Genres : Historical Fiction

August 1941, Slovakia: Jana, a young Romani woman, leaves her family’s campsite in the rugged, forested hills, for her first solo mission to the Partisan camp. Her father and brother would normally go, but today they have a different mission. So, Jana disguises herself as a boy, tucks a gun into her waistband, and rides off on horseback. When she returns just before nightfall, her family’s campsite is deserted. There are signs of a hasty exit. She suspects that they...

History remembers the fall of Ferdinand Magellan, but it forgets the lives caught in his death's shadow. 1521: The Defiance is not merely a retelling of the Battle of Mactan. It is a reckoning with how history is written, who is remembered, and whose stories endure. Drawing from Antonio Pigafetta’s chronicle, the only surviving firsthand account of Magellan’s final expedition, and grounded in precolonial Visayan culture, this novel explores the lives, fears, and convictions of those who stood on both...