Ann B. Ross •
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind •

She certainly does.

When Miss Julia is suddenly widowed, it turns out that her husband left a few surprises in store for her. One is that he was immensely wealthy, a minor detail he managed to conceal throughout the 44 years of their marriage. Another is the affair he was conducting, common knowledge to everyone in Abbotsville, North Carolina. Everyone except Miss Julia, that is.

And the third surprise is the offspring of that liaison. When nine-year-old Lloyd Junior lands on her doorstep, Miss Julia gets right to the point, saying to her cook, “Look what else Mr. Springer left me.”

She doesn’t mince words with the unctuous Pastor Ledbetter, either. “You’re saying that a wealthy man can commit sins that would condemn a poor man,” she tells him crisply.

Miss Julia may have been meek and obedient while her husband was alive, but those days are behind her. “Now I followed my own inclinations instead of waiting for instructions. I’d discovered that I was neither a child nor a half-wit, and I’d refused to be treated as either.” When another so-called man of God schemes to get his hands on the Springer fortune, she turns the tables and resolves to “fix [his] little red wagon.” Nobody gets the better of Miss Julia—at least, not for long.

Ann B. Ross says she knows that something she’s writing is good when it makes her fall off the chair laughing. I can only imagine her delight in creating the scene where Miss Julia, driving a getaway car, decides that a CB radio would be a worthwhile investment so she can get safe escort from 18-wheelers whenever she needs it.

Which is likely to be often, if this first book in the series is any indication of things to come.