Irish Stewed by Kylie Logan

goodreads.com

Book one in the Ethnic Eats Mystery series. Meet Laurel a recently fired chef to the stars who travels to her "adopted" Aunt Sophie's home to help in her restaurant after she needs to have knee replacement surgery. Of course she is very unhappy with her life at this time but when she gets there she finds out her Aunt has been lying about how upscale the restaurant really is which makes Laurel want to run away as fast as she can. Instead of a fancy one she gets a dive next to the train tracks instead. Of course a dead body shows up in a booth on her very first night there so of course she has to investigate. While she does she decides to implement an ethnic food focus at the diner with a different country every so often to change things up which I thought was rather ingenious to say the least. I love the small town setting, most of the characters, and the development of the mystery. My main issue was with Laurel herself. She grew up in the foster system making her have pretty much no self worth and man is she really whiny about it. I wanted to tell her to get over it quite a few times and I am really hoping she does by the next book. I give it 3/5 stars.