Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

Angel is known in Kigali, Rwanda as the go-to person if you want a cake for a special occasion. While having customers look through her book of cake photographs, she brews some tea made with milk, sugar, and cardamom (the way they serve it in her home country of Tanzania). Then Angel and her guest discuss why they need a cake--which always leads to conversing about their lives. Angel, herself, has come with her husband, Pius, and her five grandchildren to the capital when Pius gets a job at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. They live in a gated apartment complex with a host of other international residents. These are the people that provide most of Angel's work--professionals from a host of organzations. But just because they are considered fortunate it doesn't mean that the ills of society haven't affected them. AIDS and the past horrors of genocide in the country which is now their home are never far beneath the surface. Even so, Parkin has created a warm novel with similarities to the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.