I purchased a copy of Victoria G. Smith‘s Faith Healer from the publisher. It even came with a signed bookplate inside the front cover.

Description from Goodreads:
Ousted years ago from the MalacaNang Palace in Manila, where he healed the people’s ailments with the power God sent through his hands, Victor Mariano has made a peaceful, if lonely and uncertain, life for himself as the caregiver “Tita Vee” in a California long-term care facility.

Victor is no stranger to living as neither one thing or another–not a man or a woman, not a fraud or a miracle, not black or white or Filipino. Like the sacred mountain that chose a penniless intersex bastard to receive the gift of healing, Victor lives on the very edge of where any other human could travel.

Faced with crisis and deportation, tormented by the loss of his unbelievable gifts, Victor has nothing left but memories and a remarkable story of multiple abandonments, faith and disbelief, palaces and poverty. Hair graying, with no hope even of escape, his own tale might be the only way to save the twisted heart of a cruel racist who threatens the small peace he has forged.

Review:
This is a hard book for me to review because I found it rich, thought provoking and interesting. However, I also thought the dialogues was extremely stiff, some of the themes heavy-handed and the narrative voice often awkward. But on the whole, I think it is definitely worth picking up and reading.

Also, I don’t usually talk about the actual physical book in a review, but I’m going to make an exception here. I don’t know if Brainmill does all their books this way, but the copy I have has colored front matter, headers/footers and chapter titles. As well as surprisingly nice paper for such a little book. It’s so unusual I just had to comment on it.

What I’m drinking: Earl Grey with milk. I used to drink quite a lot of Earl Grey, as I quite like the bergamot flavor. But I’m on an oolong kick recently, so this was a bit of a departure from the norm.