#romanceclass x MIBF 2016 + #AllTheFeels

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Around this month a year ago, I was hanging out with some friends at the Manila International Book Fair, chatting about books and author stuff when we heard some massive screaming from readers (yes, readers!) in the convention hall for some event. We started making jokes about how we want the same thing, too, but how will we get our scream factor? Where do we get our scream factor? Maybe men with abs?

(Two weeks later, we figured it out.)

Who would have thought it would be possible after a year? 🙂 I never even dreamed of this (until I get my books traditionally published somehow, anyway) but here we go: my books will be available at the 37th Manila International Book Fair. 🙂

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Fall Like Rain and Keep the Faith will be with other #romanceclass, #StrangeLit, and #HeistClub books at the MIBF 2016! This will be from September 14-18, 2016, at the SMX Convention Center. Many thanks to Book Development Association of the Philippines for giving us this opportunity. Copies of some books (including mine) will be limited because we’re not sure how many stocks to bring just yet. But if we run out, we can take orders. 😀 Here are the books that you can find there:

MIBF2016-titles-list

But where is the scream factor here, you ask? Drop by on Sunday, September 18, 1:30-4:30pm at Meeting Room 4 for #AllTheFeels, and we’ll talk about how to publish indie romance books and you’ll get to watch the live reading of selected #romanceclass titles. Yes, just like #AprilFeelsDay, but also maybe more because we have some new names in the line-up. 🙂

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Not entirely sure if the screams/shrieks/sighs will be as big as what we heard last year, but it will definitely be full of kilig.

Do drop by our booth next week, okay? I’ll be there during the weekend (because day job calls) to chat and sign books. Just follow the feels. 😉

Review: When Sparks Fly by Ines Bautista-Yao

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When Sparks FlyWhen Sparks Fly by Ines Bautista-Yao
Published on August 15, 2016
Genre: Sweet Romance
Amazon | Goodreads

Twenty-four-year-old photographer’s apprentice Regina has always felt like the plain, dull orange next to the shiny red apple that is her best friend Lana. But then she meets Ben—the first guy to ever break Lana’s heart, and the first guy to ever make Regina feel that he only has eyes for her. As Regina finds herself falling hard for Ben, she also finds herself breaking all the rules of best-friendship. Will she give up the love of her life for Lana, or will she finally realize that she deserves her share of the spotlight, too?

Gosh, look at that lovely cover. I can’t choose which I liked best – the warm colors, the paper-cut design that looks like it will just pop out or will be ruined if I run my hand over it, or that really catchy title that just spells love and romance and all the sweet stuff. Right?

Well, not exactly. Ines’s new book is a sweet romance, but there’s a lot of things in Regina and Ben and Lana’s story that kind of hurt. See, Regina has always been the good friend — a loyal wingwoman of sorts to Lana, who was the shiny red apple to her plain dull orange. But when Lana gets her heart broken for the first time, Regina was bent on cursing the guy who did that…until she meets him while she’s out with Lana and starts falling for him. It’s not something she should do, given that Lana is her best friend and she’s clearly not truly over him and again, she’s her best friend. But the heart is a hard thing to fight, and soon, Regina finds herself spending more and more time with Ben, while thinking about how she deserves this kind of love, too. Will she find a way to keep her friend and the love of her life, or will she have to lose one to keep another?

There’s a lot of sweetness and kilig in Regina and Ben’s story, and I really liked Ben from the start, with that coffee cup move. That initial spark set the pace for the rest of the book, and everything about how their relationship unfolded felt sweet and natural but not too sweet — I could totally imagine (and wish, haha) a guy doing what Ben did. It was a pleasure to read how their relationship grew, but the feeling that something was hovering over their heads was there and would not be shaken off. Because things have to fall somewhere, and boy, did it fall. And boy, was it painful. I’ve never been in that situation (thank God), but I’ve had friendship issues in the past and that definitely hurt more than having love issues. Ack.

