Heartbreak and Magic

“‘Heartbreak, it can be said, is the precursor to creation.’ So goes a line in one of the stories from Ian Rosales Casocot’s Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror. This line, I believe, lies the groundwork for Ian’s evocative masterpiece, whose tales contain a strange kind of beauty, like a siren’s song, soft and comforting and ultimately tragic. Combining ethereal worlds and surreal circumstances, Ian draws for us, stories that, despite trappings of the fantastic, nevertheless echo sentiments and emotions that are all too familiar. In his hands, history is a tangled skein, love enough reason to stop the wind from blowing, and fowl a potion that brings two souls together. His stories, most of them set in his beloved Dumaguete, lays bare a city in psychic crisis, caught between the idyllic and the modern. Read the book and you will want to fall in love, if only to experience the sweet pain that comes with getting your heart broken. Read the book and you will find yourself craving all sorts of gustatory, specifically Negrense, delights. Read the book and you will want to visit Dumaguete City, to see the ocean from the docks and roam the streets, searching for haunted houses and haunted lives.” —Yvette Tan, author of Waking the Dead and Other Stories “One of our most promising young fictionists today.” —Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr., Philippine Star “Casocot … is something of a revelation … which is reassuring proof that the city of gentle people continues to nurture its writers …” —Juaniyo Arcellana, Philippine Star