Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Death in a Corn Maze

Guilt and Ginataan by Mia P. Manansala

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Lila Macapagal, Shady Palms’ favorite amateur sleuth, is back for another cozy mystery adventure! It’s been a few months since her last investigation, but Lila isn’t thinking about crime at all. Instead, she and her fellow Brew-Ha owners (best friend Adeena Awan and Adeena’s girlfriend Elena Torres) are planning their menu for Shady Palms’ upcoming corn festival! As the name would suggest, the festival celebrates all things corn, and includes the state’s second-largest corn maze! The three friends agree to have a friendly competition – […]

Come for the Murder, Stay for the Food

Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala

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You do have to wonder how many murders have to happen in your small town before you consider that it might be time to move away. But for Lila Macapagal, solving a murder is just a part of her life now, just like the Brew-Ha Café that she runs with her two closest friends, and her aunties April, Mae, and June, also known as the Calendar Crew. In this, the fourth installment of Mia P. Manansala’s cozy murder mystery series, the Calendar Crew come to […]

CBR15 Bingo: Edibles

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

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CBR15 Bingo: Edibles (this book features both a lot of food and quite a few drugs) Lila Macapagal used to live in Chicago and dreamed of opening her own restaurant, but both her business and relationship failed miserably. She’s back in her hometown, helping to run her tita (aunt) Rosie run the family restaurant, where they serve Philipino food. Unfortunately, Lila’s ex-boyfriend is a food critic and seems determined to come back, again and again, to sample the food and write scathing things about the […]

Hot Fun in the Summertime (#CannonBookClub, June 2023) Discussion Post—Mystery Edition

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(Be sure to check out the discussion of the Hot Fun in the Summertime romance selections: Georgie, All Along; Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute; and Never Been Kissed.) Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries, Book 1: Arsenic and Adobo Whether you’re a returning CannonBookClub participant or a newbie, welcome! This is the place to discuss Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo. You don’t have to be registered for CBR15 to comment below, but there are a few ground rules: The topics are numbered, so please refer to […]

There is more food in this one than in the last one, if that’s even possible. Have your local Filipino restaurant on standby whilst reading.

Homicide and Halo-Halo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen, #2) by Mia P. Manansala

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I told myself I would continue with this series if the writing got better in this book, and it did! There were a couple rather tragic instances of dialogue (see below*), but for the most part both the dialogue and inner narration/characterization for Lila got much better. I feel like I have a better handle on who she is as a person, where in the first one she was sort of a blank slate. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but I […]

Come for the murder, stay for the food.

Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen, #1) by Mia P. Manansala

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I had a good time with this! For a first novel and for a cozy, it was very good. I really only have two complaints, and Manansala can definitely improve upon both in future books, and I hope she does, because I’d like to keep reading this series. It has some things I really like going for it. Like a lot of culinary cozies, this book follows a young woman (Lila Macapagal) fresh off a break-up, who has recently moved home to help in her […]



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