A woman. A hospital room. A marriage coming undone.
In Singapore, an ambitious, emotionally depleted expatriate mother checks her barely ill daughter into an upscale hospital—not out of medical necessity, but as a quiet, desperate act of self-preservation. For two nights, in the stillness of white sheets and fluorescent light, she finally breathes.
Her marriage is stable but sexless. Her career, stalled. Motherhood has become a performance she can no longer sustain—especially when she feels little love as a wife to a man untouched by desire.
In this raw, daring autofictive debut, Thammika Songkaeo explores what happens when a woman on the brink dares to confront the demons in her mind.
Set in Singapore but emotionally borderless, Stamford Hospital is a piercing portrait of burnout, resentment, and the silent rebellions that so often go unnoticed. This is a novel for anyone who has ever felt imprisoned by loneliness inside the very family they built.
‘Dissecting motherhood, marriage, and the cost of selfhood with razor-sharp precision.’ — Elle Singapore
It is 1951, and Jean-Luc Guéry has arrived in Indochina to investigate the murder of his brother, Olivier, whose body was found floating in a tributary of the Saigon River. As an avid reader of detective fiction, Guéry is well aware of how such investigations should proceed, but it is not immediately clear that he is capable of putting this knowledge into practice. In addition to being a reporter for an obscure provincial newspaper, he is also a failed writer, an incorrigible alcoholic, and a compulsive gambler who has already squandered a fortune in the casinos of the Côte d’Azur. Despite his dissolute tendencies, however, and his aversion to physical danger, Guéry does eventually manage to solve the case. In order to do so, he is obliged to enter a world of elaborate conspiracies, clandestine intelligence operations, and organized crime – only to discover, in the novel’s final pages, that the truth behind his brother’s murder is far stranger than he could have imagined.
Written in the style of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, Too Far From Antibes is a ‘retro’ thriller that brilliantly evokes the city of Saigon during the early 1950s, when it was a centre of intrigue, insurgency, and empire.
London, 1952. Young man Hamid, adrift from his studies and from himself, uncertain of his future and that of Malaya, not yet a country. He wants to belong to something but is it to his Sultan, to a barely imagined nation or to the British Empire? The answer, he believes, is to find a wife.
In the Great Smog, he meets Tom Pelham, an old friend from Malaya and son of a former British Resident, who invites Hamid to spend Christmas at his family estate. Excited, Hamid anticipates reuniting with his childhood crush, Clare Pelham, only to be met with another pleasant surprise: Clare’s two competitive friends, Hermione and Margaret. Hamid finds them as exotic as they find him. Caught in the middle of the three women, Hamid does the unthinkable, loses Clare’s trust and is thrown out of the house. But all is not lost. Tom offers Hamid a route back to redemption and to Clare—if he spies for England.
Cold War Berlin, 1953. Hamid is sent to seduce an East German communist student leader. Abandoned in East Berlin when it is sealed off during a violent uprising (unknown today outside Germany), Hamid must save himself from Soviet tanks and rely on the unknown loyalties of a Soviet Colonel and especially on the wits of his mistress, loyal only to herself. Hamid must cross the final bridge to safety, to adulthood and to belonging to something, or to someone.
‘This moment is perfect.’
When Michelle meets Jonny for the first time, she thinks he is an odd and strange character. She finds him guarded, difficult to read, unpredictable, and temperamental. He isn’t impressed with her either. He thinks of her as childish and annoying, with a lot of growing up to do. They both don’t like each other and struggle to get on because they are very different. But as spring turns into summer, they warm up to each other and go camping in New Forest together. During their adventure, they start to open up and become friends. A mutual level of care, respect, and trust develops between them.
They grow closer.
Feelings deepen.
Then, in a sudden twist of fate, they have to separate.
‘Come on, Seashell, be strong,’ is the last thing she hears him say. And then, just like that, he is gone.
Will they end up together?
Journey into the heart of captivating and quirky Brighton, in the south of England, with Pickle Mist—a tale inspired by a true story of two strangers meeting and finding themselves helplessly swept up into the currents of the universe.
