Showing results by narrator "Jensen Olaya" in All Categories

Villa Sepulveda is a storied relic of the Philippines’ past: a Spanish colonial manor, its moldering stonework filled with centuries-old heirlooms, nestled in a remote coconut plantation. When their patriarch dies mysteriously, his far-flung family returns to their ancestral home. Filipino-American student Adrian Sepulveda invites his college girlfriend, Sophie, a transracial adoptee who knows little about her own Filipino heritage, to the funeral of a man who was entwined with the history of the country itself.

It's the Philippines in the 1800s. The Filipino gentleman Crisostomo Ibarra returns from his studies abroad and finds the city of Manila changed, especially after he learns of his father's mysterious death. After a violent encounter with a monk, Ibarra is excommunicated. Maria Clara has to choose between being a dutiful daughter and the love of her life. Poor Sisa searches for her children, while municipal guards try to capture her for the alleged gold coins that have gone missing from the church. Elias wrestles with a mysterious crocodile in the dark waters of the Pasig.

Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. But most managers feel they just don't have time for it. This book offers a better way: frequent, short conversations with employees about themselves, their goals, and the business that can be integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business.

“Short stories can act like little tuning forks, helping us to clarify our own values,” writes guest editor Celeste Ng. “In a time when our values are being tested daily, it’s hard to think of anything more important.” The Best American Short Stories 2025 resonates precisely at this...

In the Sundered Kingdoms, we who tend the Grove do not concern ourselves with what lies beyond our borders. Our purpose is to mend and to grow, and as the firstborn daughter, I, Amara Tyne, am princess to our people. But our lands and earthen powers have fallen under the hungry gaze of a would-be usurper, who demands we bend the knee in his quest to take control of this world. Our only hope for survival is an alliance with the fearsome Mordorin Fae, who rule the Sundered Kingdoms with an iron fist.

A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines. In this game, there’s one rule: survive. Orphaned after her father’s political campaign ended in tragedy, Josephine...

“The essay has taught me how to live,” writes Jia Tolentino, this year’s Best American Essays guest editor. In a time of escalating authoritarianism and disinformation, we turn to artists and writers to make sense of the world around us. The twenty-one authors featured in this collection...

When meteors suddenly dropped to earth containing eggs in which alien babies were growing, the government called in the experts. Ava’s parents hatched, cared for, raised, and researched these unique beings. When Ava was born, she became part of the team. So many extraterrestrial living beings (ELBs) came, that the government funded the Alien Zoo, where visitors could come and see the ELBs. It was a huge success in its day.

Kathy Lien, author and managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, and Etienne Crete, full-time trader and founder of Desire to Trade, deliver a collection of thirteen revealing interviews with proprietary traders successfully making a living off the markets. You'll explore insights from veteran traders with over ten years' experience in the markets, winners of a variety of trading championships, and contemporary prop traders using methods like funded accounts to trade other people's money.

Hara Duja Gatdula, queen of the island nation of Maynara, holds the divine power to move the earth. But her strength is failing and the line of succession gives her little comfort. Her heir, Laya, is a danger—a petty and passionate princess who wields the enormous power of the skies with fickle indifference. Circling the throne is Imeria Kulaw—the matriarch of a traitorous rival family who wields recklessly enhanced powers of her own—with designs to secure a high-ranking position for her son and claim the crown for her family.

“Nervous takes the focus from the abstract and does what doctors (and historians) failed to do: makes her story, her pain, and her life as real as any history that proceeded. Nervous gives face and weight to those forgotten women whose suffering has become little more than anecdotal...

Seven strangers wake up in a sealed compound with no idea how they got there. They are informed by a computer-generated voice that they must complete tasks in order to leave, and that failure to complete any of the tasks or breaking any of the rules results in a strike. The first two strikes induce extreme pain. The third strike is death. As they struggle to survive without turning on each other, they have no idea that their actions and choices could doom humanity. Or save it.

All Anna wants is to grieve her sister in peace. But peace is the last thing she'll get. After the tragic accident shatters her world, her life takes an even darker turn when her father is imprisoned in the castle and her mother is summoned by the ruthless queen. Terrified of losing what's left of her family, Anna demands to go with them, despite the dangerous path ahead. As a shapeshifter who can't transform, she's already a target under the queen's brutal laws—and the castle is the last place she wants to be.

A turtle the size of an island. A cricket that can possess you if swallowed. A giant who turns enemies to stone. The legends of Southeast Asia—or "the lands below the winds," as explorers used to call it—are populated with a whole menagerie of colorful beasts that inspire awe and fear in equal measure. Yet, passed on as they are through story and song, so many of these stories remain rooted in some long-forgotten past and bound by the borders of the region, creatures of myth and memory and nothing more. Until now.

Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol Martin? She could never relate. She and her mom were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. Clothes, church, boys, no matter the topic, Marisol always felt like there was an unbridgeable gap between them that they were perpetually shouting across, one that she longed to close. But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say.

Agnes Chan never expected to be the punchline of her own life . . . But how else do you explain getting accidentally run over and seeing a lifetime of careful preparation, endless training, and all your hopes of a track scholarship to college destroyed in a split second? Not to mention the only witness to your humiliation being your #1 archnemesis, Royce Taslim. So, when Agnes finds a new answer to her scholarship predicament in the form of an international stand-up comedy contest for teens, the last person she expects to be up against is also the last person she wants to see: Royce.

Rosario, a Filipina novelist in New York City, has just learned of her mother's death in the Philippines. Instead of rushing home, she puts off her return by embarking on a remote investigation into her family's history and her mother's supposed inheritance, a place called La Tercera, which may or may not exist. Rosario catalogs generations of Delgado family bequests and detritus: maps of uncertain purpose, rusted chicken coops, a secret journal, the words to songs sung at the family home during visits from Imelda Marcos.

Abby knew her pattern all too well: get her heart broken, swear off dating, find a man "worth" breaking that vow for . . . Rinse. Repeat. However, after leaving a particularly traumatic relationship, Abby realized that something had to change if she wanted to kick the pattern. One night while purchasing a solo concert ticket, an epiphany was born: she needed a year in which she was her own dating interest. One full year to give herself the care and consideration that she once gave to romantic partners. A year to treat herself the way she wished a partner would.

When two people find out their online crushes are actually their IRL enemies, they must figure out a way to work with each other in this charming and geeky enemies-to-lovers romcom perfect for fans of Olivia Dade. When your favorite player turns out to be your very real boss, the rules are...

Pippa Fleming is a woman who always has a plan…until she finally secures a coveted promotion and her dream job suddenly feels worse than getting caught under the sun as a redhead with no sunscreen. Exhausted and confused, Pippa seeks an escape by signing up for a reality dating show. Everyone is allowed one identity crisis, right? And where better to recharge than on a beach sipping cocktails with little umbrellas? As long as she remembers she’s only here to have fun not to lose her heart…