Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind (Miss Julia #1). Ann B. Ross. William Morrow (1990). 288 pages. Genre: Cozy Mystery.
First Line: "I'd just caught my breath after the shock of my husband's sudden passing when his last legacy showed up on my front porch."
Summary: Her husband's last legacy is an illegitimate child, a boy of about 9, being dropped off by his mother. Hazel Marie Puckett claims she needs to go to Raleigh to get some training and she just doesn't know what to do so she is going to depend on Miss Julia's Christian charity to take care of her son while she is gone. And before Miss Julia can object, she gets back into the passenger seat of the car she came in and takes off.
Miss Julia is so shocked, she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know what to do with children since she never had any of her own. Thankfully, her housekeeper, Lillian, knows just what to do.
After the shock of discovering that her husband of 44 years had not been faithful, Miss Julia needs some time to think. So she goes for a drive. After a while she notices a large truck bearing down on her. She slows down, he slows down. She changes lanes, he changes lanes. He follows her all the way home, but keeps going past her house. Miss Julia wonders if she is making something out of nothing. But, a few days later her house is ransacked. She can't imagine who would do such a thing and why?
My thoughts: This series has been on my virtual TBR for quite a while so I thought I would finally give it a try. There were things I liked about this book and there were things I didn't like about this book. I'll start with what I liked.
First of all, the story is funny. I laughed out loud at times. Miss Julia seems like a proper southern lady, and she is, but sometimes she says things that shock you. Secondly, I liked the writing style. It flowed well and I liked the way the author described things. For example,
"It looked like someone had just swept his arm along the shelves, knocking everything to the floor. Soap, bath crystals, talcum powders, cologne, towels, washclothes - everything had been flung to the floor and walked on."
And third, I liked how the characters came together and supported one another just like a family.
On to what I didn't like. I was slow to warm up to the story. I was at least 1/3 of the way into the book before I really started to care about the characters. Also, the mystery aspect was a little different. I am not opposed to a mystery story that doesn't involve a murder, but I wasn't sure that there even was a mystery for much of the book. After I was done reading the book I had to think back and figure out how I would describe the mystery. The thing I disliked most of all was that about 2/3 of the way through the book Miss Julia does something that is completely out of character. I kept waiting for her to let the reader know that she was just doing this to see what the other person would do, but she never did. And then how she handled the incident after the fact was completely out of character as well. I found that confusing and frustrating.
So I am glad I finally picked this one up so I can get it off my TBR, but I don't think I will pursue reading any further in the series.
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