3.5-4 stars

I got such 21st century revamped Murder, She wrote vibes, and I loved it! It didn't hurt that my mouth was watering from all the food descriptions, and bless you for the recipes at the end of the book!
I really enjoyed this book, and it was so easy to sit down and devour with no effort. The only problem was the pacing at times or the lack of that splash of excitement, but the charms and cosy mystery vibes are there.
I will be continuing with this series for sure!

Also, do you know what was very lovely? The author noted that they tried to be as aware as possible about stereotypes, and they hoped they did it ok but put trigger warnings just in case. Can we have more of this?!

This one was not for me. I couldn't decide whether this was a comedy, mystery or cooking blog (such long descriptions of the food). The main character became unlikeable to me when after witnessing a death of a long ago friend, she proceeded to be more interested in what she was eating or cooking that having any "normal" feelings. She seemed generally self absorbed and cringy. I stopped reading at 40%.

This was a fun, cozy mystery that I really enjoyed! Lots of cooking and sass and delicious coffee not to mention a murder or two... I felt like I walked away knowing so much more about Filipino culture. Definitely enjoyed the chats with my book club!! The characters ; whew some you’ll love and others you’ll hate- and there’s some you just need to have in your life right now!! Definitely a worthy read!!!
#BerkleyWritesStrongWomen
#berkleybuddyreads #arsenicandadobo
Thank you to @netgalley and @berkleypub for this advanced review copy for me to read and enjoy! As always, my opinions are my own!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing house for providing a review copy of this novel. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

For a change of pace, I picked up this little mystery with a fun culinary spin, the first book in this new mystery series.

A notoriously nasty food critic comes in to do his usual complaining and critiquing of a restaurant, but ends up dead on the floor instead.

Lila has been tasked with saving the failing family restaurant, but finds herself as the number one suspect when investigating this murder, tarnishing the restaurant’s reputation further.

Intent to save her family’s legacy, Lila becomes her own detective and decides to run an informal investigation, of her own, to clear her family name.

This is sweetly satisfying and filled with some fun recipes at the end, for replicating a few of these great dishes that you are reading about.

If you need a great palate cleanser, between heavier novels, this is a solid choice and a winner for my foodie friends.

I LOVED this book and am thrilled that it's just the first of a series!! Yay! I loved all the food references and the cozy mystery setting brought me back home to my childhood in the suburbs of Chicago surrounded by Filipino friends. It was just a fun ride while we follow Lila trying to solve the mystery of a customer who drops dead while dining at her aunt's restaurant. The sleuthing did get a little confusing towards the end but I can't wait until the next installment to find out what everyone is up to!

Lila is helping out in the family restaurant when her ex-boyfriend dies of what looks like poisoning. Lots of Filipino food and family, and some secrets only known to the people who have stayed in the small community. I hope we see more in this series because there are some unresolved relationships at the end of this! A few recipes in the back, which will send me on another hunt for pandan leaves.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Ruthie – ☆☆☆
3.5 stars of fun and intrigue in small town America

This is a fun story engaging all the senses, with plenty of description of tasty food and aromatic coffee drinks. Lila is an entertaining lead, with a large cast of friends and family, all working together to save Tita Rosie's restaurant and to right the wrongs in their town.

I enjoyed her visiting the other local eateries and uncovering the reasons behind the recent spate of fines and poor inspection results. Cultural differences are used to make some interesting observations on modern life and add extra richness in the book. At the same time, Lila is a woman getting over a relationship and returning home to help out, little does she realise how she will be drawn back into her hometown and find herself again.

I will definitely be looking out for the next installment.

Oh my goodness, I loved this. I loved Lila and her family. I loved the mystery, which just kept taking unexpected turn after unexpected turn. And of course, I loved Longanisa!

Something sketchy is happening in Shady Palms, the aptly named site of this multicultural midwestern Midsomer Murders. The trouble begins when a nasty restaurant critic keels over at a popular local restaurant. Though suspicion immediately falls on his ex-girlfriend, a young Filipina American woman whose family owns the restaurant, the truth is far more complex. The investigation reveals a plethora of secrets and lies under the placid small town surface. A solid if not entirely original take on the standard cozy mystery.

I didn’t know I needed a cozy mystery in my life but this book seriously hit the spot!

This was my first time reading a book by a Filipino author, and I loved finding myself immersed in the culture from the beginning of the story. Manansala truly captured my heart with her writing and characters.

This story was filled with Filipino culture. I just loved the traditions and family dynamics! I really love reading about families like this - the ones with strong relationships and support systems. These families always have the good with the bad, and that made the characters and storyline real.

As for the mystery…What an incredible whodunnit - so many potential suspects and incompetent detectives I have to say, I could’ve sworn I had it figured out most of the book! But the twists rolled in here and there, and I was taken by surprise with the ending. I love twists that just make perfect sense but aren’t obvious!

My favorite part in this book has to be the food! Is anyone really surprised!?! I just love how Manansala incorporated all the Filipino dishes and cooking into her story. There really wasn’t a time when I didn’t find myself craving the food as I read (already Googled recipes). I’m a huge dessert gal, so Lila’s love for desserts and the scenes where she would bake were just excellent!

Overall, I really enjoyed binge reading this book, and I’m so glad it is a series, because I need to know what happens next in Lila’s life.

Thank you Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the gifted copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Lila Macapagal’s life, as she wryly notes in the opening sentences of this charming new culinary cozy series, has become a rom-com cliche. After moving from her small Illinois hometown of Shady Palms to Chicago for school, she fell in love with a guy who not only broke her heart but left her nearly unemployable in the big city. Back home to lick her wounds, she spends her time helping her grandmother and aunt run their family restaurant, specializing in authentic Filipino food.

Soon after returning to Shady Palms, Lila reconnected with her high school sweetheart, Derek Winter, only to have to quickly douse any rekindling of their prior romance. Turns out that in the years she was away, Derek has turned into a huge jerk, writing scathing, unfair reviews of local restaurants, including her family’s. When he turns up for lunch with his stepfather one day, Lila is determined to grin and bear it… till Derek falls face first into a bowl of ginataang bilo-bilo on their table.

At first, Lila thinks this is just another example of Derek’s boorish sense of humor, but when it becomes clear that he’s in acute distress, her family jumps into action to try to revive him while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. So it’s a shock when Derek is later pronounced dead of arsenic poisoning from something he recently ingested. It’s even worse when hot silver fox Detective Park accuses Lila of Derek’s murder.

With the family business in jeopardy and her own freedom on the line, Lila must do a little amateur sleuthing, with the help of her friends and relations, to figure out who really killed Derek. And let me assure you, the case is nowhere near as clear cut as it first appears! Mia P Manansala does an amazing job of planting red herrings as the bodies pile up and the pressure rises on Lila to find a murderer without losing her own life.

In addition to the clever mystery, I was also really taken with the wonderful characterizations in this #OwnVoices debut. Besides Lila’s own extended Filipino clan, the cast features Pakistani Muslim and Korean main characters, in addition to a truly multicultural supporting cast. Everyone felt like a real, vibrant person with important 21st century concerns. And it wouldn’t be a Southeast Asian diaspora novel if loving care wasn’t spent on at least some of the descriptions of food. The best part of this being a culinary cozy is that recipes for four of these delicious dishes were included! I decided to try out this one:

QUOTE
Derek’s Salabat-Spiced Banana Bread (Filipino Ginger Tea Inspired)
Yield: One 9x5 inch loaf

Ingredients
Dry:
2 cups flour
¼ tsp cayenne
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon (heaping)
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda

Wet:
5 medium to large bananas (VERY ripe)
5 TBSP melted coconut oil (or melted butter)
½ to ¾ cup honey (depends on how sweet you like it)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
A few swipes of calamansi or lemon zest (about ¼-½ lemon)

Optional:
½-1 cup chopped crystallized ginger
1-2 tbsp instant salabat mix*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a 9x5 loaf pan (grease/spray/line)

Whisk dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.

Mash the bananas in a large bowl, then add the coconut oil and honey. Mix well then whisk in the eggs and vanilla extract. Grate the lemon zest directly into the bowl and add the crystallized ginger, if using. Mix thoroughly.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet bowl and mix lightly with a rubber spatula until just combined. Don’t overmix, it will still be slightly lumpy.

Put mixture in a prepared loaf pan and sprinkle top with instant salabat mix, if using. Bake for about an hour. Check the banana bread about halfway through the cook time, and if it’s browning too fast, cover with aluminum foil.

It’s done when a knife or chopstick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool and enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

*Don’t have access to instant salabat mix? Combine 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp ground ginger, ½ tsp cinnamon, and ¼ tsp cayenne.
END QUOTE

This is a delightfully spicy take on banana bread, and really does go perfectly with a nice cup of tea, especially ginger if you have it. The crystallized ginger was a very nice touch too. The instant salabat mix was a little spicier on the crust than expected, as my poor kids found out to their detriment, so feel free to either go easy on the cayenne in it or to sprinkle the spicy stuff on only half of the loaf if you’re serving people with a low tolerance for spice.

Next week, we head southeast to investigate disaster at a murder mystery wedding (!) while dishing up a delicious soup. Do join me!

There was a lot of hype around this in my book channels, and I have to say, while the food aspect ABSOLUTELY lives up, the story doesn’t quite. Since this is the first in a series, that’s ok! I liked the characters and enjoyed the overall vibe. I also had to borrow a book of Filipino recipes from the library, and I definitely plan to read more of these as they come out.

Lila Macapagal has been working at her Tita Rosie’s restaurant ever since returning to her hometown following a messy breakup. Surrounded by her friends and family, she’s been working on putting her life back together. But when a well-hated food critic, Derek, who also happens to be Lila’s ex, drops dead in Tita Rosie’s restaurant, suddenly all eyes are on her. With the restaurant on the brink of closure and the cops just waiting for an excuse to arrest her for murder, Lila knows that her ony hope is to solve the case herself.

Arsenic and Adobo is a cozy mystery that also explores themes of family, friendship, cultural identity, and so much more. Lila is a strong, witty, passionate character full of determination. She’s fiercely protective of her family and of Tita Rosie’s restaurant. I loved how relatable Lila was–she’s just returned to her hometown after her bad breakup and is trying to figure out what’s next for her. Lila always dreamed of getting out of her hometown, and now that she’s returned, she’s struggling with feelings of failure while also trying to envision a new future for herself. I think a lot of readers, especially millennials (*raises hand*) will relate to Lila’s anxieties about the future and the pressure she feels.

I loved the way friendship and family play such a big role in Lila’s narrative. Her return to her hometown means that she’s facing all that she left behind when she left for college: Tita Rosie’s failing restaurant, the pressure and judgment from her family, and the changed relationship between Lila and her best friend Adeena. Lila never thought she’d return to Shady Palms, and now she must reconcile the changes in her community, her relationships, her dreams, and in herself.

Arsenic and Adobo brings some much-needed diversity to the cozy mystery subgenre, which has historically been white-centric. Lila and her family are Filipino, and the book feels like such a celebration of Filipino culture–especially food! As a Filipino-American reader, it warmed my heart to see this representation, and I particularly loved the mouth-watering descriptions of so many Filipino dishes. The book also includes several recipes at the end, which I adored; in fact, as I write this, my ube crinkle cookies are baking in the oven!

In terms of other representation, Lila’s best friend Adeena and her brother Amir (Lila’s love interest) are Pakistani Muslims, and Adeena is also queer. There are several other supporting characters who are Black, Korean-American, Japanese-American, Latinx, queer, and multi-ethnic. Overall, I truly loved seeing such a diverse cast with so many different identities. However, I do wish the diabetes rep had been handled more sensitively; Derek, the food critic, is diabetic, and during the investigation several characters make negative comments that perpetuate stereotypes about diabetes and diabetic people, and I wish those had either been omitted or challenged on the page.

