Know Your 2013 FRCA Finalists! Part I

Five days to go before the (rescheduled) Filipino ReaderCon this Saturday! Are you as excited as much as we are? :)

After the book club discussions and various writer panels that will simultaneously take place during the whole-day event, the winners of the 2nd Filipino Readers’ Conference Awards (FRCA) will be announced during the awarding ceremony slated for 5pm. The FRCA winners are chosen by separate panels of select judges, who deliberate from a short list of entries for each category.

But before this year’s winners are announced, let’s take a look at the finalists.

Children’s Picture Book

Summary: Para kay Miguel, posibleng magpalipad ng saranggola kahit masama ang panahon. Hindi niya alintana ang buhos ng ulan at hagupit ng hangin. Hinikayat pa niya ang ibang bata na mag-isip at maging malikhain sa paggawa ng saranggola. Pinararangalan ng aklat na ito ang mapaglarong imahinasyon ng mga bata. (From Vibe Bookstore)

Image from Vibe Bookstore

Summary: Ninoy Aquino was a town mayor, a provincial governor, and a Philippine senator. He dreamt of becoming President, but was killed before he realized that dream. Till his death, he continued to fight for a better Philippines.

Cory Aquino was a shy, quiet housewife, who, after the death of her husband, became the 11th President of the Philippines, the first woman president in the nation’s history.

Noynoy Aquino is the 15th President of the Philippines. He is continuing the mission of his parents by making sure that power remains with the Filipino people.

This is the story of how Ninoy and Cory taught their son, their daughters, and the rest of their country the values of dreaming big, fighting hard, and standing up for what they believe in.

Ninoy, Cory and Noynoy

  • Ako’y Isang Mabuting Pilipino (I Am A Good Filipino) by Noel Cabangon and Jomike Tejido (Lampara Books)

Summary: Please watch the video.

Ako’y Isang Mabuting Pilipino

Chick Lit

Summary: Good girl Julie never expected her hot former-player boyfriend to propose marriage. But when he did, she turned him down for reasons even she couldn’t figure out. Will she settle for a nice, safe guy instead? Or will she let him find his way back into her carefully guarded heart?

Summary: When a couple gets married, it isn’t just their lives that are thrown into chaos.

For Nicholas and Nala’s wedding, there’s the mother of the bride who is forced to face her failed marriage; there mother of the groom, who revisits her past — an old love; the bride’s best friend who has lost the only boy she thinks she will ever love and with him, all her happiness; the bride’s cousin who fooled around with her boyfriend’s best friend (who inconveniently turns out to be the groom); and the groom’s sister who cannot understand her brother’s choice of a future wife.

Surrounding the bride and groom’s happiness are the heartache, joys, hopes, dreams and realizations of the people who care about them. It makes you think: does everybody get a chance at happily ever after?

Summary: Since no self-respecting girl should let any setback stop her from following her heart, Hilda sets ff on a journey that takes her through days of pining for the perfect job, over rough series of heartbreak and disappointment (not to mention bad sex), and even into foreign territory: passionate Frenchmen, adventurous half-Maoris, witty Brits. Armed only with an honest map to her own heart, it’s a journey that eventually leads her to her true calling, her true self, and true love.

Novel in English

Summary: Kitty Eugenio’s life is far from ideal. She has to love with her relatives. Her mother has gone abroad. Her best friends sometimes act weird, and sometimes keep secrets form her. Her classmates persist in pairing her with a boy she doesn’t like, but who might be able to help in the search for her father. The love of her life doesn’t know she exists. And it’s not just any ordinary year, it’s the year of the Tiger, the year of People Power, and the year of Halley’s Comet, the year of upheaval and change.

Summary: Samantha Davidson has a secret: she can hear other people’s thoughts. Not everyone’s and not all the time, but it’s enough to convince her she can’t really trust anyone. Now, transplanted to a strange country, estranged from her family and peers, she begins to hear the voices of those no longer living or earthbound. Will she heed them as they lead her to a dark, forgotten corner of her past? Or will she surrender to the love and light offered by newfound friends, and learn to listen to the one voice she has long suppressed—her own?

