Judge's Girls
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Written with powerful emotional honesty, warmth and humor, JUDGE'S GIRLS is a must-read."
—Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author
Three very different women. Only one thing in common. But when their family patriarch dies and they must share his estate, the truths they discover will test them—and everything they think they know about each other.
Beloved Georgia judge Joseph Donaldson was known for his unshakable fairness, his hard-won fortune—and a scandalous second marriage to his much-younger white secretary. Now he's left a will with a stunning provision. In order to collect their inheritance, his lawyer daughter Maya, her stepmother Jeanie, and Jeanie’s teen daughter, Ryder, must live together at the family lake house. Maya and Jeanie don’t exactly get along, but they reluctantly agree to try an uneasy peace for as long as it takes . . .
But fragile ex-beauty queen Jeanie doesn’t know who she is beyond being a judge’s wife—and drinking away her insecurities has her in a dangerous downward spiral. Fed up with her mother’s humiliating behavior, Ryder tries to become popular at school in all the wrong ways. And when Maya attempts to help, she puts her successful career and her shaky love life at risk. Now with trouble they didn’t see coming—and secrets they can no longer hide—these women must somehow find the courage to admit their mistakes, see each other for who they really are—and slowly, perhaps even joyfully, discover everything they could be.
Customer Reviews
Beautiful Story About Family
Judge's Girls is the story of a family learning to come together after the loss of the patriarch and glue that held them together. It focuses on three women all learning to live life without the titular Judge and coming together in their grief.
I think what makes this novel special is how the three women all handle the loss in very different ways. Jeannie, the widow, turns to alcohol; Maya, the adult daughter, suppresses her emotions; and Ryder, the teenage daughter, starts acting out. The book explores these different ways of grieving, for better or worse, and shows how these characters get through the pain of losing the beloved father.
The book also deals (very subtly) with race relations in the south. The characters each explore ideas of race as their family is mixed and how that impacted their family and the town as a whole. It discusses how racial bias effects the daily lives of these characters and shapes how they were raised and how it has shaped who they have become.
Judge's Girls is a lovely book that handles highly charged and emotional subjects with grace and charm, in true southern fashion.