I love how things were treated in this book in terms of that — how the characters were very three-dimensional that you know there was more to the initial impressions about them. I liked how the complications of having a relationship like Ben and Regina’s were discussed with care that all the loose ends were tied very well in the end. I admit that I was a little surprised with the twist with that other character, but it set the stage for the redemption of the main cast.

Overall, When Sparks Fly left me with a big smile and a happy sigh at the end of the book. 🙂 If you like sweet romance and good friendships in a book, I totally recommend this.

Oh, and special mention to Paulo, Regina’s boss. Best supporting character and I’m hoping he gets a spin-off? 🙂

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About the Author:

FullSizeRenderReading and writing are close to Ines Bautista Yao’s heart ever since she was a child. She graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in AB Communication Arts. She has been a teacher at the Assumption College San Lorenzo and the Ateneo de Manila University’s English department.

Her debut novel One Crazy Summer was first penned in 2007 when she was pregnant with her first daughter Addie. Being a mother has taken much of Ines’ time so she was only able to write 13 pages of her novel. She completed her story in April 2011, while three-year-old Addie was sleeping and inspiration struck her again. Two months later her story was complete. After eight months, her dream of publishing her own book came true. The book was only launched last January 26, 2012, but Ines is already writing her second novel.

Most readers can remember Ines as the former editor-in-chief of K-Zone Magazine and Candy Magazine . At present, Ines is working as an editor ofSummit Books. She is also married to photographer Marc Yao, whom she says she consults whenever she’s stuck in the middle of a story she’s writing.

Where I attempt to encapsulate my feelings in the past weeks

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It’s raining here in Manila now, and I am working from home because I tried heading to work but faced atrocious rainy-day traffic. Thank goodness for remote access, yes?

So many things happened in the past few weeks! Let’s recap:

1. #FeelsRushIn

I had a blog post for this but I’ll just put it here. #romanceclass was scheduled to have our next feels day on October after we were invited by Ayala Malls, so we were planning for that until Mina told us that we were invited to have one on July 23. We found out about it on July 13. Ten days to prepare? Easy, right?

feelsrushin1

Well, we pulled it off. Actually, they pulled it off more because I was deep in school work back then, so all I could do was do my share of posting about it online. Right after my last defense for school (yas!), I went to Trinoma and here we go, feelings! Video recap below by Chi Yu Rodriguez.

There was live reading, too, of course! No Gio or Rachel or Jef, but we had a new reader, Migs, who was also one of the models for @romanceclasscovers. Herv and Salve performed When Cocoy Became Kikay by C.P. Santi (there was a part when we were all giggling with kilig when Herv read a part, and we totally ship #Alvarosa, hihi),  and Only a Kiss by Ines Bautista-Yao. Migs and Salve performed The ByeBye Bouquet by Chi Yu Rodriguez (“You look amazing.” *squee*), What About Today by Dawn Lanuza, and No Strings Attached by Mina V. Esguerra.

It was a fun afternoon! And it proved that we can mobilize these things even with limited time. High five! If you missed this, don’t worry — we have another one in October. Block this date on your calendar: October 22, Glorietta 5. You don’t want to miss this! 🙂

Review: Crushingly Close by Stella Torres

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crushinglyCrushingly Close by Stella Torres
Published July 19, 2016
Amazon | Goodreads

At twenty-four years old, Agnes Escueta has risen from the ranks to become a producer for Sports Tonight. No one can touch her, it seems—not even crush-worthy anchorman Daniel Ferrer, who she gets to work with every single day. When a road trip to Indonesia throws Agnes and Daniel together, they find themselves working in close quarters. It doesn’t take long before Agnes finds herself being charmed by Daniel, and her defenses start to melt with his touch. With deadlines looming and a big game coming, Agnes must figure out how to let Daniel into her life without risking her professional reputation—and without breaking her own heart.

It’s been a while since I’ve read something of Stella’s, and I was really excited for her when she gave me a sneak peek of her new cover last AprilFeelsDay. It felt like a step up from the sweet vibe of Save the Cake, her first book, and the plot also seemed something fast-paced and exciting, too.

