Blackmail and Bibingka — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Mia P Manansala
Published Year: 2022
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 288

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this novel.

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): It's Christmastime in Shady Palms, but things are far from jolly for Lila Macapagal. Sure, her new business, The Brew-ha Cafe, is looking to turn a profit in its first year. And yes, she's taken the first step in a new romance with her good friend, Jae Park. But her cousin Ronnie is back in town after ghosting the family fifteen years ago, claiming that his recent purchase of a local winery shows that he's back on his feet and ready to give back to the Shady Palms community. Tita Rosie is thrilled with the return of her prodigal son, but Lila knows that wherever Ronnie goes, trouble follows.

She's soon proven right when Ronnie is accused of murder, and secrets and rumors surrounding her shady cousin and those involved with the winery start piling up. Now Lila has to put away years of resentment and distrust to prove her cousin's innocence. He may be a jerk, but he's still family. And there's no way her flesh and blood could actually be a murderer...right?

First Impressions

This book is the third in a series that I haven’t read. I had heard about Arsenic and Adobo, the first book in the series, and it had seemed really cute. The cover of this one was fun and festive and when given then opportunity to read it for review, I knew I had to squeeze it in.

What I thought

If you enjoy cozy mysteries, recipes, and Filipino culture, this book will be for you.

Lila works at a bakery in a town in central Illinois. Her bakery focus on coffee and Filipino inspired treats. When her good for nothing cousin moves back to town to take over the city winery, her aunt gets a suspicious blackmail letter. Then one of the investors is murdered. Lila takes it upon herself to figure out what’s going on.

One of the best parts of the story is Lila’s family. I know that in Filipino culture, family is essential. In other stories I’ve read, they’ve always been close knit with lots of aunties. I loved how Manansala wrote the family relationships and friendships in this story. You could see how close Lila was to her Tita and her Lola as well as how integrated their family businesses were.

The other nice thing was that, while I felt I was probably missing some nods to the earlier books, almost like inside jokes, I never felt lost. I knew who everyone was and how they were connected, even if I didn’t necessarily know how they got there. It made it easy to pick this series up in the middle which I appreciated.

The one thing that did start to bother me after a while was Lila and her tact for the investigation. Long story short, she had none. She very blatantly put her nose in other people’s business and never did it in secret. In fact, she confronted people violently multiple times. Like girl, come on. Don’t aggravate people and make it worse. The amount of times she verbally and even physically attacked her cousin was excessive. Pull him aside and have a conversation. I felt really bad for him after a while because any time he tried to defend himself he would get completely berated.

One other thing that I appreciated in this book was the very beginning. First, Manansala added a trigger warning. Even though this is a lighter mystery, there are still some difficult topics addressed. I appreciated the thoughtfulness. In addition to that, there was an entire glossary of Filipino terms with their definitions as well as pronunciations. I know that this is something that POC authors shouldn’t ever feel obligated to include, but I feel like it helps to educate those outside their culture who choose to read their books. I read books with characters from other cultures to help educate myself, so I greatly appreciate that it isn’t assumed that every reader will know these terms or make it their jobs to look it up.