By Mia P. Manansala
Goodreads Synopsis
“When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She’s tasked with saving her Tita Rosie’s failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.
With the cops treating her like she’s the one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the Macapagal family out and resell the storefront, Lila’s left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. Armed with the nosy auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted Dachshund, Longganisa, Lila takes on this tasty, twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block… ” (Goodreads)
My Take
Character Connection 
Our main character Lila is super fun, quirky, and the reader can connect right away. However, everything stayed very surface level for me – with Lila and with all of the others. You get a lot of internal dialogue but I never felt completely invested in the character’s lives. This is made more difficult by the sheer number of characters you are introduced to throughout the story – with so many “bite-size” introductions I didn’t feel like a got a good taste of anyone – starting right off with the cooking puns here!
Twisty-Turns
This is a fun whodunnit – it tries reeeeaaaalllllyyyy hard to spin you around and throw you off but I figured it out about halfway through. Again, the number of characters you meet makes it hard to keep track of all of the different connections but it doesn’t take a professional detective to solve this one.
Psych-Links
This is a “cozy” mystery – defined below – NOT your typical psychological thriller (my personal fave). This gets 1-splatter because it does touch on drug abuse, multi-generational family connections, and cultural prejudice.
Cine-ability
OK – what’s a “Cozy” Mystery??? It is defined by a few key items:
- Amateur Sleuth solves the crime
- Setting is usually a “small town”
- All the (exciting) stuff takes place off-page (overt violence, murder, love scenes, etc)
- The crime is solved and the “bad guy” is punished.
Basically – it’s a Hallmark Channel mystery! So – of COURSE it can be on-screen – add it to the 50 new movies that Hallmark releases each year and call it a day!
The Merry Murderino’s Overall Rating
I’ll admit that this was cute and fun. I did love the introduction to Filipino culture – and there are RECIPES in the back (WHAT!) For me, personally, it had a few things working against me loving it – I read it during my busiest month at work so it dragged on and on AND I just really like serial killers and detailed descriptions of murder (cry/laugh emoji because I’m a millennial). Overall, if you prefer cute and cozy over blood and guts – you should definitely pick this one up! I’m self-aware enough to recognize my own demented obsession with serial murder 😉
The Merry Murderino 