The characters in this collection of stories are people we all know. People like ourselves, searching and yearning, often in the wrong places for something meaningful and real or for at least a brief moment, right. A real-estate agent tries to sell a home to a feuding couple while his own marriage is being tested; a divorcee resigned to drink and television for company finds pleasures of life with another woman; and the price a mother pays when love and its irrationality blinds her to her parental duties. In these stories what is excavated and revealed lies at the heart of Singaporean lives.
LET ME TELL YOU A SECRET.
Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs. You either know one, are related to one, want to be one, or are one. OFWs are so ubiquitous to the Philippines that we think we’re familiar with the kind of lives they lead. We presume we know who they are, what they’re like, or perhaps even what secrets they keep. But do we?
From mananangals to aswangs, engkantos to mambabarangs, oryols to andudunongs, and even the great Bakunawa—The Secret Lives of OFWs follows eight different stories of Filipino migrant workers who happen to be supernaturals. Forced to embark on their own migratory sojourns to seek a better life and provide for their loved ones, these stories delve into the struggles faced by OFWs and their families—and how even feared creatures of Philippine folklore are not spared from the hardships of the diaspora.
This collection tells moving narratives of love and resilience. Of enduring against the monstrosity of abuse, assault, isolation and fractured family dynamics. A speculative exploration that answers the question: can the horrors and challenges of the Filipino migration experience surpass even the darkest realms of the supernatural?
‘‘Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises were often times filled with your tears”
When a messiah, the source of infinite wisdom, comes to the fictional town of Orphalese, the people take it as a sign to get their deepest concerns answered. Here was a man who you could tell, “I’ve been jealous”, “I worry about money”, “I cry a lot”, “marriage is difficult for me”, “I feel life is unfair at times”, and not be judged.
Written as a conversation between Almustafa, the prophet, and people of Orphalese, together they explore what spirituality, freedom, family, ambition, failures, success means to everyone.
The Prophet is a highly moving and thoughtful reading experience, like a compassionate friend gently holding your hand through uncomfortable paths of life. Written in a simple yet lyrical way, it brings a sense of soothing and catharsis to the reader.
A timeless philosophical work that offers guidance and pearls of wisdom.
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
In the fictious regime of Oceania, with an extremely over-powering administration, lives Winston Smith a disillusioned citizen of this regime.
He works for the party rewriting history to fit its ever-changing narrative to brainwash the minds of the people, reduce their ability to recognize and questions wrongs. He functions as a vessel to maintain the party’s throne, at the cost of reducing people to puppets.
Winston’s life is a monotonous existence of surrender, but underneath the harbors dangerous thoughts of rebellion and an innate desire for freedom. When Winston falls in love with Julia, a fellow party worker, their forbidden affair also strengthens their desire for revolt.
In the midst of absolute control, will Winston and Julia be able to break the shackles placed on thoughts, and carve a world free to love and live equally?
“If one is strong, one loves the more strongly.”
Set in 19th century, Isabel Archer is a spirited, intelligent and independent young American woman who inherits a fortune and embarks on a journey to Europe.
She always believed she’d live life on her own terms and ‘affront her destiny.’ However, during her travel, she realizes that an enduring relationship and a woman’s sense of self don’t go hand in hand. She had various encounters with suitors and manipulative individuals, including the enigmatic and cunning Gilbert Osmond, which challenged her idealistic notions. Isabel though stood fast on her believes and always chose herself first.
Through Isabel’s story we are compelled to wonder, should love to be this complicated? And more importantly, why are women, who are layered and complexed individuals, reduced to such singular roles?
The Portrait of a Lady is a deeply moving, romantic and sensitive story reflecting complex human emotions which will resonate with all readers alike.
Meet Zachary Kwan, a middling novelist trapped in a bout of writer’s block. His marriage to a celebrity model is on the rocks, his latest book is met with scathing reviews, and he’s about to be cancelled. Things really couldn’t get any worse.
Spoiler alert: they do.
A zombie epidemic takes over the world. And Zachary Kwan, writer of best-selling self-help book under a pseudonym, is infected.
Written in poetic form by Felix Cheong and illustrated by Arif Rafhan, Be Real puts a finger on the zeitgeist of our times. In an age defined by curation, how do we know what is real? Will we even recognize ourselves when we reveal our ‘true’ selves?
