A most insightful novel, whose diverse mostly female characters are as fully developed and complex as the historical setting of life in the Philippines. The first-novel of a Filipina now living in Australia, it tells of a grown woman returned home to see her difficult mother. The story brings in the mixed Spanish, Chinese and Filipino culture, Japan's WWI occupation of the islands, the reign of Marcos and other big themes.  (PLP18, $19.00)