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Indie Writer Philippines

Book Review

Review: What You Wanted by Mina V. Esguerra

Posted on November 26, 2015

It’s the classic one-night stand: Beach wedding, bridesmaid, groom’s friend. When Andrea and Damon meet, sparks fly, and they give in to the attraction. Sounds simple, but Andrea’s still getting over someone, and Damon thought he’d be hooking up with another person that night. It could still be simple, really, if they chalk it up to a weekend tryst and move on.

But one night becomes lunch the week after, and then dinner the next weekend…and before they know it, Andrea and Damon are still together, dealing with the feelings they know they might still have for other people. How hard can it be to get exactly what you want? How do you even know what it is?

***Andrea and Damon met in prequel short story WEDDING NIGHT STAND, but this book can be read as a standalone.***

I received an ARC of this book from the author. This does not affect my opinion of the work.

I’m not one to pick up a book with a hookup type of premise. I’ve never quite rooted for a heroine who slept around and then somehow found true love in that hot mess of first dates and random guys. It takes a lot for me to believe that. Thus it says something about Mina V. Esguerra’s new book What You Wanted because I absolutely loved it.

I liked Andrea. She’s not my kind of girl and I’m not what she’d call one of her people. But her frankness and her ability to see things as they are, behind the veil of people’s everyday bullshit, were all utterly refreshing. Of course the very way she perceives the world and the ‘rules’ of the dating game, and even the way she looks at herself lead her to exactly the kind of trap she’d been hoping to avoid. But that’s a journey I think you should take with her when you read the book.

I liked Damon too. I’d be shit scared of someone like him at first. Smart, rich, devilishly handsome, and all colors of messed up for the wrong girl for so long. But he’s honest too, or he tries very hard to be. I’d say more about how awesome he is, and how well Damon and Andrea work together, but I don’t want to spoil anything for you. As I said, go pick up the book and find out for yourself.

Available on the following e-retailers: Amazon iTunes Smashwords Barnes & Noble Kobo buqo

Add What You Wanted to your Goodreads

About Mina V. Esguerra

Mina V. Esguerra writes contemporary romance, young adult, and new adult novellas. Through her blog Publishing in Pajamas (minavesguerra.com), she documents her experiments in publishing.

When not writing romance, she is president of communications firm Bronze Age Media, development communication consultant, indie publisher, professional editor, wife, and mother. She created the workshop series “Author at Once” for writers and publishers, and #romanceclass for aspiring romance writers.

Her young adult/fantasy trilogy Interim Goddess of Love is a college love story featuring gods from Philippine mythology. Her contemporary romance novellas won the Filipino Readers’ Choice awards for Chick Lit in 2012 (Fairy Tale Fail) and 2013 (That Kind of Guy).

Contact her at minavesguerra [at] gmail [dot] com / @minavesguerra on Twitter. Visit her Amazon Author Page. Find her books here.

Author Interview: Ines Bautista-Yao

Posted on November 22, 2015

I’ve been catching up on Filipino indie authors recently and one of my favorites is the awesome hybrid author Ines Bautista-Yao. I’ve read one of her books, a sweet romance called Only A Kiss, and fell immediately in love with her fluid prose and her heart-warming take on romance. This week, Ines has launched her new book called Just a Little Bit of Love, which is a compilation of three short stories set in the world of Only A Kiss. I’ve read all of these stories and love them (but I love Ina and John’s story On the Sidelines the best, okay). But if you need a little bit more convincing before one-clicking the book on Amazon, I asked Ines some hard-hitting questions (hihi not really) about her latest release. Check out the interview below 🙂

Book Review

Review: Vintage Love by Agay Llanera

Posted on November 19, 2015

26-year-old Crissy Lopez’s life is in dire need of a makeover. Her wardrobe revolves around ratty shirts and beat-up sneaks; her grueling schedule as a TV Executive leaves no room for a social life; and worst of all, she’s still hung up on the Evil Ex who left her five years ago.

When her fashionable grand-aunt passes away and leaves behind a roomful of vintage stuff, the Shy Stylista inside Crissy gradually resurfaces. Soon, she feels like she’s making progress — with a budding lovelife to boot! But the grim ghost of her past catches up with her, threatening to push her back into depression. To finally move on, Crissy learns that walking away is not enough. This time, she needs to take a leap of faith.

I’ve been seeing a lot of good things said about Agay Llanera‘s writing. I’ve one-clicked all her books since then, but it wasn’t until I grabbed copies of her print books at the Manila International Book Fair that I finally got to read my first Llanera book, Vintage Love. And wow, weren’t they ALL right about her.

Llanera’s writing makes me feel as if I’m reading about a friend, about someone I care about and that I am sincerely cheering on. And those were the feelings that stuck with me from the first few pages of Vintage Love. Crissy was a very charming hero, relatable and fun with all of her hang ups, her insecurities, with her little triumphs. This was a girl I knew, maybe even someone I’ve been myself at one time before, and I liked seeing her trying, seeing her make her mistakes and learn from them. It’s a sweet story that was very real, and I can’t wait to get back my copy of Once Upon a Player (from my friend who is also now clearly a big Llanera fan) so I can continue binge-reading this awesome author.

