Lila and her colorful cast of family and friends are back in this entertaining cozy mystery series. When the Calendar Crew, Lila’s godmothers, Auntie April, Auntie Mae and Auntie June, are set to open a new laundromat, vandalism turns into the murder of Auntie April’s niece, Divina. Lila and her friends, Elena and Adeena, as well as he boyfriend, Jae, all become involved in solving the case. The constant mentions of Filipino food will leave you hungry for more of this fun series. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I had the pleasure of receiving an ebook advanced copy of this book. So excited like a kid on Christmas morning when the approval came through!

I fell in love with Lila and her whole community during #arsenicandadobo —a book I chose specifically because I love adobo and it was something I hadn’t had in awhile—and I have not been disappointed with one of her adventures yet!

The cases are all well plotted, the side characters keep me laughing throughout, anything with an adorable dachshund also us a place in my heart, the new characters and the drama they bring is pure comfort and perfection for what I am looking for in a cozy mystery.

Murder and Mamon continues to deliver what has been and continues to be my favorite cozy mystery series—and it makes me hungry every single time!

Tita Rosie’s Kitchen and the Brew-ha cafe are flourishing. Everyone’s favorite aunties, the calendar crew are up to their normal antics. Ninang April’s niece comes into town and has secrets of her own, then mysteriously dies in the Calendar Crew’s new laundromat. Lila gets asked to help clean up the whole mess her family is found themselves in again!

This book is full of great family dynamics, supportive friends, healthy relationships and a lot of food. It shows how dangerous murder mysteries can be, but has the comfort of food, family and friends mixed in. Read this book if you want to learn some fun recipes and be along for the ride as Lila infiltrates a gambling ring and solves multiple mysteries to ensure the safety of her family.

Fourth in this delightful cozy series set in a smallish town in the environs of Chicago featuring Lila Macapagal and a huge swath of the Filipino community. Her godmothers planned opening of a laundromat is met with vandalism, and then murder. Granted they are known for the airing of dirty laundry, not cleaning them. Totally entertaining and peopled with unique characters, the book is also stuffed with amazing descriptions of the food the serve in the Brew-ha Cafe.

Murder and Mamon by Mia P Manansala follows Lila Macapagal as she solves another murder in this fourth installment in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mystery series.

This novel centers Lila’s three godmothers, April, Mae, and June (aka “the Calendar Crew”) as they are set to open a laundromat, but then there is a murder, with the body found right in their new business. As suspects in the case, Lila must set things to right by uncovering the culprit behind the murder.

The humor the author weaves into the story along with an exploration of flaws and weaknesses in the secondary characters we’ve grown to love combine to make a solid addition to the series. And *spoiler alert* the main character’s tiny dog has begun wearing tiny dog costumes. Come for the murder and stay for the tiny dog antics.

While the motive didn’t feel quite strong enough in this installment, I can overlook that because that’s how I feel in real life when I hear something on the news. Like, what were you thinking? Humans are dumb, smdh.

If you’ve never read a cozy mystery, this series is the place to start. It has mouthwatering food descriptions and recipes, a tiny, adorable, wiener dog, significant queer rep in a major side character (or two 👀), and explores Filipino and Filipino American culture, identity and diaspora.

Thank you to NetGalley And Berkeley Publishing for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is the fourth in the Tita Rosie series and I just love Lila and the Calendar Crew.
Enjoying Lila and Jae and the other relationships that have progressed since the beginning.
Lila is having to investigate another incident that happens within their group. Lots more drama from outside town as they had a visitor.
Trying not to give too much away since I enjoyed the surprise. These cozies always have lots of yummy food, close family and people set on revenge.
There's also humor and fun amateur sleuthing.

Enjoyed being in a library author chat with her last month. So glad that her books were successful cause I love them. And this book a Philippino cozy opened the doors for others that don't seem mainstream. These books have an audience to anyone who is listening.

Thank you berkleyromance for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

This book felt a little more serious than I remember the last one being, but I enjoyed it all the same.

Lila is back with the Calendar Aunties (her godmothers), her Lola Flor, Tita Rosie, and all of her friends at her Brew-ha café. When one someone targets her godmothers’ laundromat and someone windes up dead, Lila finds herself wrapped back up in a murder investigation. This time, her friends and boyfriend insist on helping her out.

