SINCE fiction is a hot topic these days, please allow me to introduce the new Philippine books of fiction forthcoming or recently published by Penguin Random House, the world's biggest trade publisher. Its Southeast Asian office has headquarters in Singapore, from where it publishes the most exciting writing now being done in the region.

Hotshot journalist and novelist Marga Ortigas returns with 'God's Ashes: Apocrypha,' following her successful novel, 'The House on Calle Sombra.' Her second novel is billed as a gripping tale of loss, betrayal and redemption set across the porous maritime borders of Southeast Asia and the remote islands of the Pacific.