Emmanuel was a young man from the windblown island of K______. After graduating valedictorian of the student body at the provincial high school, where he edited the student organ called The Mighty Sword (subtitle: the pen is mightier . . .), he applied for a Journalism scholarship at the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas.

A policeman and a girl make the lonely trip in his Tamaraw to the city to retrieve the body of her sister, an OFW who died in Saudi Arabia for unknown reasons. Seeking refuge from the rain, a petty criminal and car thief waits under the awning of a Manila restaurant, observing and assessing as a van parks in the lot beside. Literary giant Butch Dalisay’s new novel was cited by the judges of the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize as “artfully put together and richly observed . . . utterly compelling.”

Even though top fashion model Maike Evers calls herself a “conservative Asian girl,” the temperatures she’s raised in the hearts and minds of men are anything but conservative. So it didn’t take much to convince Jade Bernas to meet her one evening for a cup of cappuccino in the poolside cabana of a swanky hotel. The resulting date with an angel drew many stares, many memories, and many mysteries.