Voices in the Theater is the first installment of A.S. Santos’ three-book Young Adult Paranormal Romance. Follow Sam and her friends in the Student Paranormal Research Group as they encounter bizarre and often dangerous supernatural occurrences, battle demons both spiritual and psychological, and navigate adolescence and young love.

Summary: In a darkened hall in a plain white box of a building was a portrait of a woman, a girl, really—an old-fashioned girl in a modern frame, leaning against the wall. Other paintings similarly arrayed surrounded her, waiting to take their places in the gallery.

Voices echoed in the room, a young man’s jeering and a young woman’s more tentative tones. Cool hands with long, delicate fingers lifted the portrait.

Perhaps what drew the young woman to this painting was the incongruity of a girl, grave and formal, set within the vibrant, flowing curves of the carved art nouveau frame. Perhaps it was the sense of kinship she felt. For the young woman, Ning, was the daughter of an artist, dreaming of becoming an artist. She knew nothing of the girl in the portrait, only that the intensity captured in the glimmer of its brush-stroked eyes reflected her own.

So begins Ning’s journey to her country’s colonial past to uncover the story behind the portrait—the story of Marcela.

Novel in Filipino

Summary: Bilang isang kababata, kaibigan, at die-hard fan ni Anton Avendaño ay talagang inis si Sabel sa mahigpit na kakompetensiya nito—si Ross Reyes. Sa kanyang opinyon, hambog si Ross, babaero, masama ang ugali, at mang-aagaw ng oportunidad ng iba.

Nang malaman niya mula kay Anton na nawawala ang nobya nito at may hinala itong kasama ni Ross ang babae ay nagboluntaryo siyang alamin kung may katotohanan iyon. Ngunit isang hindi inaasahang kaganapan ang naging daan kaya imbes na malaman niya ang katotohanan ay naging alalay siya ni Ross!

Ang hindi lang niya maipaliwanag ay kung paanong ang puso niyang matagal na niyang inilaan kay Anton ay biglang nag-iba ng tono. Ilang oras pa lang kasi niyang kasama si Ross ay ibig na niyang bumalimbing.

  • Blue Nights by Sonia Francesca (Precious Pages Corporation)

Summary: Isang aksidente ang naging dahilan ng kanyang pagkaka-comatose. Nang sa wakas ay magising siya ay nagsimula naman siyang dalawin ng misteryosong lalaki sa kanyang panaginip. Sa kalaunan ay hindi lamang ang pagtulog niya ang binulabog nito kundi maging ang damdamin niya para sa kanyang nobyo. Paano, ang nobyo niya ang nasa harap niya ngunit sa tuwina ay ang imahe ng lalaki sa kanyang panaginip ang kanyang nakikita.

Tila pinaglaruan siya ng tadhana nang biglang magkatawang-tao ang lalaki at magtagpo ang kanilang mga landas sa mismong araw ng marriage proposal ng kanyang nobyo. Noon tuluyang nagulo ang tibok ng kanyang puso.
Ano ang pipiliin niya: ang ipinahihiwatig ng kanyang panaginip o ang idinidikta ng kanyang realidad?

Summary: “Natatakot ako sa iyo. You are the only puzzle I can’t seem to solve. But I love you. That’s why I won’t mind spending my entire life trying to understand you.”

Once upon a time, there was a princess who could not live happily ever after…
May hindi magandang ginawa si Erin Almeda, ang isa sa mga prinsesa ng Gibbons International School kung saan ang clique na kinabibilangan niya ay ang pinakapopular at pinakatinitingala. She played with the innocent heart of their class geek, Leonard Jamieson.

Seven years later, nagtagpo uli ang mga landas nila ni Leonard. It seemed their roles had been reversed. Sa fairy tale man o sa real life, palaging may kapalit na curse ang paggawa ng masama.

And so Erin needed to find the magic that will lift that curse. Or she will die of heartache soon…

***

Part II will be up tomorrow!