Tara Frejas's Blog, page 10

Pinoy Movie x Book Match: Till There Was You

Pinoy Movie x Book Match is back for the new year! And hey, faux relationship trope fans…this one is for you! ^_^ My first Pinoy Movie x Book Match for 2020 features the Piolo Pascual-Judy Ann Santos film Till There Was You.

THE MOVIE

Till There Was You (Star Cinema, 2003) tells the story of Albert, a single dad who rides the bus one day and meets a woman who makes an instant connection with his crying baby. The woman accidentally leaves her book at the next stop, along with a photo of her...

Music x Book Match: Ben&Ben

In mid-December, I started a Twitter thread that matched Ben&Ben songs with #romanceclass titles, and it garnered a bit of attention from my mutuals as well as people I don't know. Because that thread was made rather haphazardly, I thought of creating a new one with better visuals and stuff, but things got busy right before the holidays, and I wasn't able to continue/complete the thread at all. And because I vowed that I would try my best to finish things I started, here's a blog post...

Places to See: Ili-Likha Artists Village, Baguio City

I first read about Ili-likha Artists Village in 2016, while I was poking around the Internet for Baguio City finds. You see, I’ve been coming back to Baguio for summer and Christmas vacations since the late 1990s, and I’ve had my fill of horseback rides, bike rides, and visits to the usual tourists spots my parents would bring us to. So for the past several years, I was happy to just lounge around at our home in Kias, watching movies or reading books while enjoying the cool Baguio air.

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Happy New Year — let’s meet up!

Hey #romanceclass ~ happy, happy new year! We’re having a small get-together on the 25th of January at Commune Cafe + Bar in Makati from 2:00 – 5:00 PM. Here’s what’s going to happen:

A #romanceclass intro lecture (this actually starts before 2:00 PM, so if you’re new to the community and want to know more about it, come in early!) Book selling. You may contact your favorite author/s prior to the event to make sure the book/s you want are in stock! Backlist promotions. #romanceclass authors...

Nineteen Firsts in 2019 (Part 2)

Aaaand here we are with part two of my yearend happy post! Just to recap, I’ve had 19 wonderful firsts this 2019, and here’s the first half of the list in case you missed it.

Whew. Pretty packed year, huh? (I mean it is, for me.) Why don’t we go ahead and finish this list, starting with #11!

11. Trying pole dancing, hoops, and silks

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A few weeks ago, author friends Six, Brij, and Chi decided they would write a romance anthology...

Places to See: Mt. Cloud Bookshop, Baguio City

If I remember correctly, I began includingMt. Cloud Bookshop in my Baguio City itinerary in 2016, after I heard from Mina that they were interested to carry some #romanceclass titles on their shelves. They used occupy a small space in the Casa Vallejo compound (Upper Session Road) and recently moved to a much bigger, much nicer space. Holiday rush and traffic notwithstanding, I promised myself I’d visit Mt. Cloud again this year, and I did!

I’m so glad I did.

Mt. Cloud’s new home is located...

Nineteen Firsts in 2019 (Part 1)

I like measuring my year in firsts, even if I haven’t been consistently doing that on this blog. *sweats bullets* This year, I’ve felt extremely blessed with wonderful firsts, both in my personal/author life and my work life, so what better way to usher in the new year than by remembering them!? Hopefully this post will be the start of a yearly tradition, so let’s get the ball rolling!

1. Becoming a podcast guest

Adulting For Authors is a podcast where Filipino authors talk about...

My favorite bookstagrams of 2019

I don’t remember exactly when I first encountered the the hashtag #bookstagram, but I did find it fascinating in an instant. I am a visual person after all, and being able to see All The Books photographed so nicely is such a treat for me. Of course it’s not just photos; bookstagrammers also post their quick reviews about the books they feature, which is a great way to find your next favorite read.

In the past four years I have been self-publishing my works of fiction, I have been tagged in...

Tara’s Yearend Theatre Round-Up

We will be ushering in a new year in two weeks, and before I share the theatre productions I’m looking forward to in 2020, here are the rest of the shows I’ve seen in the last two quarters of 2019.

(Click here for my mid-year theatre round-up!)

Rak of Aegis

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Four tickets short of a deck of cards.

Pinoy Movie x Book Match: Got 2 Believe

The hate-to-love / enemies-to-lovers trope takes center stage because the featured Pinoy rom-com this week is the Claudine Barretto-Rico Yan starrer, Got 2 Believe!

THE MOVIE

Got 2 Believe (2002) opens with a wedding, the perfect milieu for us to get to know wedding planner Toni (Claudine Barretto) and event photographer Lorenz (Rico Yan). Hopeless romantic Toni loves weddings and the promise of happy-ever-after, while marriage/relationship cynic Lorenz is only in it for the money and career...