Lily Barlow has one goal in life: to get out of her hometown. But after her father’s heart attack, Lily returns home from college to get the family business running, while simultaneously searching for the identity of a murder victim. After pausing her plans and returning to sleepy Marshall, Virginia, 21-year-old Lily Barlow is determined to keep this visit short and sweet. Rather than temporarily moving back home, Lily opts to rent a room from Miss Delphine Walker, a senior who grows flowers and mutters about the murderous intentions of the human heart. Lily’s return prompts Jack Turner, her best friend since kindergarten, to ask if they can be more, just as Lily begins investigating the identity of an unidentified murder victim. Fancying herself a southern-fried version of Stephanie Plum, Lily dodges Jack’s romantic advances as she dives into the mystery with exuberance and good intentions. Told in a sometimes sweet, sometimes snarky southern accent, Lily Barlow Book One: the Mystery of Jane Dough delivers romance, comedy and mystery in a joyride of contemporary fiction. Readers will laugh out loud at this fast-paced tale complete with relatable characters, quaint small-town setting and loads of southern charm. Carla Vergot fully intended to write books after earning her degree in English from North Carolina State University. However, since graduating in 1990, she contributed to a constellation of newsletters and magazines, including a regular column in The Piedmont Virginian , all while not writing a single book. It wasn’t until 2016, when she took a sabbatical from teaching special education, that Carla wrote her first novel, Lily Barlow Book One: The Mystery of Jane Dough , and eventually resigned from the classroom to pursue her writing career. She currently resides in Northern Virginia.