"I could feel the unhappiness of the writers and I sat with it for a while, trying to work out what I could give them. They were asking me for recipes,  but it was obvious that they were lonely and wanted love. I did not have a recipe for love. But if I could give them really good recipes, easy ones they could make themselves, they could invite someone to eat with them."

Set in the Karoo region of South Africa, in Ladismith, we meet Tannie Maria. She takes job as an advice columnist but food and cooking are her passion so she provides each person with the perfect recipe for their situation, along with their advice. From the abused duck lady to lonely people she is quickly in high demand. After Martine ("the duck lady") is murdered, Tannie Maria decides she needs to investigate as her letters may hold some clues. Jessie, an aspiring investigative journalist who works for the same newspaper as Maria, quickly jumps on board to help out with the investigation. Between lots of good food,  interfering with (and occasionally helping) the police, some rather interesting small town drama and an escalating feud between two people who loved Martine and the potential impending end of the world (according to some visiting Seventh Day Adventists) the reader is quickly thrown into a messy yet engaging story.

I absolutely loved how the author introduced such a wide range of characters and put so much care into making the setting come to life. She also did a great job of setting up various potential motives. It really was rather impressive just how many people could benefit from or be otherwise involved in a seemingly random woman's death. You also get to know a surprising amount about her through the various people who knew her who Maria gets to know during the story. On the subject of Maria... I'm not quite sure how I feel about her. While I loved some of the other characters like Jessie, I have conflicted feelings about her. While she is definitely endearing and she has some truly fantastic moments, there was just something about her that rubbed me the wrong way. I also wasn't a massive fan of some of the romance subplots and feel like the book could have been better without them, but that's probably a me thing more than a book thing.

Overall I enjoyed this book. Although there were aspects I didn't love, I did enjoy the author's writing style and her clear love for the Karoo. Although it definitely had some rather dark contents, it mostly remained relatively light hearted, largely thanks to our overly optimistic (and not always the most self aware) main character.  I am definitely planning on trying some of the recipes at the back of the book (a warning: this book contains many food descriptions (even about non food items) and you might get hungry reading it!) and will probably be picking up the next book in the series to see what other adventures our characters have.