In her debut short story collection, award-winning Filipino-American writer Veronica Montes explores the intricate workings of Filipino families, both those we are born into and those we choose.

“Veronica Montes is easily one of my favorite prose writers. That she writes gracefully about her culture, that’s a given. But she is more than that, more than just a writer who represents one particular community or racial group.”
—From the Introduction by Marianne Villanueva

Two American-born sisters experience an unforgettable night in a Manila nightclub. A desperate field worker longs for love in 1927 California. A lonely woman stumbles on a surrogate son and creates a makeshift family. A young girl’s innocence is betrayed by a malevolent houseguest. These characters and many more populate the fourteen narratives of this finely crafted collection.

“Each piece is a stunningly vibrant photograph found in a faded album, filled with ates and titas and lolas who love and bicker and mourn and laugh. With her sharp eye for the telling detail, Montes depicts the grief and everyday joy handed down as inheritance, the affections and denials that bind Filipino families together.”
—Benito Vergara