I always laugh at these kinds of series because when you think about it, would you want to be friends with someone who keeps ending up with dead people around them? Or live in a town with multiple murders? But they make for such fun stories that I enjoy them anyway.

The best part of this series is Lila and all of her Filipino culture. She talks a lot about food and flavors and the culture in general. I did feel like sometimes it got to be a bit much in this book, but I understand why it’s essential to the story. It just seemed like every time they were at Brew-ha there was an intense description about what they were eating and why.

I enjoyed the Calendar Aunties in the last book, so it was interesting to see them become the center of the story. I have only read books 2 and 3, so it was interesting hearing about some of their past meddling and I wonder how much was in the first two books.

Of course, Lila’s friendships and family relationships are a strong point in the story and I loved how her boyfriend finally was like “girl, you need to stop doing these things by yourself. Just let me come meddle with you.”

I always rate mysteries a little harsher than other novels because I like to be surprised and I figured it out pretty early. That sais, this was still a fun and entertaining story with likable characters and a lot of good food. I’m happy to hear that this series is going to continue and I can’t wait to read the next one!

I have to admit that I just did not love this one as much as I enjoyed the first three. Perhaps it was because this was the first time that I read it with my eyes rather than audio (Danice Cabanela does an AMAZING job with the audio). Or because this was supposed to be a 3 book series originally.
Either way I will still read her next work whether she continues with this series or does something new

Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala is a contemporary cozy mystery and the fourth book in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen series.

Lila's three godmothers--the "Calendar Crew" made up of April, Mae, and June--are celebrating the opening of their new laundromat. Unfortunately, the building is vandalized and they find the body of April's niece who recently arrived from the Philippines along side a chilling message spray-painted onto the floor. Lila thought she had hung up her mystery-solving hat, but since the Shady Palms Police Department didn't seem to have much movement on the case, she loops in her friends to figure out what really happened.

Though this is the fourth book in the series, it can probably be read as a stand-alone, but I do highly recommend starting at the beginning! I greatly enjoy the series as a whole, though book three is my least favorite of the bunch.

There's some movement on a few romantic relationships at this point, and I'm here for both of them. Since the beginning of the series, all of the characters have had wonderful growth arcs and I'm happy to read more about their lives in future installments.

Make sure you've had a good meal before reading this book, because there's a major focus on food and drink and boy did it make me have cravings. As always, there are recipes in the back of the book that highlight some of the meals they mention in the story.

Also, the artist who does the covers for this series is AMAZING.

CW: infidelity, physical violence, mentions of attempted suicide, bullying, slut shaming, gambling addiction, substance abuse, parental incarceration, parental death

Happy Fall Y’all! I’m here with one of my latest reads, this cute cozy mstery, guaranteed to make you hungry after reading.

📖𝗠𝘂𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗻
✍️𝗠𝗶𝗮 𝗣. 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗮
🗓️𝟵.𝟭𝟵.𝟮𝟯
🔎𝗖𝗼𝘇𝘆 𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆
★★★★

💭𝗠𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗦

I’m fairly new to reading cozy mysteries, but I have really enjoyed the 𝙏𝙞𝙩𝙖 𝙍𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙚’𝙨 𝙆𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙈𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙮 series. This is the fourth book in the series, and it can be read as a stand-alone, but I would recommend reading them all. I love how each book has a cast of funny characters, and is paired with a murder investigation and layered with Filipino culture and recipes.

🎧 I read the physical book with the audio, and loved the narrator, Danice Cabanela, who brings Lila to life with her narration.

