Mia P. Manansala: Guilt and Ginataan

Tita Rosie’s Kitchen #5

When this series opened, Lila Macapagal, our heroine, was a young woman with a broken heart who had left the big city of Chicago for her little hometown of Shady Palms.  She began the series working in her Aunt Rosie’s restaurant; by book five, she and her besties, Adeena and Elena, have opened their own place: the Brew Ha Cafe. As this book opens, they are manning their booth at the local corn festival (hey, it’s Illinois), offering up an unbelievable array of delicious sounding treats featuring corn.  Warning: don’t read these books hungry.

When the booth sells out, the friends decide to head to the corn maze, each staking a different entrance and racing to be the first one out.  Of course things go south – there’s a scream, and Adeena is found passed out, clutching a bloody knife next to the body of Yvonne, the wife of the mayor of the neighboring town, Shelbyville.

This is a book all about rivalries.  Shelbyville is a tad larger than Shady Palms, and the Shady Palms mayor is a little jealous of the mayor of the larger city.  The three woman who are our main characters are finding a little unexpected rivalry of their own.  While Lila and Adeena have been almost life long friends, Adeena’s partner is Elena, and that of course is a different relationship, one that comes to the fore as the investigation into the murder gets underway.  Lila, despite having her own adorable boyfriend, hunky dentist Jae, still feels like not only a third wheel around Adeena and Elena, she feels like her friendship with each woman is no longer valued.

The jealousy and rivalry gets in the way of the investigation and it’s not until the three women first acknowledge it and then have it out later in the book that things get more workable.  The women’s friendship is one of the strongest parts of the novel, and this adjustment in their relationships plays out in a pretty believable way.

Manansala also paints a very vivid picture of Shady Palms and its community of business owners, many of whom are related to Lila.  I wish this outing had had a bit more of Lila’s family, who are the hilarious and loving backbone of this series.  There is a nice Cinderella moment about partway through where Lila goes “undercover” to a fancy dress boutique and purchases the slinky dress of her dreams. I love a Cinderella moment.

While I truly enjoy this series, the characters – and the food! – I thought this was not the strongest outing.  I did appreciate the dissection of the friendship between Elena, Adeena and Lila, which was very true to life, but this book lacked some of the bite of the other novels.  These are definitely cozies but author Manansala often has a more serious agenda.  In this one both the agenda and the mystery were just slightly thin.  However, this is still a superior series and I’ll be looking forward to book six.  — Robin Agnew