Besides Lila’s own extended Filipino clan, the cast features Pakistani Muslim and Korean main characters in addition to a truly multicultural supporting cast. In addition to the clever mystery, I was also really taken with the wonderful characterizations in this #OwnVoices debut. 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. And let me assure you, the case is nowhere near as clear-cut as it first appears! Mia P. 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. It’s even worse when hot, silver-fox Detective Park accuses Lila of Derek’s murder.

So it’s a shock when Derek is later pronounced dead of arsenic poisoning from something he recently ingested. When he turns up for lunch with his stepfather one day, Lila is determined to grin and bear it-until Derek falls face-first into a bowl of ginataang bilo-bilo on their table.Īt 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. 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. 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. Back home to lick her wounds, she spends her time helping her grandmother and aunt run their family restaurant, specializing in authentic Filipino food.

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. 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.

Adobo and arsenic