This time, the renamed “Blood Ties,” which used to be Birthplace (published by World Tree Publishing).
This is actually one of the first books I ever wrote–I started planning it out when I was the main character’s age at 16, and wrote out the first draft sometime after I had my first baby. I remember this vividly because I’d never actually written a book with the intention of needing to finish it before. In the past, I’d always meandered, just kind of hoping to hit the end at some point; but this time around, I had the ticking time bomb in the form of a child who napped infrequently and was always screaming for her mom. (If you’re reading this, Eldest Daughter, I love you 🙂 ).
I tried to query it, too, way back when, and even entered it in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award contest. It made it through the first round and then was promptly torn apart in the next round with reviewers who had some very strange comments. I didn’t think much of it at the time (which is me pretending I didn’t go all foamy-mouthed and angry in private about it), but so many of the responses to this novel were just plain racist. Here you have a story about a boy from Manila, and people couldn’t even get his name right (even though it was in the first page of the novel). Other responses from other readers included confusion over the main character’s attitude himself (he’s a dick, but also, he’s a 16-year-old boy) and what the story is about (as if the literary world isn’t rife with stories about teenage angst).
But others loved it! If you asked the World Tree team, they’ll probably say this is my favourite novel of theirs, even if you throw in The Wolf of Oren-yaro into the mix. It’s fast and it’s fun and it’s like three different genres at once. So I always thought it deserved a re-release, especially with a new cover.
It seems weird looking back at this now, so many novels and a sort of career later. It’s never going to be as popular as my other books, but I do love it. Give it a try if you want a quick read and wanted to see what a road trip from Manila to my hometown in Bicol felt like–complete with monsters, mayhem, and teenage troubles!
