{"id":5232,"date":"2023-09-13T06:37:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T13:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5232"},"modified":"2023-09-13T06:37:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T13:37:02","slug":"mia-p-manansala-murder-and-mamon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/mia-p-manansala-murder-and-mamon\/","title":{"rendered":"Mia P. Manansala: Murder and Mamon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tita Rosie\u2019s Kitchen #4<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is one of the more charming, youthful, and vital series in the cozy universe, combining many traditional cozy elements \u2013 cooking, coffee, a dog, family dynamics \u2013 and giving all these elements a new kind of flair through the cultural background of the main character and the diversity of the cast.\u00a0 Series heroine Lila Macapagal now has her own place, the Brew Ha caf\u00e9, next to her Tita Rosie\u2019s restaurant. Her large Filipino family makes for a rich background for the books, and in this installment, her extended gaggle of aunties \u2013 called the \u201cCalendar Crew\u201d are starting their own business venture: a laundromat.\u00a0 They are getting set to open during the town Spring Clean event.<\/p>\n

Staying with one of the aunties is a cousin, Divina, about Lila\u2019s age.\u00a0 It\u2019s unclear quite what Divina is doing there but it seems to be tied to parental displeasure in some way, and they\u2019ve sent her to the US from her home in the Philippines.\u00a0 Divina, a recent art school graduate, is hoping to own her own gallery some day, though how to go about it seems a mystery to her at the moment.\u00a0 Luckily the calendar crew ladies put her to work, and soon she\u2019s running errands all over town for them.<\/p>\n

The laundromat is suffering some setbacks however: it\u2019s been vandalized, and the women are getting threatening letters every day.\u00a0 When one of the family is killed and another is put in the hospital, Lila and her friends get into the investigative action, with the help of recently retired from the police force Jonathan (now dating Tita Rosie) and Lila\u2019s boyfriend, Jae, the town dentist and Jonathan\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n

Much of the mischief, if not the murder itself, seems to spring from the aunties \u201cspeaking their minds\u201d \u2013 aka gossiping about everyone in town, spreading helpful \u201cfacts\u201d that often turn out to damage or hurt the people involved.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been instrumental in breaking up a marriage, causing a woman to lose her job, etc.\u00a0 The aunties insist that they\u2019re just telling the truth but \u2013 the truth hurts, and Manansala actually has a point to make about the dangers and damage of gossip.\u00a0 Inside a fun and cozy read, there\u2019s a message.<\/p>\n

In a mystery, the writer can go one of two ways with the victim: the victim can be someone universally hated and disliked, pegged from the first page as deserving of their fate; or the victim can be someone sympathetic, even beloved.\u00a0 Manansala goes with door number two, and that choice adds some extra emotional heft to the story she\u2019s telling.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a wonderful scene where Lila hires a non-binary server to work at her caf\u00e9. This is something that simply would not have been included in a mystery novel ten \u2013 or even five \u2013 years ago.\u00a0 Manansala continues to blow some fresh air through this genre.\u00a0 It\u2019s also obviously a genre she loves.\u00a0 This is not a revolutionary cozy, really, but it\u2019s one reflecting attitudes and mores of a new generation.\u00a0 This is truly one of the pleasures of the series.<\/p>\n

The other pleasures: wonderful characters – and the food!\u00a0 Everyone in this book is constantly eating incredibly delicious sounding Filipino food.\u00a0 There are recipes at the end and if I\u2019m not enough of a baker to bake a chiffon cake (the mamon<\/a> of the title) I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a reader who is.\u00a0 The mystery itself is cleverly assembled with enough clues and red herrings to make the resolution a satisfying one.\u00a0 It seems like this series is settling in for a nice long run. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tita Rosie\u2019s Kitchen #4 This is one of the more charming, youthful, and vital series in the cozy universe, combining many traditional cozy elements \u2013 cooking, coffee, a dog, family dynamics \u2013 and giving all these elements a new kind of flair through the cultural background of the main character and the diversity of the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5,1235,189,1366,711,1365,1367,1368],"class_list":["post-5232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-americancozy","tag-baking","tag-berkley","tag-laundromat","tag-mia-p-manansala","tag-murder-and-mamon","tag-nosy-aunts","tag-tita-rosies-kitchen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5232"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5246,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions\/5246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}