The Love We Deserve
Four stories about the lives and loves of mothers (and one father), taking you into the fears, pains, joys, and triumphs of parenthood. As the characters navigate spouses, children, work, and people from their past, they learn that there is and will always be room for love.
Thirty-something Sam has everything she needs—a loving husband, an adorable son and a jet-setting best friend whom she can always count on. But does she have everything she wants? To jumpstart a much-needed change, she decides to hit the gym, where she discovers, not only a love for fitness, but also a former college crush. Irresistibly drawn to an old infatuation, Sam learns that there’s more to her than being a doting mother and a loyal wife.
When single mother Aria Tomas begrudgingly agrees to attend her high school homecoming, she doesn’t know former teenage heartthrob Nicky Mendoza will be performing. It’s common knowledge that every forty-something-year-old woman in Manila had a crush on Nicky when they were teenagers (maybe even today). What’s not common knowledge is Aria was in love with him back then and probably still is.
Everyone thinks “mom-preneur” Alyssa Cruz has it all. But what’s it like in her shoes for a day? From grueling morning workouts to daily household management (including breakfast cereal negotiations with a primary schooler); launching a business and dealing with the past, Alyssa grapples with complex emotions, including the age-old answer to the question “If only…”
Single dad Eric Singson is excited to catch up with high school classmate Nina when he finds out that she’s his son’s preschool teacher. His friend has gone a long way from the girl he used to share quail eggs and ice scramble with, and he’s starting to appreciate her in a whole new way.
Nina Sioson had the biggest crush on Eric in high school, but he only ever treated her like a friend. But the vibes he’s sending her way lately are making her think . . . maybe the time is right for something more?
Ghost of a Feeling
All Cris Villareal had ever dreamed of was becoming a doctor. But after the death of a patient under her care and the subsequent humiliation she suffers under a senior resident in her hospital, she begins to lose faith in herself. And no one else could understand her and her despair.
So one Halloween night, up on the rooftop of her apartment building, she decides to end it all.
She is stopped from jumping by Emilio, the ghost of a young man who haunts her building, who also committed suicide there many years ago. Eventually, Cris finds herself opening up to him, in a way she had never before, with anyone living or dead.
There is only one problem.
Emilio isn’t really a ghost.
He is actually a living young man named Nathan Morales, and Cris was just one of the unwitting victims in a prank he had once played on the tenants of her apartment. But being Emilio was the only way he could think of to stop her that night, and the only way now he could get her to open up to him. As Emilio, he was someone she could trust enough to help her, in a way Nathan himself never could.
As their relationship becomes deeper and their feelings grow stronger each day, can he finally help her find a reason to keep living?
But how long can he keep lying to her?
Of Love and Special Things
Four couples. Four stories. Finding love. Discovering love. Inspired by songs of one of the most respected singer-songwriters, Barry Manilow whose melodies speak of love… and special things.
Beginner’s Guide: Love and Other Chemical Reactions
Falling in love is a chemical reaction.
Just ask Kaya Rubio, twenty-five year-old molecular genetics graduate student and research assistant. Fed up with her spinster aunts’ relentless reminders and unsolicited advice regarding her Single Since Birth status, she designs a scientific, evidence-based methodology to find her a suitable partner in time for her cousin’s wedding. As any good scientist knows, any valid experimental design requires a negative control. Enter the most unsuitable candidate for a potential boyfriend: the messy, easygoing, café owner Nero Sison. Her null hypothesis? Going out with Nero would establish her baseline data without catalyzing the chemical reaction she seeks.
But when Kaya’s recorded results refuse to make sense, she is forced to come to the conclusion that there are some things in life that are simply, by nature, irrational and illogical. And that sometimes, chemistry doesn’t always happen inside a lab.
The Bye-Bye Bouquet
Every month for the past year, like clockwork, Meile Simon has gotten orders at her shop for the same type of bouquet, from the same guy, delivered to twelve different girls. By the third month, she starts to take note.
Warren Leigh likes women. He does. He knows there are too many beautiful women out there just waiting to be plucked by the right guy. But he firmly believes that personal relationships with them must have an expiration date.
When the girl who likes to watch flowers bloom encounters the guy who’s only in it while the fragrance lasts, curiosity gets the best of both of them.
In the midst of intermittent weather, will their connection blossom or wilt?
Songs of Our Breakup
Every breakup has its playlist. How do you get over a seven-year relationship? 21-year-old Jill is trying to find out. But moving on is a harder job when Kim, her ex-boyfriend, is the lead guitarist of the band, and Jill is the vocalist. Every song they play together feels like slicing open a barely healed tattoo. Jill’s best friend Miki says she will be out of this gloom soon. Breakups have a probation period, he says. Jill is on the last month of hers and Miki is patiently keeping her company. But the real silver lining is Shinta. Having a hot Japanese actor friend in times like these is a welcome distraction. This gorgeous celebrity has been defying time zones and distance through the years to be there for Jill. Now he is here, physically present, and together he and Jill go through old lyrics, vivid memories, walks in the rain, and bottles of beer. Together they try to answer the question: what do you do when forever ends?
Fairy Tale Fail
Ellie Manuel is a hopeless romantic, stuck in a cubicle all day. She’s in her twenties and should be having more fun. But instead of doing what she really wants, like traveling wherever her Philippine passport can take her, she’s hung up on the guy who dumped her for not being “ambitious enough.” Someone should tell her that there are other cool guys — who probably even eat at the same office cafeteria! — who would encourage her just to be her fabulous self.
