Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's second novel, Magdalena, presents the stories of three generations of women in the Philippines against the backdrops of the Philippine American War, World War II, and the Vietnam War, but Cecilia doesn't spoon-feed extensively-drawn out narratives about the horrors of war. She relies instead on offering intimate personal profiles of individual characters. The novel has received favorable reviews from critics and academics, and it has been reprinted by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House.