Arsenic and Adobo follows the traditional plot structure and pacing of a cozy mystery, while also bringing new elements to the sub-genre. The focus on Filipino culture & cuisine, a diverse cast, and a young protagonist all make the novel feel like a fresh addition to the world of cozies. Mia’s writing is super readable and easy to get into, and I found myself getting sucked right in. The small town setting and food descriptions really brought the story to life. The mystery unfolded in a compelling, engaging way that made me desperately want to keep reading until the final reveal. Even as someone who isn’t normally a cozy mystery reader, I still had so much fun reading this one and couldn’t put it down.

This is the kind of book the cozy mystery sub-genre desperately needs. Whether you’re a fan of cozies or fairly new to them (like me!), this is one worth picking up. As a Filipino-American reader, I’m so glad to see Filipino culture and cuisine being celebrated like this. I’m really looking forward to seeing where the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Series goes, and will definitely be recommending this one to mystery readers at my library. Just make sure you look up the number for your local Filipino restaurant before you start reading–because you’ll definitely be craving some adobo by the time you’re done.

Lila just had a terrible breakup, and needing support from family, she moves back home. It quickly seems like family might need her support just as much, because her Tita (aunt) Rosie has a restaurant that isn't doing so well, and Lila might just be able to spice things up and bring customers back into the business. Just when things are looking nice and calm, a food critic blasts into town and has it out with Lila, and then, just when dessert is served, he passes out! Worse, he dies after eating food in TIta Rosie's restaurant! Even worse, Lila is the prime suspect, because the food critic is her ex-boyfriend, Derek! It looks like she did it, the cops said she did it, but she knows she didn't do it, so Lila sets out to sort out the truth, clear her name, and maybe even catch the perpetrator! However, the closer she gets to the truth, the more she feels like she's going from the frying pan into the fire.

This book is a little bit serious, a little bit sweet, and a little bit fun, and that gets all stirred up into a great story! Lila is funny, resilient, and just wants to get her life back on track and help her family, but her ex-boyfriend shows up in town and suddenly dies on her, leaving her looking very suspicious. Can't a girl get some peace after a break-up?! Her aunts are helpful, nosy, concerned, and between trying to set her up and keep her out of jail, they're a hoot! I loved the descriptions of food at the restaurant, and it made me feel hungry even while reading about the other serious parts of the story. The mystery kept me guessing for a good while, and the one who started all of this probably won't be somebody you expect! Arsenic and Adobo takes a pinch of this and a dash of that to put together a funny murder mystery that'll linger long after you've finished enjoying it. I recommend it to all fans of good food, supportive family, and murder mysteries, because when you're in a pinch, a warm homemade meal (and a good book!) always helps!

Lila Macapagel has returned from her big city escape to her small hometown of Shady Palms. She needs to recover from a horrible breakup and help save her beloved Aunt’s failing restaurant ‘Tita Rosie’s Kitchen’. Along with her best friend, a group of meddling Aunties, her gutsy no-nonsense Grandma and her long-standing crush, she soon finds herself embroiled in the suspicious death of her childhood sweetheart. In her absence, he’s become an all-round bad guy and the town’s scathing food critic, who seems Hell bent on ruining Tia Rosie’s for good. With Lila as the police’s number one suspect, a mountain of damning evidence against her and a growing body count, she embarks on her own investigation to clear her name and save the family business.

I loved this book, it was an all-round great read. The characters were all so good, Tita Rosie is the sweetest and I want her to be my Aunt! There were no weak links and everyone bought a needed dimension to the overall story. I defy anyone to not smile at the antics of Lola Flor. This combined with a strong story that moved along at a great pace and dropped the breadcrumbs of the mystery beautifully made for a masterfully crafted mystery. It was a fun romp that didn’t descend into farce, held true to the cosy murder mystery genre but was interwoven with heart and humanity, that gave the story wonderful depth. All that along with the truly mouth-watering food….I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s out today……why are you still here?

During the early nineties and nones, I spent a lot of my time reading about how caterers, bakers, innkeepers and tea shop owners had clients drop dead of murder at their eateries/events/hotels and then went about solving the crime before the incident ruined their business. Stepping into that long standing tradition of combining delicious food with clever heroines who know how to cook and hunt down killers is Mia P. Manansala with her delectable début, Arsenic and Adobo.

