A coming-of-age novel set in Cebu City in 1975 will be launched on Dec. 10 at 2 p.m. at the Casino Español de Cebu.
The book titled “Love & Other Firsts” is written by Stella “Tilay” Angbetic, a Cebuana based in the United States.
Angbetic’s debut novel recently hit no. 4 on Amazon’s Bestsellers in Asian Literature.
The back cover blurb reads: “It’s summer 1975 and the Philippines is in the grip of martial law. Yet fourteen-year-old Ligaya has a more gripping concern: to persuade her snip-happy mother to lift her longstanding ban on long hair. Ligaya succeeds and enters her sophomore year with a new look and a new outlook. She sets out to become class president, top student, and a girl that, for once, a boy would look at twice. As she steers through the ups and downs of her family’s fortunes, the twists and turns of her first romance, and the loop of her principal’s brain, Ligaya learns that it will take more than her smarts and occasional dumb luck to prevail.
“Love & Other Firsts” is a delightful and deeply affecting novel, suffused with equal parts humor and pathos. It follows the year-long journey of firsts in the life of an idealistic young girl, set against the lush backdrop of the Philippines with its embrace of American pop culture, Roman Catholicism, Spanish customs and Chinese cuisine.”
Tilay, as she is fondly called by her peers, was born in Cebu City. At age 3, she read her first book, Fun with Dick and Jane Primer. Since then she developed her love for the written word and went on to write her literary pieces.
She studied in Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion in grade school where she directed skits and musicals, was a contributing editor of the University of the Philippines paper. She graduated with a BA in Mass Communications at the University of the Philippines Cebu College.
She is a member of a musical family that has performed on stage and won first in a Kabataang Barangay National Choral Competition. She also toured worldwide with the group Up with People as a goodwill ambassador, lead dancer, singer and PR team in the international cast.
She later moved to New York City where she worked in the fashion industry and was the vice president of Gifted Hands, a non-profit, all volunteer organization. In her spare time, she wrote for the Filipino Examiner newspaper, the Philippine Dance Company of New York’s newsletter and The Mustard Seed (St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s Young Adult Ministry newsletter).
She joined the SCWBI and New York Writers Circle and attended writing conferences and workshops at Barnard College, Marymount Manhattan College and Manhattan Writers Workshop.
Tilay now lives in San Diego, California.
For more info about Tilay’s book, visit website at www.tilayangbetic.com.