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧
🥧delicious food descriptions
🔎amateur sleuthing
🥧mouth watering recipes
🔎themes of family


*many thanks to Berkley Pub, PRH Audio and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

Auntie Aprils niece, Divina, has come to visit but there is something strange going on. Divina is close lipped about parts of her life and April is not trying to hook her up with Marcus (Mae's younger son) which she tries to do with any woman that's available. That includes Teresa, a young woman from the auntie's church who comes to help clean when their new laundromat is vandalized. Everything escalates when Divina is found dead and then one of the aunties is attacked.
This book has Lila being a little more forward and more off the mark than I remember from other books but still an enjoyable read.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out September 19, 2023
Follows Blackmail and Bibingka
ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

I am such a fan of the Tita Rosie's Kitchen series. I love Lila and the Macapagal family, the brew-has, aunties, and all of the folks we've met in the town of Shady Palms. I enjoyed that this book focused on the Calendar crew and their messy, gossiping selves. I loved the premise of this book and thought that the way the mystery was set up had a lot of potential. I was excited to see how it would all unfold but it ended up being quite anticlimatic and predictable. I wish little nuggets about certain characters' past relationship were woven more into the story as opposed to them all being spilled out at the end of the book. Also, because this is the 4th book in the series, there were a lot of references to characters we've met in the previous books that I didn't think were necessary.

I will definitely be sticking around for the rest of the series!

I liked the first two books better in the series. After four books I still didn’t feel like I knew enough about the characters. While I love food descriptions and books that aren’t that deep, it feels kinda late in the series to still not feel that invested in the characters. Still love the recipes and the overall concept but it still fell flat

Cafe owner Lila Macapagal is looking forward to welcoming spring with the annual Big Spring Clean event in her hometown of Shady Palms, Illinois. For an entire month, local businesses, including her Brew-ha Cafe, will be offering discounts to welcome warmer weather and, hopefully, customers new and old. Her own trio of godmothers – Ninang April, Ninang Mae and Ninang June, or the Calendar Crew as Lila privately calls them – will be launching their new laundromat in conjunction with this initiative.

Not everyone is happy about the new business. Ultima Bolisay runs a chain of laundromats on the north side of town, and is furious at the perceived competition. She’s not the only one to wish the Calendar Crew ill however. The three women have a reputation for being rumor mongers, raising the ire of more than one person who’s felt victimized by their wagging tongues. When their laundromat is vandalized just ahead of their grand opening, there’s no shortage of suspects. But who would go so far as to murder Ninang April’s lovely young niece and leave her corpse in the back, lying next to the spray-painted warning “MIND YOUR BUSINESS”?

Divina de los Santos was new to Shady Palms, with seemingly no enemies in the area. A few years younger than Lila, she’d recently graduated from art school and was trying to figure out what to do next with her life. Ninang Mae and Ninang June hadn’t exactly been keen on having the young woman around – her departure from the Philippines had been under something of a cloud – so kept her busy with the laundromat in an effort to keep her out of trouble. Lila had found her personable enough, even if Divina had had the bad habit of flirting with other people’s boyfriends.

The local police are quick to conclude that Divina must have been killed by one of the Calendar Crew’s enemies, but Lila isn’t so sure. It isn’t that she didn’t like Divina. She just hates how the police are treating the young woman like a detail instead of an actual person. The more she pries into Divina’s past though, the more unsavory information she discovers about the local Filipino community, including shocking secrets that the Calendar Crew might never be able to get over. Will Lila’s pursuit of the truth come at a terrible cost to the people she loves the most?

I always thoroughly enjoy the diverse representation in this series, and this installment was no different! Murder And Manon sees Lila, her family and friends continue to grow as they juggle running their businesses with finding justice for a young woman they all knew. As a jaded genre reader, I figured out whodunnit pretty early on, but greatly enjoyed reading along as Lila and co investigated. The descriptions of food and drink were also mouth-watering, whether they be Japanese chirashi bowls, Greek bougatsa or Filipino mamon, among other dishes.

Luckily for me, Mia P Manansala provides recipes for four of the dishes mentioned in the text so I can recreate them at home. I decided to try out this one:

QUOTE
Tita Rosie’s Arroz Caldo Recipe
serves 4

Ingredients:
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
½ onion, chopped
1 pound bone-in chicken pieces (drumsticks are perfect)
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1-2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 cup uncooked white rice
2 tablespoons fish sauce (patis)
Black pepper
5-6 cups of water

Toppings (optional)
Hard-boiled eggs, sliced
Fried garlic
Fried shallots
Green onions, chopped
Lemon or calamansi slices
Patis

Directions:
Heat some oil in a pot and sauté the ginger and onions until the onions soften and the ginger is fragrant.

