About this item
Lila Macapagal breaks up with her chef boyfriend and moves home to Shady Palms, IL, to help her aunt, Tita Rosie, with her Filipino restaurant. She starts dating her high school boyfriend, Derek Winter, but soon learns he is the notorious food critic who tried to ruin the restaurants in town, including Tita Rosie's. When he keels over while he and his stepfather, the restaurant's landlord, are dining at the restaurant, Lila thinks he's playing a prank. But when Derek dies on the way to the hospital, his stepfather, Ed, is quick to blame the food and pull strings with the sheriff. While her extended family of Filipino aunties and cousins rally around, Lila is arrested for murder and suspected of pushing drugs. If the local police detective is going to accuse her, and Tita Rosie's restaurant and home are at risk for her bail, Lila is going to step up and find the person who killed Derek. VERDICT This debut introduces readers to Filipino American food and culture, with its emphasis on family. There are cozy tropes (the close-knit community, the food business), but the emphasis on the Tagalog language, the culture, and drug dealing in a small town add gravity and individuality to this outstanding series kick-off.
About the Author
Mia P. Manansala is a book coach and the author of ARSENIC AND ADOBO (Berkley 2021) , the first in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery series. She uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture. She is the winner of the 2018 Hugh Holton Award, the 2018 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, the 2017 William F. Deeck - Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers, and the 2016 Mystery Writers of America/Helen McCloy Scholarship. She's also a 2017 Pitch Wars alum and 2018-2020 mentor. A lover of all things geeky, Mia spends her days procrastibaking, playing JRPGs and dating sims, reading cozy mysteries, and dreaming of becoming best buds with Wonder Woman and Kamala Khan. When she's not sassing her ever-so-patient husband, she's cuddling her dogs Max Power and Bayley Banks (bonus points to those who get the name references) at her home just outside of Chicago. Mia is quite the joiner, as she is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Color, Banyan: Asian American Writers Collective, the Chicago Writers Association, and the Chicago Nerd Social Club. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @MPMtheWriterOr check out her website: Represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
