Twelve-year-old Miranda Jasper has the Sight, a gift that allows her to see into other people's thoughts. Most regular kids are scared of Miranda and avoid her; however, Miranda does have two friends who definitely aren't regular kids: horror-movie obsessed Adam who has moved to Wilder from the big city, and Abigail, the ghost of a girl who died in the 1800s. Lately the kids' hometown of Wilder, Kentucky, has been going through some changes. A meat-packing plant has opened, bringing new workers to the area, many of whom are Latino. Miranda and Adam are delighted by the growing diversity and are even more delighted by El Mariachi, the excellent new Mexican restaurant that has opened in town. But not all Wilder residents are happy with the town's new Latino population. The Latino kids at Wilder are teased and excluded, and Isabella, whose father owns El Mariachi, tells Miranda and Adam that someone has vandalized the restaurant. When another attack follows, one that endangers both the business and its customers, Miranda, Abigail, and Adam vow to discover the identity of the vandal. But as they put both their natural and supernatural detecting skills to use, they uncover not just the truth behind the vandalism, but a terrible secret that haunts their community.

Free Spirits

Children's Books

Watts, Julia

Action & Adventure

Beanpole Books

Miranda Jasper is different from the other kids in the small town of Wilder, Kentucky. Like all the women in her family, she has the Sight―the ability to see into other people’s thoughts. Though her granny assures Miranda that the Sight is a gift, it often feels like a curse―especially when Miranda’s middle-school classmates start calling her “the witch girl.” Miranda has only one real friend her age, Abigail, who just happens to be the ghost of the girl who haunts Miranda’s family’s Victorian mansion. But then Adam moves to town and Adam, it seems, is a bit different too. United by their differences, Miranda and Adam become friends, and soon Miranda introduces an amazed Adam to her friend Abigail. When Adam tells his two new comrades about strange, supernatural goings-on in his house, the three unlikely detectives―girl, guy, and ghost―unearth the story of a horrible crime committed in their town nearly seventy years before―a crime for which an innocent young man was punished. Kindred Spirits is the spooky and suspenseful story of three extraordinary friends who use everything from the Internet to ESP in their quest to end their town’s legacy of injustice.

Kindred Spirits

<div>Miranda Jasper just wants her life to go back to normal. For Miranda, "normal" means living in a spooky old house in tiny Wilder, Kentucky, with her mom and granny who, like her, share a mysterious power called The Sight. It also means hanging out with her two best friends, Adam, a city kid who's had to adjust to small-town life, and Abigail, the ghost who haunts Miranda's room. But things are changing. Miranda's mom has a new boyfriend, which changes things at home, and Adam announces he'll be moving away at the end of the school year. Worst of all, Miranda is rapidly approaching the age where she'll be too old to communicate with ghosts, which means she'll lose Abigail forever. When Caylie, a classmate whose mother has been jailed under false charges, approaches Miranda and Adam, they know it's probably the last time the three of them--girl, guy, and ghost--will perform an investigation together. This adventure takes Miranda, Adam, and Abigail into dangerous territory as they try to save Caylie's mom and as Miranda must decide how much she's willing to risk for the chance to keep her ghostly companion. Third in the Spirits Series</div>

Revived Spirits

Teen & Young Adult

Literature & Fiction

Abandoned by her mother and raised by her loving but religiously zealous grandmother, 16-year-old Heavenly Faith Simms (H.F. for short) has never felt like she belonged anywhere. When she finds her mother's address in a drawer, she and her best friend, Bo, an emotionally repressed gay boy, hit the road in Bo's scrap heap of a car and head south. Their journey through the heart of the American South awakens both teens to the realization that there is a life waiting for them that is very different from what they have known and that the concept of family is more far-reaching than they had ever imagined.Julia Watts is the author of the novels Wedding Bell Blues, Piece of My Heart, Phases of the Moon, and Wildwood Flowers. She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Finding H.F.: A Novel

Alyson Books

To be honest, my friends were getting on my nerves. Here I was, trying to get my mind off a woman, and they bring me to a lesbian bar where they talk about nothing but lesbians and sex. It was like they were forcing me to think about the one thing I didn't want to think about. As though I'd said, 'Look, the only thing I don't want to think about is hippopotamuses, ' and so to distract me, they took me to the zoo". -- from the book Okay, you're a lesbian. Now what? That's the question that newly-out Kentucky graduate student Jess Hamlin tries to answer in this h arming and hilarious account of her southern days and nights. From making and losing acquaintances to finding and keeping real friends. Through bars and coffeehouses, school and work. Surviving family drama and ex-lover trauma. Dealing with well-intentioned matchmakers and dates from hell. Having crushes and getting crashed. Coping and, sometimes, not coping. Falling in lust and slowly, exquisitely surrendering to love. In other words, all the stuff that dreams and real lesbian lives are made of.

