Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind

This is the first written in the Miss Julia series. Author Ann Ross claims she tried to make the books stand alone titles, but she found that "as soon as I sit down to start a new story, one or more of [the characters will] pop up with a problem for [Miss Julia] to solve." From the publisher: "Miss Julia, a recently bereaved and newly wealthy widow, is only slightly bemused when one Hazel Marie Puckett appears at her door with a youngster in tow and unceremoniously announces that the child is the bastard son of Miss Julia's late husband. Suddenly, this longtime church member and pillar of her small Southern community finds herself in the center of an unseemly scandal-and the guardian of a wan nine-year-old whose mere presence turns her life upside down."