phenomenalpen

THE ONLY WAY OUT IS AWAKE. Eighteen-year-old Rafa Cruz has aged out of foster care and is living on the streets. He's a busker and a petty thief. By a strange quirk of fate, a smartphone that he has stolen wins him a slot as one of the few beta-testers of a revolutionary technology called "SKYE". OmniSys, the world's largest technology company, has discovered a way to combine lucid dreaming with the experience of RPG. They select five young adults from across the globe to take part in the trial run of SKYE: a backpacker, a veterinary student, a fitness motivator, a brittle bone disease survivor and... Rafa, a pickpocket. The Astralblazers, as they're fondly dubbed by the press, will journey through the highly unpredictable environment of their collective dream to meet a mystical character known as Atom the God of Creation. The Astralblazers must learn to harness their imaginations and innate mana, which take the guise of guardian spirits called Anima. Along the way, they'll encounter unicorns, dragons, Orcs, Goblins and a host of other fantastic beings. With each monster battle they face, they earn XP, stats and equipment, becoming powerful and hardened survivors. The game designer, however, has been keeping secrets from the Astralblazers. One of their teammates, in the waking world, has suffered hemorrhaging in the limbic region of her brain. If her character dies inside SKYE, the other players will become trapped in the game.…

phenomenalpen

NOT ALL DRAGONS BREATHE FIRE.Three young Dragon Slayers travel south to find a missing father and more clues to the theft of the Egg of the Dragon God, a relic that will decide the future of their world. Coming from rival clans, Aki, Temujin and Sasha forge an unlikely friendship, discover ancient secrets, and face overwhelming odds. Though the fate of all the clans hangs in the balance, ice shaper Sasha cannot help but rekindle his passion for Aki, while the beautiful wind guardian remains unaware of a prophecy concerning the man she is destined to love.…

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DEATH GETS A LOVE LIFE. "I accept," I say all at once and then lower my eyes shyly. "If you think my human body can serve as a substitute for her and fill your hunger, I'm willing to take that chance." The feeling that I recognize in his eyes is one of shock and even fear, as though he hadn't expected at all that I'd agree. "Let's do it," I whisper across the gap between us. ****When metalhead Janet Buenviaje dies in a diving accident, she falls into an underworld prison where the only way out is through an eccentric reaper named Septimus Rex. As monarch of Soul City, Septimus Rex leads an army of supernatural Ravens tasked with the deportation of overstaying souls from the mortal realm.But the fates smile on Janet because the head reaper has problems of his own. He has fallen in love with a mortal girl; an abhorrent sign of weakness that, if discovered by the Ravens, will start a power struggle in Hell. With Janet's help, Septimus must now attempt to confess his feelings to the girl of his dreams so he can go back to being devoid of human sentiment.Janet is reincarnated as a Wampus Cat reaper and hatches an escape plan to the surface world. But she finds that things in the underworld are not what they seem and Septimus's problems run deeper, somehow even linked to her own mysterious past.…

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*Wattys 2018 Winner / Hidden Gems*CREATE YOUR OWN MR. RIGHT Weeks before Valentine's, seventeen-year-old Kate Lapuz goes through her first ever breakup, but soon she stumbles upon a mysterious new app called My Dream Boyfriend, an AI chatbot that has the ability to understand human feelings. Casually, she participates in the app's trial run but finds herself immersed in the empathic conversations with her customizable virtual boyfriend, Ecto. In a society both connected and alienated by technology, Kate suspects an actual secret admirer is behind Ecto. Could it be the work of the techie student council president Dion or has Kate really found her soulmate in bits of computer code? She decides to get to the bottom of the cutting-edge app. Her search for Ecto's real identity leads Kate to prom, where absolute knowledge comes with a very steep price.…

