(Advance) happy birthday, Keep the Faith!

I’m writing this now because I’ll be on a business trip on the actual book birthday and I might not be able to blog then. It’s July, and my second book, Keep the Faith, is turning nine (!!!) years old!

I’m in a little weird place about this because the book feels…well, old, having existed for almost a decade now, and yet it’s still considered my latest novel, because…well, I only had one book that came after that, and it’s a short story collection. So sometimes I feel like maybe I shouldn’t talk about this book anymore because surely, most people who will read this post will have already read it, right?

But one thing I’m learning from all the activities that #RomanceClass has been doing is that our books, even if it was published three, five, nine, or more years ago, will always be new to someone. We haven’t reached all the readers in the world, more people are picking up more books, so there really is no reason to stop talking about my books because…who knows if the next reader who finds it is the one who’s been looking for a story about a girl who’s passionate about disaster response and rehabilitation in the Philippines figuring out how to move on from heartbreak with the cute new guy at work?

So yeah, all this to say that to celebrate Keep the Faith’s birthday month, you can read t

• Read the full book on Wattpad – yes, the full book. I’ve only ever had the first five chapters up here, but now I’m posting two chapters ever Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 5:00 p.m. PHT (UTC+8). Chapters 1-14 are up and the remaining 7 chapters and Epilogue will be up in the next few days so you still have the chance to catch up! The full book will be available until July 31 on Wattpad, so this is your time to read the whole thing for free!
• 75% off the ebook on selected retailers  – if you want the book in your ereader, then it’s also on sale on Smashwords and Gumroad until July 31. Go to Smashwords here (use code SSW75) and Gumroad here (use code 9THANNIV). The ebook has bonus content set during Christmas a few months after the end of the novel. 🙂
• Listen to the audiobook on Spotify – this is technically not a part of the promo because it’s always available, but yes, the unabridged version of the book is available for free on Spotify as the third season of the #RomanceClass podcast. The audiobook is read by Jade Albert and produced by Mina V. Esguerra and Tania Arpa — I wrote about the experience here!

There is a print edition, but I currently don’t have them on hand! 🙁 There are a few copies from Shopee/Lazada via Komiket, Magdamag Market Cafe, and other physical bookstores listed here. I hope to restock my copies when I’m back after my business trip, so if you’re willing to wait, you can place an order and I’ll get back to you shortly.

BONUS!

If you want more Keep the Faith and in case you missed it, we did a series in 2020 called Hello, Ever After, and episode 8 was about Faith and Nico and how they were dealing with the pandemic. This was very therapeutic to write, haha. And it also prompted a spin off that we all called the Tanan Fic – which you can read here!

And whew, can I just say — reading the stuff I wrote during the pandemic? What a time.