Tonight we’re chatting with debut author Mia P. Manansala about her culinary cozy mystery, ARSENIC AND ADOBO, which launches May 4 with Berkley.
Mia Manansala is the winner of the 2018 Hugh Holton Award, the 2018 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, the 2017 William F. Deeck - Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers, and the 2016 Mystery Writers of America/Helen McCloy Scholarship. She's also a 2017 Pitch Wars alum and 2018-2020 mentor.
Drawing from her own Filipino heritage, Mia introduces readers to Lila Macapagal, a young woman who is stuck working in her Tita Rosie’s Filipino restaurant after enduring a streak of the worst clichés life has to offer. But Lila’s bad luck just continues when an ex-boyfriend who has been posting horrible reviews online about her tita’s cooking suddenly drops dead in the middle of the restaurant. After becoming the prime suspect in the case, Lila must take it upon herself to find the real killer—and hopefully save the future of her family’s restaurant as well.