Crushingly Close is about Agnes Escueta, a producer for a sports news show, and her hard work had given her a reputation of being a no-nonsense woman that no one could mess with. Until she gets sent with the rest of her team to cover a football event in Jakarta, and sexy anchorman Daniel Ferrer gets a little too close with her. Sparks fly as Daniel’s charms gets under her skin, but Agnes needs to focus on the job ahead of her. But how can she, when just one touch from Daniel breaks through the wall she had carefully built around her?

I used to want to be a journalist when I was a kid, thinking that it’s the only career a writer can take, until I realized that I was more of a features/fiction person than news. But journalism still fascinated me in some way, and I knew that it’s not one of the safest jobs in the world. While the characters in Stella’s book are not current events reporters, I felt the genuine rush of news producing within the pages of Crushingly Close. Some of my favorite scenes in the book were when Agnes and her team were together, trying to be one step ahead of the news and the team that they were covering. I got a little lost with the football stuff, I admit, because I’m not really a fan of the sport (or any sport, for that matter, haha), but their knowledge in it and sportscasting felt genuine that if you’re like me, you’d just sit and go along for the ride.

I really liked Daniel here – he seemed very sincere, despite giving off an arrogant vibe at first. Agnes took a while for me to warm up to, but I was fond of how she watched over her family. Families in fiction is something close to my heart as I liked writing about them, too, and the Escueta family here is one for the books. The romance had just the right balance of sweet and hot, and I love how there’s a lot of vulnerability to the love story, including the people around the Agnes and Daniel.

Crushingly Close is a solid follow up for Stella Torres, and if you’re looking for a good (and sizzling!) journalist romance, this is the book for you. 🙂

* I received an advance readers’ copy of the book in exchange of an honest review.

About the Author:

StellaTorresStella Torres is the author of Save the Cake and the short story “Be Creative” from Kids These Days: Stories from Luna East Arts Academy (Vol. 1)). She has a bachelor’s degree in English literature and worked briefly in public relations, but has chosen to pursue her post-graduate studies in the field of education. She loves dark chocolate, hates flyaways, and is constantly in search of comfortable shoes.

Also by Stella: Save the Cake | Kids These Days: Stories from Luna East Arts Academy Vol 1

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Cover Reveal: Keep the Faith

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I’m really about to go to bed, but I received the email I’ve been waiting for from Amazon so I have to post this first.

I’ve been talking and sharing teasers about the next book, Keep the Faith, that I’ve been working on in the past year and a half. I promised that it would be out within July and here I am delivering on the promise: KEEP THE FAITH will be out on July 31, 2016. Yay!

And now, the cover!

KtF-Cover-FINAL-ebook

Cover design by Miles Tan. 🙂

Here’s the synopsis:

As a community development worker, Faith was quite familiar with heartbreak and recovery after all the time she spent on disaster relief missions. So when her five-year relationship ends right before she left for a mission trip to a typhoon-stricken town in Iloilo, she tries not to make a big deal out of it. How can she be broken up about a breakup when she’s with people who literally lost everything?

But now that she’s back, all Faith wants is for her life to go back to normal and have people stop looking at her with pity. Never mind that she still has a lot of questions about the breakup, or that she feels a tiny ache every time her ex comes up in conversations. She’s okay now, and happily distracted by Nico Tamayo, the attractive new guy at work.

With new possibilities in the horizon, Faith thinks she is well on her way to moving on. But when her past comes calling back to her, will all the good things in her present be enough to keep her on the path? Or will she finally learn that there was more to heartbreak and recovery than what she knows?

Keep the Faith is about, well, Faith, one of Rain’s friends in Fall Like Rain. This is a spin-off but it’s also a standalone, so you don’t have to read Rain’s book for this to make sense (but of course I’ll like it if you read it :D). 🙂

Pre-order: Amazon | Smashwords

It’s $0.99 now, so get it now before price goes up to $2.99 on release day. 🙂 Other retailers will be added soon, and PH print edition will be out sometime in August. You can also add it to your Goodreads shelf. 🙂

Now, excuse me while I flail and scream internally here at home.

P.S. If you’d like receive an advance/review copy of the book, you can sign up here (until Saturday only). 🙂