Until the murder of her ex, Lila Macapagal’s return to her hometown of Shady Palms feels like the setup for a made-for-TV rom-com. Girl goes to big city full of hopes and dreams? Check. Girl finds love and success in her new life? Check. Girl moves back to heart-warming midwestern locale after it all crashes and burns around her? Check. Girl’s interfering Aunties begin setting her up so she can find a new love? Check. Girl finds herself trying to save family business while dealing with all the men she loved in the past? Check. It’s the script to every Hallmark Christmas movie except that rather than rediscovering her affection for everything she left behind Lila finds herself fighting the same old battles with the same old people. Her cousin Bernadette still sees her as a rival, her best friend Adeena’s brother Amir is still off limits (even though it makes her heart soar just to look at him) and Derek, her ex from high school, seems to still hold a grudge against her even though he was the one to cheat on her. In fact, Derek has taken his antagonism to new heights, making it a point to write scathing reviews of the meals served at Tita Rosie’s restaurant. When he comes in to check out their latest lunch specials, Lila can barely stand to be polite to him as he practically licks his plate clean in front of her and then goes on to critique every aspect of the food. At first, when he face-plants into the dessert plate, she thinks he’s making some kind of joke, but when he fails to respond to her vigorous attempts to revive him, she realizes every restaurateur’s worst nightmare has just occurred -someone has gotten very sick while eating their food.

Once the ambulance arrives and Derek is whisked to the hospital, Lila has a chance to think about what’s just happened and realizes that diabetic Derek had probably put himself into a coma by ordering a high starch meal and following it up with a sugary desert. But once the police determine Derek’s actually been poisoned and his family starts pointing the finger at Lila and her family as the likely culprits, Lila realizes she will need to get serious about mounting a defense. It’s clear the police won’t since Lila makes such a convenient suspect, especially when they find damning evidence in her work locker. Fortunately, Lila has experience investigating crime. She and Adeena had once solved the mystery of what happened to their school mascot, and this shouldn’t be much harder, right? With her bestie in tow, and Amir providing backup as her lawyer/only person authorized to access official information, she starts to search for the killer herself.

The novel starting with a reference to how clichéd Lila’s life has become seems eerily apt given how very formulaic the narrative feels. As mentioned above, I’ve been reading cozy mysteries which employ busy-body grandparents/aunts/godmothers etc. as sources of local knowledge and general wisdom for the last several decades. Food service workers who solve crimes cram bookstore and library shelves. Girl detectives have been around since Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. The author brings something new and fresh to the scene by adding a young ‘woke’ heroine, a lesbian best friend and a multi-ethnic cast but the characters aren’t quite fleshed out enough to be truly unique.

Take Lila for instance. In the past four months, I’ve read at least three variations of her personality – a bright young woman whose setbacks in life have been caused by her bad taste in men and who just longs for the world to experience her culinary creations/baked goods/wedding photography infused with her unique cultural heritage. Lila is, of course, hip, liberal, affirming, feisty, and independent. All terrific traits but not exactly original in today’s literary market. Nothing about her screams memorable or different.

We don’t learn enough about anyone else to really make judgments about them. Adeena and Amir, as well as Lila’s aunties, serve as back-up for our heroine but they don’t stand out from the crowd of secondary characters who typically people these novels. They are the quirky, supportive, loving family and friends you would expect to meet between the pages of fun, gentle mysteries.

Average and predictable, however, do not equal bad, especially not in this case. While the story has little that is new to offer, the author does do a nice job of making the familiar charming, especially in how she handles Lila’s love for Filipino cuisine – I challenge anyone to read the first few chapters of this book without getting desperately hungry. The depictions of adobo chicken, rice, almondigas, suman, ginataang bilo-bilo and calamansi pie threatened to wreak havoc with my diet and had me dreaming of late-night snacks. While the solving of the crime is utterly ridiculous (this is a given with cozies, not a critique) and completely dependent on people sharing their darkest secrets with complete strangers, the murder itself is fairly complex. I was intrigued enough by the mystery to be fully engaged in the story and was pleased with the small twist at the end that I hadn’t seen coming.

