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Editorial Content for Accidents Happen and Other Stories

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

The author of this wonderful collection of short stories may not be familiar to most U.S. readers, but that very well could change. F.H. Batacan is a Filipino journalist, musician and crime fiction writer currently based in Singapore. She won the prestigious Philippine National Book Award for her debut novel, SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES.

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN does not have a single forgettable moment, and Batacan proves that she has complete mastery of the written word. Here are four stories that especially resonated with me. Read More

Teaser

In ACCIDENTS HAPPEN, F.H. Batacan explores the darkest corners of human experience, depicting with pitch-black humor the systems of class and politics that her characters are trapped in and the moments of violence that can shatter their lives. In particular, Batacan shines an unsparing light on the epidemic of violence against women in the Philippines. When a wealthy politician’s 12-year-old son disappears, the family’s driver witnesses the aftermath. A field investigator for the World Health Organization travels the globe giving presentations about a biomedical enzyme that will lead to the extinction of the human race. And Father Augusto Saenz, the Jesuit priest and forensic anthropologist from SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES, returns to investigate the murder of a woman whose secretive life holds the key to her death.

Promo

In ACCIDENTS HAPPEN, F.H. Batacan explores the darkest corners of human experience, depicting with pitch-black humor the systems of class and politics that her characters are trapped in and the moments of violence that can shatter their lives. In particular, Batacan shines an unsparing light on the epidemic of violence against women in the Philippines. When a wealthy politician’s 12-year-old son disappears, the family’s driver witnesses the aftermath. A field investigator for the World Health Organization travels the globe giving presentations about a biomedical enzyme that will lead to the extinction of the human race. And Father Augusto Saenz, the Jesuit priest and forensic anthropologist from SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES, returns to investigate the murder of a woman whose secretive life holds the key to her death.

About the Book

From the master of Filipino crime fiction, a genre-bending collection that documents murders, disappearances, and acts of violence in stories that range from procedural crime to horror to near-future noir.

F.H. Batacan’s first novel, SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES, was an instant classic when it was published in 1999, a masterpiece of Filipino crime fiction that won the Philippine National Book Award. In this extraordinary and far-ranging story collection, she explores the darkest corners of human experience, depicting with pitch-black humor the systems of class and politics that her characters are trapped in and the moments of violence --- accidental or otherwise --- that can, at any moment, shatter their lives. In particular, Batacan shines an unsparing light on the epidemic of violence against women in the Philippines.

When a wealthy politician’s 12-year-old son disappears, the family’s driver witnesses the aftermath. A field investigator for the World Health Organization travels the globe giving presentations about a biomedical enzyme that will lead to the extinction of the human race. And Father Augusto Saenz, the Jesuit priest and forensic anthropologist from SMALLER AND SMALL CIRCLES, returns to investigate the murder of a woman whose secretive life holds the key to her death.

Sure to confirm Batacan’s status as a crime writer of global status, ACCIDENTS HAPPEN is a relentless exploration of worlds where the smallest moments are infused with life and vibrating with menace, and death is always close at hand.

Audiobook available, read by Diana Bustelo

March 21, 2025

Now that spring is here, I am waiting for the buds to appear on the trees. There will be a day soon when the palette outside turns from brown and gray to green. Note: I am not sure why they are talking about the possibility of SNOW on Sunday. I thought we were beyond thinking white. 

I also am perusing MARTHA STEWART'S GARDENING HANDBOOK, which came out this week, for ideas for planting. We are moving two big hydrangea bushes, and I am contemplating what goes into those slots.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

March 2025

There are books that are hard for me to describe as all I want to say is “I loved it.” BROKEN COUNTRY by Clare Leslie Hall is one of those books. How is this for a description? One night I stayed up until 2:45am reading it, and when I turned the last page, I took a quick picture and posted it on Instagram with some praise attached. It is the first time that I ever have done that in the wee hours of the morning.

I am not sure what I loved the most. Was it the characters, the plot, the twists, the writing…or how all of these elements came together so brilliantly? If I am asked to compare it to another book, the easy reply would be THE PAPER PALACE, as it also is about a woman who has loved two men. But then I think of the way that the farm is so beautifully described, and I am pulled in other directions on how to bring readers to it. Oh, and it takes place in the ’50s and ’60s, the decades that set a tone themselves.

Susan Meissner, author of A Map to Paradise

With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation. Then one early morning, Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone? As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards 2024

The winners of the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced on March 20th during a ceremony at the New School in New York City.

March 18, 2025

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of March 17th and March 24th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our current Word of Mouth contest. Let us know by Friday, March 28th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win BROKEN COUNTRY by Clare Leslie Hall (the Reese's Book Club pick and Barnes & Noble Book Club selection for March, as well as an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On title) and THE STORY SHE LEFT BEHIND by Patti Callahan Henry.

March 18, 2025

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this spring. Read more about it, and enter our Spring Reading Contest by Wednesday, March 19th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of DAUGHTER OF MINE by Megan Miranda, a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that is now available in paperback. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

Sophie Stava, author of Count My Lies

Sloane Caraway is a liar. Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad little life a bit more interesting. So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can’t help herself. She tells the girl’s (very attractive) dad that she’s a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl’s foot. With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. They’re the perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island. But maybe Sloane isn’t the only one lying, and all that’s picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth.

Lauren Willig, author of The Girl from Greenwich Street: A Novel of Hamilton, Burr, and America's First Murder Trial

Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house --- and doesn’t come home. Her body is eventually found in the Manhattan Well. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor. Aaron Burr’s legal practice can’t finance both his expensive tastes and his ambition to win the 1800 New York elections. To defend Levi Weeks is a double win: a hefty fee plus a chance to grab headlines. Alexander Hamilton has his own political aspirations; he isn’t going to let Burr monopolize the public’s attention. If Burr is defending Levi Weeks, then Hamilton will too. As the trial and the election draw near, Burr and Hamilton race against time to save a man’s life --- and destroy each other.

Karen Russell, author of The Antidote

THE ANTIDOTE opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing --- not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories. Karen Russell’s novel follows a "Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for people's memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.