[Hot Off the Press] My Lola's Love Letters: A Novel

New YA Release from the Ateneo Press My Lola’s Love Letters captures the uncertainty of young adulthood and infuses it with hope.

What do you do when you feel like your life isn’t going anywhere? It’s a question with no direct or easy answers. A new release from the Ateneo University Press, My Lola’s Love Letters by Ines Bautista-Yao follows a young woman as she navigates through uncertainty, heartbreak, love, and hope—a journey of self-discovery many of us can relate to. 

College junior Natividad “Nat” Torres keeps giving her ex-boyfriend chances to break her heart (even though her friends keep telling her to stop) and the high school where she teaches reassigns her for not living up to her potential (or so they say). While at a complete loss on what to do about her problems, she chances upon letters from her lola’s sister and learns of her lola’s past, living through a war and falling in love. Through her lola’s courage, she begins to find her own, with the help of the people who love her. 

Gabriela Lee, author of A Playlist for the End of the World: Short Stories, highlights the main message of the story: one must be true to their most authentic selves no matter what. “Nat’s journey from being unsure about herself to finding her strengths despite her insecurities and anxieties stands out as the true love letter. Ines Bautista-Yao writes with a gentle and honest voice that makes the intertwined generational love stories cozy, comforting, and hopeful.” 

Editor of Friend Zones: An Anthology of Stories for Young Adults, Cyan Abad-Jugo, also praises the book for its message on self-discovery: “My Lola’s Love Letters is about finding the weave of self that holds everything together and interlaces with the past and the future. This life-giving, invigorating book shows how times gone by can still be our present, hold up a mirror, promise potential, and lend us strength.”

At its center, this book is about the love we share with others and the love we learn to give ourselves. It is a love letter to anyone who has ever felt as Nat does, a reassurance that whatever heartbreak or uncertainty we encounter, we don’t have to go through it alone. 

About the Author 
Ines Bautista-Yao is the author of multiple books, including One Crazy Summer, What’s in Your Heart, and My Quarantine Diary, all available digitally on Amazon and in print wherever books are sold. She teaches English at the Ateneo de Manila University, edits the Jesuit magazine The Windhover, and is the former editor in chief of Candy and K-Zone magazines. She lives in the Philippines with her husband, two daughters, and two shih tzus. Find her on www.inesbautistayao.com and her socials @inesbyao.

My Lola’s Love Letters: A Novel by Ines Bautista-Yao is published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press under the Bughaw imprint. The book retails at PHP 450 and is available at the Ateneo University Press Bookshop in Bellarmine Hall, and the Press’s official Lazada and Shopee stores.

Get your copy in paperback: website │ Lazada | Shopee