UPON coming home from Cebu, one of the things that delighted me was getting my Europa Editions copy of Reine Arcache Melvin's first novel, The Betrayed. Melvin is a Filipino American author whose works focus on the Philippines and the lives of Filipinos both at home and abroad. Her short story collection, A Normal Life and Other Stories, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1999. The Betrayed is her first novel. The Ateneo de Manila University Press published the novel's Philippine edition two years ago.

The Betrayed tells the story of two sisters who love the same man. As dictatorship and political upheaval ravage the Philippines, the sisters' conflicting passions threaten to lead them to betray not only each other, but all that their father stood for.