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ONLINE IS SO OVERRATED. To escape the prison-like discipline of Camp Unplugged, Nathaniel "Nate" Policarpio makes a secret call to his Korean half-brother and K-pop star Kim Ji-hoon, a.k.a. Shadow. Shadow comes to his rescue and the two escape on a motorcycle while being pursued by camp counsellor Trinidad "Miss Perfect" Blanca. Nate and Shadow get into an accident and Shadow dies while Nate becomes a quadriplegic. Kate Lapuz is still searching for her virtual boyfriend Ecto. He deleted his avatar after making a promise to Kate's mom to stay away from her daughter. Kate believes Ecto still exists and is wandering the Internet without a home.…

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THE FAIRY TALE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME. (2021 Wattys Shortlister) (Antiheroes Galore Reading List Feature) History is thrown into absolute chaos when a warrior named Ukhuna Khan gets hold of a time machine from the future and decides to venture into the kidnap-for-ransom business. There's a pterodactyl with flame throwers, Vikings, Aztec priests, droids, and all sorts of temporally displaced characters.Bored out of his mind with the safe zombie life, Arc is about to be swept up on an epic quest the likes of which the Multiverse has never seen. Tasked with the impossible mission to save all of human existence, he leads a ragtag posse of antiheroes: a scarred witch, her cybernetic black cat, a dwarf ninja, a violin-playing gangster, and a gunslinger trapped in the body of a one-horned goat. In a medieval world caught in the war between order and entropy, nothing and no one is as they seem. Can Arc restore the fabric of the space-time continuum before the damage becomes irreparable?…

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THEIR LOVE WILL BREAK ALL THE RULES. Weeks after the apocalyptic fight with her ex Josh that saw to the destruction of her phone and the severance of her one and only link to Ecto, Kate finally confesses to her ma about the true events of that fateful prom night. Her digital boyfriend Ecto is still MIA and, unbeknown to her, trapped inside an RPG. The next thing she knows, Kate is sent to an Internet addiction rehab facility called Camp Unplugged. There, she meets all sorts of characters: Ms Blanca a.k.a. Ms Perfect: the perfectionist camp counsellor Yssy: Kate's fashionista and caffeine-junkie roomie Nathan: the handsome and brooding gamerWith Kate's debut (18th birthday) drawing close, will she allow herself a glimmer of hope and attempt to break out? Who can she trust with her escape plan? Unfortunately, before Ecto could help her, he would have to help himself first. And why was Kate banished to Camp Unplugged anyway? The answer may lie in the mysterious past relationship of her ma.…

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HUNTER OR GAME. WHICH ONE ARE YOU? Benjamin "Ben" Generoso is the brilliant mind behind Boys Are Wolves, the first and only breakup support app on the planet. It gathers and analyzes content freely available on social media and, with the help of an AI-powered virtual assistant named Kane, creates millions of personality profiles to discreetly reach out to girls trapped in toxic relationships.As Boys Are Wolves gains traction, it becomes clear that the clientele isn't randomly selected by an algorithm after all. The clients are linked, directly or indirectly, to the mysterious disappearance of a teen student of prestigious Enderun University three years ago. Who truly is Ben Generoso and what is his connection to the coed who is missing?…

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THE PRINCESS IS OUT OF THE TOWER. Born into warring Dragon Slayer clans, wind guardian Aki and fire-tamer Temujin walk paths that couldn't be farther apart. But their separate worlds are thrown into chaos by the theft of the Egg of the Dragon God, an ancient relic that grants its possessor limitless power. To bring back peace to their lands, Aki and Temujin must learn to fight side by side against a new breed of shapeshifting demon-warriors.…

phenomenalpen

GOT QUESTIONS? I HAVE (SOME) ANSWERS. This is a non-fiction work that details my journey as an author, both on and off Wattpad. I hope this can help answer some of the many questions that plague aspiring authors on WP. Here I talk candidly about how I created my book The Boyfriend App, joined the Wattys and got signed on by a publisher in my country. I will also talk about independent publishing, how to make a good story, and various other author issues. Please feel free to read this collection of thoughts and leave a comment or question. I promise to try and answer your query the soonest possible. Thanks!…