Life in Shady Palms suits Lila Macapagal down to the Illinois ground. The tiny town is devoid of chain restaurants and megastores (there\u2019s not even a Walmart), leaving plenty of room for Lila, Elena Torres, and Adeena Awan to offer residents treats like mocha chai latte and white chocolate flavored with pistachio, rose water, and cardamom at boutique shops like their Brew-ha Cafe. But the partners can\u2019t help but notice that female-owned businesses seem to be disproportionately targets of smash-and-grab robberies. They\u2019ve even discussed this trend at the Women of Color entrepreneur group. Still, it isn\u2019t until burglars hit Choco Noir, owned by Blake Langrehr, that the break-ins extend to include casualties. Blake is killed, and Lila\u2019s boyfriend Jae Park\u2019s cousin Hana Lee, who worked there, is left in a coma. Lila vows to find out who hurt Hana\u2014who\u2019d come to Shady Palms to find peace and healing after her husband died\u2014but her investigation proceeds slowly because of all the family dinners, karaoke nights, and WOC meetings that intervene, each with its own large cast of sisters and cousins and aunts. Even a visit to Hana in the intensive care unit involves half a dozen people. Readers who like their mysteries, like Brew-ha\u2019s confections, crammed full of goodies, are likely to enjoy Manansala\u2019s tale more than those who prefer a more trimmed-down approach to detection.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Life in Shady Palms suits Lila Macapagal down to the Illinois ground. The tiny town is devoid of chain restaurants and megastores (there\u2019s not even a Walmart), leaving plenty of room for Lila, Elena Torres, and Adeena Awan to offer residents treats like mocha chai latte and white chocolate flavored with pistachio, rose water, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}