Readers of this series know that Miss Julia has come to love Hazel Marie and her son Lloyd, who is the illegitimate son of Miss Julia’s late husband. They are family. So much so that Julia and her new husband, Sam Murdock, have settled the pair, along with Hazel Marie’s husband, J.D. Pickens, and their twin girls into Sam’s old house. Not only does the Pickens family have a nice house, but Sam’s cook, James, has stayed on to help. This is a blessing because Hazel Marie was never much of a cook and those babies have her worn down. But James is no spring chicken and when he injures himself in a fall, the Pickens household is in crisis. James needs help to get in and out of bed, so Hazel Marie must tend to him and her babies, keep the house in order, and cook the kind of meals that keep a man at home. (J.D. was a womanizer before he married Hazel Marie and he travels quite a bit for his work–all of which causes Miss Julia to worry about this marriage.)
Of course, Miss Julia steps in. She has trouble finding a temporary cook, so she lines up various friends to come over and both cook and give Hazel Marie cooking lessons. (The recipes that are used are scattered throughout the book.) Organizing all these cooking lessons is quite a juggling act, but it is nothing compared to managing the personalities sharing space at the Pickens house. James proves to be a demanding patient, Hazel Marie’s sleazy uncle, Brother Vern, is back in town and has moved in, and Granny Wiggins, who Etta Mae has recruited to clean, is a tornado of energy–and opinions. Plus, Miss Julia and Lillian have both spotted J.D. with another woman and they will do anything to keep Lloyd from finding out that his new dad is no saint. This, the fourteenth book in the Miss Julia series, is a tasty dish of misadventure, misunderstanding, and southern charm.
A note on the dust-jacket: The imagery on dust-jackets has become stereotypical and formulaic–and sometimes even misleading. It’s not uncommon for the image on the cover to misrepresent some basic element of the location or the main character by, for example, making the heroine a blonde when the book says she’s a brunette, or showing a mountain lodge out of Travel + Leisure when the action takes places at an abandoned hunting cabin. The dust-jacket for Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble is an exception to this trend. It’s a delight to look at the image and see so many items mentioned in the book–everything from a bag of Gold Medal flour to a grilled cheese sandwich to J.D.’s aviator style sunglasses. Kudos to the people at Viking Press.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.
