One Book - Two Reviews!

Author: Ann B. Ross Publisher: Hardback, 1999, William Morrow and Company; Perennial Edition, 2000, HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
ISBN: 0-688-16788-8


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Miss Julia Springer is a delightful southern gentlewoman who resides in the quaint little fictional town of Abbottsville, North Carolina. Her entire life has been devoted to acting as a proper wife and helpmate to her stuffy Presbyterian banker husband Wesley Lloyd. The story opens with Miss Julia remembering the shock and dismay of being presented with her dear departed husband’s illegitimate nine year old son, Little Lloyd. She had just become comfortable with her role as a rich widow when Hazel Marie Puckett drops Wesley Lloyd Jr. on the doorstep and hightails it to Raleigh to attend beauty school. Little Lloyd is a skinny kid with glasses that side down the bridge of his nose who is constantly clutching a tattered paper grocery bag. It seems she didn’t know her husband of forty four years too well at all! She and her housekeeper Lillian take the boy in and struggle to give him a decent upbringing until his Mama returns for him.

Miss Julia’s predicament is complicated yet again when Pastor Ledbetter of the Presbyterian church plots with a clinical psychologist to have her declared incompetent so that he can be made her guardian and take control of her inheritance. Meanwhile, Hazel Marie’s evil uncle Vern Puckett, a greasy haired TV evangelist, kidnaps the boy and has his niece roughed up to frighten her into submission to his plan for she and her son. Miss Julia, Lillian and Hazel Marie go on a hare brained mission to re-claim Little Lloyd and find themselves in all kinds of trouble along the way.

Were it not for the tremendous support from her boarder, Deputy Bates, and her attorney friends Sam Murdoch and Binkie Enloe, Miss Julia wouldn’t have a chance to hold her head up in the midst of all that shame and drama. As the story unfolds, we experience the very best and the very worst of small town southern living in a delightful tale of greed, compassion and gossipy neighbors. You will cheer Miss Julia on as she gradually replaces her docile manner with the courage to meet life's tough spots head on.

Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind is the first in a series of books by Ann B. Ross featuring this charming heroine. Others include: Miss Julia Stands Her Ground, Miss Julia’s School of Beauty, Miss Julia Takes Over, Miss Julia Meets Her Match, Miss Julia Throws a Wedding, and Miss Julia Hits the Road.

2 years ago I started a bookclub. One of the first books nominated for our reading pleasure was Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind. Subsequently, we all became huge fans, and have gone on to read all the others in this series. If anyone has ever lived in a small, sleepy, southern town, they will definetely have known someone like Miss Julia!

The town is "Abbotsville", and although it is fictional, you will leave this book feeling like it really does exist, and that you've become part of the community. Miss Julia finds herself in the beginning pages, a very wealthy widow who is completely content with her life as she knows it. Enter Hazel Marie Puckett. Hazel is apparently the long time mistress of Miss Julia's dead husband, and she is also the mother of Wesley Lloyd Junior Springer...the "bastard" son of their union.

Her life is turned upside down as she finds herself the guardian of this boy, and the topic of gossip at the local beauty shop. With great wit and sarcasm, Miss Julia speaks her mind. You will find yourself laughing out loud at the twists and turns this book takes and you will be on your way to the books store for the next in this series.