The Villa, Once Beloved

A dark history is unearthed amid crumbling façades in Lambda Literary fellow Victor Manibo's new gothic tale of family, homecoming, and postcolonial vengeance . . .

SOME LEGACIES ARE BEST LEFT BURIED . . .

Villa Sepulveda is a storied relic of the Philippines' past: a Spanish colonial manor, its moldering stonework filled with centuries-old heirlooms, nestled in a remote coconut plantation. When their patriarch dies mysteriously, his far-flung family returns to their ancestral home. Filipino-American student Adrian Sepulveda invites his college girlfriend, Sophie, a transracial adoptee who knows little about her own Filipino heritage, to the funeral of a man who was entwined with the history of the country itself.

Sophie soon learns that there is more to the Sepulvedas than a grand tradition of political and entrepreneurial success. Adrian's relatives clash viciously amid grief, confusion, and questions about the family curse that their matriarch refuses to answer. When a landslide traps them all in the villa, secrets begin to emerge, revealing sins both intimately personal and unthinkably public.

Sifting through fact, folklore, and fiction, Sophie finds herself at the center of a reckoning. Did a mythical demon really kill Adrian's grandfather? How complicit are the Sepulvedas in the country's oppressive history? As a series of ill omens befall the villa, Sophie must decide whom to trust--and whom to flee--before the family's true legacy comes to take its revenge . . .

Author: Victor Manibo
Publisher: Erewhon Books
Published: 11/25/2025
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 8.45h x 5.87w x 1.16d
ISBN: 9781645661382


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 09/08/2025
Library Journal 09/12/2025 pg. 1
Booklist 10/01/2025

About the Author
Victor Manibo is a Filipino speculative fiction writer living in New York. A 2022 Lambda Literary Emerging Voices Fellow, he is the author of the science fiction noir novel The Sleepless. His next novel, Escape Velocity, is forthcoming from Erewhon Books in Spring 2024. Find him online at victormanibo.com or on Twitter @victormanibo.