With her husband Sam off on a trip to Europe, Miss Julia takes a pause to reflect on the past few decades--realizing how the comforts and joys of her life can sometimes give way to boredom. Miss Julia reckons it's about time to roll up her sleeves and be of some use to her community. She's just considering how to get involved when she hears that the nosy do-gooder Madge Taylor and the new pastor Rucker are embarking on a mission to buy up the vacant house down the street from Miss Julia and establish a group home for wayward teenagers. No stranger to taking in the down-and-out herself, Miss Julia is shocked to learn Madge and the pastor never consulted her or anyone else in the neighborhood about their project--only a board of the church's congregants who don't live in the neighborhood, all instructed to keep the project a secret. Hazel Marie and Miss Julia's fears are confirmed when they start investigating, and find that Madge and her board of busybodies plan to proceed without much care for how to manage the home after they've built it, or whether it will be built to code in the first place--never mind that the house itself is ill suited for a bunch of teenagers to be living in it, barely supervised. Miss Julia must band together with friends and neighbors to take on nosy Madge and her steamrolling plans, while still being helpful to those in need in another entertaining installment of Ann B. Ross's bestselling series.