an old photo of Bryce. She begins to search for his messages and succeeds in finding one.
This action is enough for fate to trigger a series of serendipitous events that will bring Bryce and Nora together again but at what cost and who will pay the price?
What happens when one goes from obscurity to celebrity, overnight?
Thirty-year-old Arya Alvarez is a travel manager at Isle Z, a luxury travel company in Singapore where she creates bespoke trips for celebrities and influencers. Discretion is her specialty at work and personal life: few people know that she’s fled her home city, Manila, to get away from the scene of a devastating break-up.
When she travels to Svaneti, in the Republic of Georgia, Arya briefly encounters the mysterious Dave in a remote village high up the Caucasus mountains. Intrigued, she posts his photos on Instagram-which goes viral the very next day. Turns out, Dave is Davit Nadibaidze, a famous yet reclusive artist who’d retreated from the public five years ago and Arya is the first person to see him since he disappeared.
In less than 24 hours, Arya gains hundreds of thousands of followers. She’s deluged with invitations to talk shows, influencer parties, and celebrity junkets, all as her social media apps overflow with DMs, tags, and comments, both nice and nasty. Men are suddenly vying for her attention, including her ex, Jake.
Arya tries her best to step up, but she also struggles. What she really wants is to finally get over her painful break-up, find herself and a fresh start. But can she really, when she’s caught in this complex whirl of viral fame?
Emma Morales, tenacious romance book editor and proud cat lady, knows romance, but love? Nope. Thank you very much.
Enter nerdy science fiction and fantasy editor Kip Alegre, who quotes JRR Tolkien for breakfast and knows heartbreak all too well.
When Emma gets a career-changing sci-fi romance manuscript which may just save their publishing house from folding, she knows she must work with Kip if she wants to succeed.
Sounds simple enough, right? But when the well-meaning meddling best friends, an obsessive ex-boyfriend, and a beautiful ex-fiancée get into the picture, the job doesn’t seem so simple anymore. What starts out as a friendly-flirty-literary smackdown between Emma and Kip by quoting authors from Emily Henry to Brandon Sanderson grows into something deeper than either of them had signed up for.
The deal was to edit the book, not their lives.
Emma and Kip may be willing to read the manuscript over and over again, but will they be willing to give love a second read?
In modern-day China, a man has travelled to Shanghai on impulse to meet his online lover Luna, but she refuses to see him and soon disappears without a trace. He tries to forget her by immersing himself in dating apps, and also learns to appreciate the nuances within everyday Chinese life while he adjusts himself to mainland China as a member of the greater overseas Chinese diaspora. As the seasons change he falls in love with a budding photographer named Sofia, but with traces of Luna constantly reappearing in his life, will he ever find a way out of his unquiet predicament?
Unquiet Heart Soliloquy is Dano Chow’s debut novel, a confessional account of one’s turning to dating apps for comfort in times of loneliness, in the hope that one casual outing after another will somehow be enough to fulfil a generational desire for intimacy.
A story told in three parts, Teacher Narit is a historical novel centering on the main protagonist, Narit, a mysterious civil war veteran who escaped the capital in the 70s to start a new life as a history teacher in northern Thailand.
Once a young, idealistic postgraduate student and activist during one of Thailand’s blackest periods, The 14th October 1973 revolution, Narit embarked on a turbulent relationship that led him to battling a war of conscience, love and political allegiance; a war that ended in pain and disillusion for both him and his family-leaving him embittered, running from his past.
However, it is in northern Thailand, that a chance encounter with his first love forces him to confront his demons, and Narit is made to choose between seeking forgiveness or fleeing once more.
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.
Anna, the pampered daughter of a maverick Englishman and his local Muslim wife, has been promised the unprecedented freedom to marry for love. Her young life, like the island she inhabits, is perched at the crossroads of eastern and western cultures in the waning days of the British Empire in Asia. The first man she falls for, the son of a prominent Chinese family in Penang, breaks her heart when he submits to an arranged marriage with a ‘backward’ but ambitious mainland Chinese bride. Anna’s next choice seems to be more suitable, a second-cousin on her mother’s side, an earnest self-made man whom her family adores. The newlyweds struggle to reconcile their individual aspirations with the expectations of their sprawling, extended families. The rumblings of the Second World War and the brutal Japanese Occupation transform their individual plights into a matter of life and death when they are thrust together in a desperate struggle to survive. This epic story of love and loss is illuminated by the richly painted backdrop of a multicultural society in flux on a vibrant island that is both breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly suffocating.
