Journalist Criselda Yabes, known for her reporting on the Philippine military and Mindanao, turns to fiction in this novel set in the southern Philippines during the decades following the Muslim secessionist conflict. The narrative centers on a Christian family living in the shadow of Mount Matutum in Cotabato, tracing how war, displacement, and the collision of Christian, Muslim, and indigenous communities shape ordinary domestic life across generations. Drawing on Yabes’s long familiarity with Mindanao’s conflict zones, the book examines how the region’s layered violence seeps into family memory. [LOW CONFIDENCE — please review]