Piece of My Heart

United States

Naiad Pr

The things a woman will do for love...and Lily had love, lots of it. But her partner Charlotte is dead. Their daughter Mimi keeps her sane - until Charlotte's family claims they have all the rights to Mimi, who is their blood kin, and no "real" relation to Lily. With what's left of her world balanced on a razor's edge, any choice to find safer ground seems reasonable. 
 Even getting married. Married to her Bugle Boy-wearing, trust fund-spending gay neighbor, Ben. Married and relocated to rural Georgia where Ben's powerful family will make sure Lily gets custody of Mimi. 
 Just one little trick involved: convincing Ben's parents their marriage is the real thing. It doesn't seem like keeping up appearances will be that hard. But the charade gets more difficult when a beautiful country veterinarian offers Lily a taste of what she's pretending she no longer craves... 
 The outrageous perks and pitfalls of compulsory heterosexuality are humorously explored by the talented pen of Lambda Literary award-winner Julia Watts, known for her wit and wry observations about the quirks of Southern life. 
 Originally published by Naiad Press - 1999

Wedding Bell Blues

Abandoned by her mother and raised by her loving but religiously zealous grandmother, 16-year-old Heavenly Faith Simms (H.F. for short) has never felt like she belonged anywhere. When she finds her mother's address in a drawer, she and her best friend, Bo, an emotionally repressed gay boy, hit the road in Bo's scrap heap of a car and head south. Their journey through the heart of the American South awakens both teens to the realization that there is a life waiting for them that is very different from what they have known and that the concept of family is more far-reaching than they had ever imagined.

Finding H.F.

Bella Books

Ruby Pickett didn’t have any say about the family move to Tennessee. Her daddy’s new job will help the war effort, though no one has told her exactly how. Brand new, government-built Oak Ridge quickly proves a curious and intriguing place for the sixteen-year-old’s rampant curiosity. A voracious reader, Ruby wonders at mysteries in books and sees possible mysteries in the secrecy that surrounds Oak Ridge. She finds a kindred spirit in Iris, a young wife and mother who has moved to Oak Ridge with her scientist husband, and who chafes at the intellectual emptiness of her new home and life. Faraway events don’t seem likely to answer any of Ruby’s questions, but as the war grows more destructive Ruby begins to realize that her curiositylike her deepening feelings for Irismay be more dangerous than she could possibly imagine. A moving story set in the shadow of World War II for readers of all ages from the author of Finding H.F.

Secret City

Historical Fiction

Vermillion, Georgia, is the small town that time forgot, or at least that’s how it feels to fifteen-year-old Rufus. As if being a scrawny ginger called “Matchstick” isn’t bad enough, Rufus is also gay, an artist, and the son of conservative religious fanatics. He doesn’t have a prayer of fitting in in the Bible Belt—at least not until he meets Syd, a spiky-haired girl in black eyeliner. Sick of being the adult her mother can’t seem to be, Syd hides behind a snarky attitude and takes refuge in classic movies, and eventually, her friendship with Rufus. As isolated as they feel in Vermillion, Rufus and Syd soon discover they’re not as alone as they thought. Josephine, an aging free spirit who once ran a repertory cinema in Chicago, and Cole, a middle-aged gay man living with a brain injury as a result of a violent homophobic attack in his youth, offer help as the two teens struggle to discover who they are, what they want, and where they might belong. But not everyone in their town is so freethinking or open-minded. When things become unbearable, where do two outspoken atheists turn? Trusting in each other and standing together is their only chance of making it through the opposition on all sides.

Rufus + Syd

Lippincott, Robin

Harmony Ink Press LLC

It is the fall semester of 1990, and three students named Elizabeth are on the roll for professor Angela Rivers' Women in Literature course at William Blount University. Like so many college students, each of these 'Elizabeths' is on a journey of self-discovery which will determine the course of the rest of their lives.

Women's Studies

Literary

Spinsters, Ink

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Watts, Julia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Watts, Julia