For those looking for romance, there is some flirtation here and hints as to what might be coming in the future but nothing more than that. Amir and Lila never do more than gaze at each other longingly but another contender for Lila’s heart makes an appearance at about the forty percent mark and Adeena meets someone halfway through the story. All of the relationships stay firmly at the starting point.

While the familiarity of the plot and characters gives this a bit of a ‘been there, read that’ feel, fans of the culinary cozy are often looking for the comfortable and familiar. If you love this type of story, then I would definitely give Arsenic and Adobo a try. The multicultural flair and modern heroine add a nice touch of modernization to this classic genre.

This was a light and very refreshing read with some great characters in there and I enjoyed the plot of the book. I have been excited about this book after I read the blurb and mainly because of that attractive cover. Friendship and family build the foundation of this book which was quite impressive.

The story starts with Lila Macapagal being back in her hometown – Shady Palms from Chicago after leaving in between her Restaurant Management degree due to a doleful beak-up from her fiancée. As being an avid baker, she now wants to help her Tita Rosie and Lola Flor’s failing restaurant. But things take a sharp turn when her high school ex-boyfriend Derek Winters shows up at her restaurant and dies right in front of her after eating her handmade cookies. It causes a stir in Lila’s life when she becomes the prime suspect in Derek Winter’s death. Lila has a knack for being at the wrong place and at the wrong time and this increases her chances of being the prime murder suspect in the eyes of detective Jonathan Park who is investigating this case. Will Lila be able to save herself from this messy situation that she is currently in?

This was my first time reading a book from the cozy mystery genre. There were many fun elements in the book. There is also a love triangle going on between Amir (Lila’s lawyer), Lila, and Jae (Lila’s dentist) and it was very cute. I love Mia adding a few Filipino recipes at the end of the book and especially of Ube Crinkles. The family dynamics between Lila with her family was great and the one with her mga ninang was so hilarious and fun! It is shown as a tight-knit family with a lot of food going on. I tell you those recipes are mouth-watering and sounded delicious, although I have never tried Filipino food myself yet.

I would say I relished the plot but the writing style could have a little better. In the beginning, the pace of the book was quite slow, by the time it picked the pace the story was about to end, and then it was like *woosh* over! Although, I have to say that the narration was engaging and funny, and humorous.

It was great learning about the Filipino culture and their background, their family scenarios, and the food importance in their tradition. There is fairly a large number of characters that are diverse and amicable but were a bit on the confusing side at times. Lila came out quite stubborn at times with a childlike attitude, which was annoying to me. But overall, her characterization was likable. We can also see, Lila’s best friend Adeena is a proud American lesbian and her love interest is a bi Latina when it comes to queer representation in the book and it also includes BIPOC.

Thus, I would conclude by saying that it was a super-fun read and I got to explore a new genre. I can’t wait for the next Manansala’s book which will be the second installment in Tita Rosie’s Kitchen.

Food and mystery, two of my favorite things in the whole world. The synopsis alone intrigued me, I mean from Nora Ephron to Agatha Christie? I love it already!

I truly enjoyed reading this book and it’s been one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had. The food descriptions were distractingly delicious so I couldn’t sleuth as much as I wanted to.

Let’s talk first about the mystery aspect. I truly loved how it was executed in the book, a curveball I might say. The initial tone of the book sounded like a cliché rom-com: Lila Macapagal going back to her hometown after a bad break-up and help with the family business, only to end up being the primary suspect in a murder case.

I love whodunnit mysteries and I always grow suspicious of everyone from page one, but this book really took unpredictable to another level. Then again, maybe that’s just me being distracted with all the food.

From delicious food to chismosa titas, Arsenic and Adobo nailed the Filipino representation that I’ve been craving. I love the family dynamics explored in the book, including the extended family, such as Lila’s friends, and even Detective Park.

Hospitality is a big thing for Filipinos, and Filipinos love to express hospitality through food. Everyone’s invited for a feast in Filipino Fiestas and we’d even let you take food-to-go. It doesn’t matter if we’ve never met before or you’re a little bit mean detective whose purpose is to get you to jail. You’ll get food. Just kidding, I don’t hate Detective Park that much.

Having a big extended family is a common thing for Asian families. I love the no-nonsense Lola Flor, she actually reminds me of my own grandma. Tita Rosie is honestly the sweetest, and everyone should have their own Tita Rosie. Lila’s encounters with the Calendar trio were just something I could pull out of my own experiences with my actual aunts. It’s funny and cringey at the same time because I remember my own encounters 🤣.

Similarly, friends play a part in that extended family. Adeena is Lila’s best friend and her brother Amir is Lila’s long-time crush, and well a possible love interest. I honestly liked that the book didn’t dwell much on romance.

In conclusion, Lila’s big family is an accurate representation of these and I loved seeing their interactions play out. From cooking food to the gossips, all the way to aunts prodding you about your dating life. Very Pinoy.

Arsenic and Adobo will truly be one of my favorite reads for this year.

The mix of mystery and drama was perfectly balanced. Additionally, I love the story’s pacing and the pool of fleshed-out characters that really made me root for them. Lila’s story is close to my heart because I really saw myself in her and we had a lot in common, sans the murder aspect.

I really recommend this book especially if you’re looking for a cozy mystery mixed with drama and comedy. In addition, reading this would make you feel like a part of a big happy, and a bit dysfunctional family. Manansala really nailed the homey and heartwarming feeling of a typical Filipino Family.

Now, I’m off to find some ube and try that ube crinkles that Lila likes to bake.

This cozy mystery was a good introduction to the main character Lila and her family. Lila has just moved back home after discovering a cheating boyfriend and is helping out at her family's restaurant, which is suffering because of a series of bad reviews written by Lila's high school ex. When he dies in the restaurant immediately after consuming their food, Lila is seen as the prime suspect and has to figure out who the true killer is before she gets thrown in jail.
The Filipino-American culture depicted is fun and my favorite aspect of the book. There are also some delicious looking recipes that I would love to try. There are some moments that made me roll my eyes a bit because they are so silly but overall it was a fun read and I will keep my eyes open for the next in the series.

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala is the first book in A Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series as well as the author’s debut novel. Arsenic and Adobo is a lighthearted cozy mystery with a unique premise (A Filipino family and their restaurant). Lila Macapagal is a Filipino American who has come home to Shady Palms after finding out that her fiancé is cheating on her. Her family can use her assistance with their restaurant, Tita Rosie’s Kitchen. They are having financial difficulties which is in part due to local food blogger and critic, Derek Winters who happens to be Lila’s old high school boyfriend. His nasty reviews turn tourists off from dining at their Filipino restaurant. When Derek dies after eating at their restaurant and having a disagreement with Lila, she becomes the prime suspect. The author set the stage for the series with her descriptions of the main characters, the town, and the local businesses. Lila has a large family that includes three interfering “aunts”. They are eager to match Lila up with a fella and see her settle down. The “Calendar Crew” as Lila has deemed her interfering aunts are entertaining and helpful when it comes to whodunit. There is a large cast of secondary characters in this tale. It can be hard to keep track of them along with the murder suspects. The mystery was straightforward with its suspects, clues, and misdirection. Identifying the guilty party is duck soup. Two pieces of information gives it away. It takes longer, though, to find out why. I did like that there was action that helped propel the story forward. I was let down by the twist. I was surprised by Lila’s reaction to Derek’s death and some other incidents. She is very nonchalant. I did not know if the author wanted Lila to be indifferent or it was an oversight. Other characters are just as detached. I also question some of the police actions. They were not realistic (I cannot say too much, or it will be a spoiler). When I finished Arsenic and Adobo, I had more unanswered questions. I also thought some of the scenes could have been edited (less dialogue and descriptive sentences). There are many cozy moments with Lila, family, and her friends that are sweet. The food prepared and eaten is described in detail (foodies will love it). There are recipes at the end of the book. I am glad there was a dictionary at the beginning to explain the various words used in the story along with how to pronounce each one. Arsenic and Adobo is an upbeat multicultural cozy mystery with fabulous food, a mystifying murder, a determined detective, prying relatives, shifty suspects, and a devoted dog.