Add the chicken to the pot and sear on high heat until all sides are brown.

Crumble the bouillon cubes into the pot and add the garlic, cooking until the bouillon melts and the garlic is fragrant. Add the uncooked rice, patis, and black pepper, and stir so that the aromatics are evenly distributed and the rice is coated in the oil and chicken fat.

Pour in the water and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer.

Cover the pot with the lid slightly askew so steam can escape.

Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is fully cooked and the rice has reached the level of softness and consistency that you like, roughly 30 minutes. If you prefer your porridge thicker, cook until more of the water evaporates. If you like a thinner dish, add more water and adjust the seasonings.

Dish out and serve with your choice of toppings. Enjoy!
END QUOTE

This is a great basic recipe for one of my favorite comfort foods! I loved the use of the patis here, which really adds a salty, umami piquancy to the porridge. Personally, I prefer to fully cook the chicken first before removing it from the pot and adding all the other ingredients. This way I can let the chicken cool while the porridge cooks, then shred the chicken meat and add it to the pot later, ensuring an even distribution of chicken throughout.

I did really appreciate Ms Manansala’s additional notes on how to adjust this recipe for different pantries and budgets. Arroz caldo and its variants are a great any time meal for everyone, and I love trying out new-to-me variations on the theme.

Next week, we head to the West Coast to bake up a savory treat while figuring out who would kill for a culinary inheritance. Do join me!

Lila Macapagal is back with another mystery to solve! When her godmothers, AKA the Calendar Crew, open a laundromat and the building is not only vandalized, but there is a dead body on the floor, Lila steps in to solve yet another murder mystery.

This book had the more lighthearted tones from book one and I loved that we got to see even more of the Calendar Crew. As with the rest of the series, this book is filled with incredible Filipino food descriptions (and even some recipes in the back), lots of funny hijinks, and a cozy murder mystery that won’t leave you feeling stressed. I always enjoy the books in this series and highly recommend reading them in order!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I really enjoy this series. This book kept a nice pace, I didn’t feel like there were slow parts I felt like it kept moving along nicely. In addition, I love how the killer wasn’t obvious but did make sense. I think that’s the best, I want it to surprise me but I still need the resolution to make sense and if did.
I’m addition, I love the talk of delicious foods (I haven’t tried most of them but I Google while I read and they look delicious).
I always find Lila, her wild godmothers, her boyfriend and her friends to be a fun group to spend time with.

I’m ready for the next one!

I got to read an early ebook edition from NetGalley, thank you!

Lila Macapagal’s godmothers are opening a new business venture, a laundromat and laundry service. Lila is already busy with the café she runs with her two close friends. Lila is the baker, and she brings her Filipino background to the seasonal flavors they are focusing on, while her friends focus on the coffees and drinks to go with the pastries. They also do some catering and offer up desserts for local restaurants.

When one of her godmothers, Ninang April, asks Lila to help welcome her niece Divina from the Philippines, Lila agrees. But once she meets the woman, she has second thoughts. Divina is not interested in helping out at the laundromat, and in fact doesn’t really know much about cleaning or laundry. She’s an art student, hoping to find a way to cultivate her curiosity. But whenever asks her about it, Divina gets evasive, not wanting to talk about what had happened in the Philippines for her parents to send her here to April.

But when the laundromat is vandalized shortly before their grand opening, Lila and all her family and friends wondered who would do such a thing. The words “Mind Your Business” were spray-painted on the walls and machines were broken. Lila wondered if that was a message to her godmothers, who were known for finding out gossip and involving themselves in other peoples’ drama. The latest had been letting the wife of a cheating husband know about his other activities, and they had no remorse for breaking up that marriage.

Could it have been the husband who vandalized the laundromat? Or was it the woman whose laundry business would be their greatest competitor? But when the next break-in at the laundromat ended with Divina’s death, Lila starts to suspect that there is more to the murder than just an angry soon-to-be-ex-husband or a competitor for washing machines. But in order to know for sure, Lila would have to find out what had happened to bring Divina to America, and if that could have somehow created an enemy who would do anything to make her mind her own business.