Vintage Love and Once Upon a Player are both available in print in bookstores in the Philippines. You can get the ebook versions on Amazon 🙂

About the author:

Agay Llanera is a freelance writer for television and video, and a published writer of children’s books. She is a member of KUTING, a private, non-stock, non-profit organization, which aims to be the Philippines’ foremost writers’ organization for children. Email her at agay.llanera@gmail.com and visit her blog at agayisagirl.blogspot.com.

Book Review

Review: Only A Kiss by Ines Bautista-Yao

Posted on November 19, 2015

When she was nine-years-old, Katie knew she wanted Chris to give her her first kiss. It wasn’t because she was in love with him (no way, he was her best friend! Besides, she was in love with his fourteen-year-old big brother), it was because she could make him do anything she wanted.

Besides, it didn’t really mean anything. It was only a kiss after all.

But then things started to change. They grew up. They parted ways and went to different high schools. And other girls and boys—well, just one particular boy—came into the picture, throwing their lives upside down.

Told from the alternating points of view of Katie and Chris, this love story between two best friends will tug at your heartstrings and leave you thinking how the simplest things can mean so much.

The first thing that got me about this book is the pretty cover. Then I read that the author started writing this after hearing ‘it’s only a kiss’ from the song Mr. Brightside. Being a fan of the Killers, pretty covers, AND the friends-to-lovers trope, I just had to get this book.

I was hooked from the first sentence. I loved Katie and her easy friendship with Chris that just made sense, not because he was there, but because their personalities complemented each other in the best way possible. I loved seeing them grow up, watching them learn to date, deal with broken hearts and move on from childhood infatuation. It was like watching a vivid reel of the lives of these two people, up to the moment that they finally realized they were meant to be more than friends. The writing made this journey engaging and just beautiful. I can’t wait to read more from Bautista-Yao, and it’s great that she seemed to have heard my wishes and granted them! The author just released a collection of short stories set in the world of Only a Kiss, called Just a Little Bit of Love. Get it for only $0.99 now!

Writing Now

Paperback Giveaway via Will Read for Feels: Blossom Among Flowers

Posted on October 29, 2015

Last month, I released print editions of my two books Blossom Among Flowers and Songs of Our Breakup. If you missed that exciting announcement, you can find the order form here. If you have your eyes on my manga-novel Blossom Among Flowers though, here, have a giveaway! <3 Click the link and join the raffle, brought to us by the sexy ladies of Will Read for Feels. Raffle is valid only until this Halloween Saturday, October 31. So come on, CLICK NOW.

If you need further convincing, author and StrangeLit classmate Chi Rodriguez live tweeted as she read the book. Scroll down for her fun, spoiler-free tweets.

And she ended this live tweet session with an actual puking-rainbows review on Goodreads.

Ready to join the giveaway NOW? Awesome.

Blossom Among Flowers is available on Amazon, Buqo and in print.

Book Review

Review: Paper Planes Back Home by Tara Frejas

Posted on October 25, 2015

Paper Planes Back Home

Published on February 21, 2015
by Tara Frejas
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Romance

SYNOPSIS:

When Gianna wakes up on a cloud, she is disoriented yet fascinated. She thinks she’s only dreaming until she gets a storm of paper planes—”They’re thoughts of people who remember,” a man on another cloud tells her—each pleading for her not to leave. The man tells her these planes are the key to get out of there, and while she thinks it’s hard to believe, she decides everything is worth trying if it meant finding her way back home.

REVIEW:

I started reading Paper Planes Back Home days after I read the author’s StrangeLit story called The Forget You Brew. So I already knew I was going to get another imaginative story that would make several attempts at making me cry. Spoiler alert: the book succeeded in both points.

Paper Planes Back Home starts out on a cloud, where Gianna wakes up and meets Skylar, who patiently explains that they are in a form of limbo, and they need paper planes–manifestations of the thoughts of people who love them–to get them back home. As I flipped through each page, I grew more fascinated by the depth of Frejas‘ imagination, from the creation of this world between worlds, to the rules of the game, to the twists and turns of the intertwining stories. The characterizations were rich, and although the story introduced quite a bevy of characters, the author did not fail to keep my attentions on Gianna, Skylar, Aaron and Anna. The development of each of their stories got me hooked at each turn, and I rooted for them all until the end. At times I could predict where the story was taking me, but most times I was pleasantly surprised, and I consumed each word with my heart fervently hoping for a happy ending for them all.

The technical reader in me found a few things to note, however, from an abundance of adverbs to a few awkward sentences. But this was the author’s first ever novel, and in any case the kind of stories she weaved and the way that she wrote only told me that this was a writer who could only get better with each book she put out. And I cannot wait to read what she comes out with next.

GIVEAWAY

Click to join: a Rafflecopter giveaway

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tara Frejas is a cloud-walker who needs caffeine to fuel her travels. By day, she works in project management and events, and she writes down her daydreams at night. She began publishing fiction for public consumption in 2004, posting her pieces on various online channels like fan forums and Blogspot, eventually exploring other avenues like Livejournal, Soomp!, Tumblr, and most recently, Wattpad.

Aside from her obvious love affair with words and persistent muses, Tara is very passionate about being caffeinated, musical theatre, certain genres of music, dancing, dogs, good food, and romancing Norae, her ukelele. She owns a 6-month-old male bunny named Max who sometimes tries to nibble on her writing notes.

Paper Planes Back Home is her first novel.

Links:
Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook