Lily Barlow: The Mystery of Jane Dough

by - Carla Vergot

5 Stars 👢👢👢👢👢

Genre: romcomstery

🠈 Original Publication date: 2018 by Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press 

Republication date: Nov. 7 2023 by Morgan James Publishing 🠞

Summary: Lily Barlow, a quirky college student obsessed with the fictional bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, is called home from the University of Virginia to get the family bakery running after her dad's heart attack. Stuck in a sinkhole of self-pity, she finds her sleepy hometown...well...can a town actually be in a coma?

No worries. All she needs to do is hire a bakery manager, and she's not even moving back in with her family for that part. Instead, she rents an efficiency garage from Miss Delphine Walker, an old woman who Lily begins to believe may have killed someone at some point in time.

Meanwhile, Lily's overactive imagination takes a swan dive when she discovers an online clearinghouse for victims the cops can't identify. Consumed with the profiles on the website, Miss Delphine, and the candidates for the bakery manager position, she simply cannot cope with one more problem. So when Jack Turner, her best friend since kindergarten, reveals out of nowhere that he wants something more than friendship, what's a woman to do?

My thoughts: What a delightful cozy mystery! Lily Barlow is a breath of fresh air when it comes to new characters. The rapport between her and her BFF, and the relationship they have, is wildly entertaining. The struggles Lily has with paying for school are all to real. Her morbid fascination with cold cases was just grossly amusing. The way that Vergot wove the story together was wonderful. A quick read that all are sure to enjoy.