Murder and Mamon is the fourth book in Mia P. Manansala’s heart-warming Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series. I have heard nothing but great things about this series since the first book came out (Arsenic and Adobo). I hadn’t had a chance to pick one of these up yet (although I have bought a couple, just waiting to carve out a little extra reading time), but I’m so glad I finally got the chance with this one. The characters are interesting and thoughtful, and the mystery really drew me in to figure out who was the one who would kill this young woman. And as a food nerd, I was loving all the descriptions of foods and flavors and so happy to see some of the recipes at the back of the book.

Since I was jumping in on the fourth book in the series, I will say that you do not have to read this series in order. That being said, there are a lot of characters in these books, and I have a feeling that while the first book starts with a bigger crowd than some mystery novels, many were added in each book. So reading the series in order would help readers keep track of all the members of the extended family and where they work, since they are being added slowly and not just ganging up on you all at once like they did me. There is a glossary and pronunciation guide at the front of the book, which helps a lot. It would also be nice to include a sort of family tree/map to refer to for the family, friends, and businesses that seem to grow like the herbs in the Brew-Ha Café.

Despite having to juggle the large cast and drooling over the pastries and savory dishes, I had a lot of fun with Murder and Mamon. There is clearly a lot of love in this family, and a lot of food, so I liked how they all worked together to protect each other. This was a fascinating look at Filipino culture, and I will need to dive into more of these Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries very soon.

Egalleys for Murder and Mamon were provided by Berkley through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Murder and Mamon is the latest in Mia P. Manansala's Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Series. I have positively reviewed two of the previous entries including the first book Arsenic and Adobo. The series resolves around Lila Macapagal and her friends and family. Her aunt who raised her is the owner of a Filipino restaurant, which is where the series name is derived from. I think this may have been my favorite novel in the series so far; it focuses on her godmothers, a gossipy bunch who have just opened a laundromat. Lila must discover whether the threating letters they are receiving are due to vengeance for the rumors they spread or an angry competitor. The mystery kept me guessing till the very end. The food featured sounded mouthwatering as always and recipes are included at the end if you want to try making some Filipino classic or fusion dishes. Although each book can be enjoyed separately and each mystery is self-contained you will get spoilers about Lila's romantic partners and other life events if you read the stories out of order. This novel will appeal to fans of New Adult Fiction as well as Cozy Mysteries.

I was incredibly lucky and got in line at exactly the right time to say an ARC of Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala, the newest in one of my favorite current series! I love the Filipino-American culture, the food and coffee descriptions, and most especially the characters. The Calendar Crew, Lila's group of godmothers, are in danger in this one, and if anything has become clear it's that Lila will not stay out of it if her loved ones are at risk. Interesting investigation, plot, and just a solid story in a series I love to recommend!

Lila Macapagal is thrilled for her three godmothers, April, Mae, and June, affectionately known as the Calendar Crew. They are excited about opening a laundromat together, but someone in Shady Palms, Illinois, isn’t so happy about it. The laundromat is vandalized, and a threatening message is left next to the body of April’s niece, Davina, who is visiting from the Philippines. Nobody is sure if Davina made an enemy so soon after her arrival or if the Calendar Crew’s gossiping and meddling has finally caught up with them. It’s up to Lila to get to the truth of the matter to protect her family and to get justice for Davina.

Murder and Mamon is the fourth book in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series about a Filipino-American family living in a small town outside Chicago. Lila Macapagal is the main character, and she runs a cafe with her two friends, Adeena and Elena. Lila’s extended family plays a large role in the series and in this book in particular since her godmothers are at the center of the mystery. Davina is someone who was hard to like at first, but just when the young woman starts showing some vulnerabilities, making her easier to connect with, she is killed. I love that even though Lila didn’t love everything Davina did, including flirting with Lila’s boyfriend, she will not give up until she finds out who was responsible for Davina’s death.

Fans of this series will enjoy spending more time with these characters, but new readers can enjoy it just as much. I am happy that compared to the first book in this series, the tone of this book is much more positive, with Lila’s friends and family supporting Lila’s investigation. Just when you think you have figured out who the killer is, there is a twist that is very surprising. There are a few different recipes in the back for dishes that are discussed during the story. This book is my favorite in the series so far.

~ Christine