After the unexpected death of her husband of 44 years, Julia Springer is more than just a grieving widow, she's a rich one. She's also a woman on the verge of finding herself. Freed at last from her husband's sheltering, often suffocating gaze, Miss Julia realizes that she must learn to manage her money, to run her own household, and to carry on the substantial reputation that her husband built in their small Southern town. It's a tall order, and one she's excited to take on. But just when she thinks she's got her new life under control, an unexpected visitor arrives with news that would send anyone, let alone a proper Southern lady, into a tailspin. How Julia copes with the news of her husband's secret life, and learns to rebuild her own, is the subject of this charming, often zany and always riveting novel.

In Julia Springer, Ann B. Ross has created a unique and utterly compelling character who forces us to rethink our concept of how a respectable, well-to-do woman should behave. On the outside, Julia is a formidable presence, proud of her position in the town, and unquestioning of the choices she has made. But news of her husband's infidelity shakes the very foundation on which she has built her life. Miss Julia is forced to reconsider not only the man her husband was, but what kind of marriage she had. And, as the people in the town learn of Julia's plight, their treatment of her becomes a lesson of a different kind-about the value of honesty over lies, and about the importance of being true to oneself, even in the face of judgmental neighbors.

Ann B. Ross overturns many prejudices in this wonderfully vivid portrait of Southern life, including those involving class, race, and religion. But her most important triumph lies in the surprising transformation of a sheltered white woman who learns to stand on her own two feet; to value money wisely spent and generously given; to make friends with all kinds of people; and ultimately to trust her own good instincts and speak her mind whenever she sees fit.