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Ms. Miles is a former D.I.A.L. Systems Engineer for Baker/Audio Telecom, one of the premier forerunners of voice mail. In addition to systems application, she provided voice tracks for several major companies, including Delta Airlines and Frito-Lay Corporation.

A former Miss Racine, Wisconsin, Ms. Miles, made television, print and fashion appearances, and participated in various stage productions, including “Joan of Lorraine”, “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” and “The Miracle Worker”.

Ms. Miles resides in Atlanta, Georgia and Cape Canaveral, Florida along with her husband Robert, where she is a featured speaker at book clubs, local schools, and writer’s workshops. Her debut novel Roseflower Creek was Cumberland House Publishing’s lead book when it debuted in hardcover. It’s now available in trade paperback. Earl Hamner, creator of The Waltons calls it “A powerful, extraordinary novel.” The late William Diehl wrote, “The lyric prose will thrill you, the story is unforgettable, and the characters will stay with you forever.”]]> female 678673 1581825706 9781581825701 49 <![CDATA[Cold Rock River]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177071645m/678673.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177071645s/678673.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/678673.Cold_Rock_River 3.75 165 Adie—married to Buck, her baby's skirt-chasing father—is unprepared for marriage and motherhood. She spends her days with her new baby, Grace Annie. Buck spends his with the conniving daughter of the man he works for. Adie welcomes the friendship of midwife Willa Mae Satterfield. Having grown close to her after Grace Annie's birth, Adie confides that her baby sister, Annie, survived choking on a jelly bean only to drown in Cold Rock River a few months later. Willa Mae replies, "My two little chillins Georgia and Calvin drowns in that river, too." What she won't say is how and why.
Adie takes refuge in Tempe's journal. It tells an amazing tale, but the further she reads, the more questions the diary raises in her mind. After "the freedom" comes, Tempe sets out to find her lost children and meets Tom Barber, another freed slave. Tom and Tempe marry and have one daughter, Heart. When Tom is killed in a drunken brawl, Tempe takes Heart and settles on a small patch of land in North Georgia.
There, Heart blossoms, eventually marrying and giving birth to Georgia and Calvin. Adie is filled with questions: Could Willa Mae be Heart? How—and why—did the children die? And is it possible that the man who now owns the house in which she lives is Willa Mae's grandson?
As Cold Rock River rushes to its surprising, shocking ending, questions of family, race, love, loss, and longing are loosed from the mysterious secrets that have been kept for too long. And the depth of the connection between the two women united by place and separated by race—and a century—is revealed.]]> 363312 3.79 270 84 2006 1547620 1581823770 9781581823776 24 <![CDATA[Roseflower Creek]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1185042434m/1547620.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1185042434s/1547620.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1547620.Roseflower_Creek 3.90 84 Thus begins the story of Lori Jean, whose short life and death are woven into this poignant, heart-wrenching novel set in the rural South of the 1950s. Told from the point of view of ten-year-old Lori Jean, a sensitive dreamer of a child who longs for a "normal" family, Roseflower Creek is raw with the emotions of a child burdened by the harshness of her life. Abandoned by her father when she was five, her world is filled with a self-absorbed mother who can't seem to hold her life together and an abusive, alocoholic stepfather who can't-or won't-keep a steady job. Yet Lori Jean is filled with the curiosity and hope common to all children.

After Lori Jean's stepfather , Ray, begins attending AA meetings, he seems like a changed man, and Lori Jean begins to think that finally she and her mama are going to experience some long-overdue happiness-be a real family. But tragedy strikes anew, and Ray, unable to cope, returns to the bottle and his shiftless ways. Fired from his job at the cotton mill, he resorts to stealing, and when Lori Jean uncovers his secret, things begin to spiral out of control. Unable to keep silent, Lori Jean pays the ultimate price for what she knows.

Poignant and bittersweet, Roseflower Creek is a story of the loss of innocence. Told with an honesty and authenticity that only a child narrator could achieve, it is a remarkable first novel that will move readers with profound emotions and haunt them long after the last paragraph has been read.

"Finally, we was gonna be a family. Have ourselves some happy times to look back on. Git ourselves one of them futures-just like regular folks."

]]> 363312 3.79 270 84 2001 2235111 1581826508 9781581826500 10 <![CDATA[Divorcing Dwayne: A Novel]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2235111.Divorcing_Dwayne_A_Novel 3.31 16 Divorcing Dwayne is the first volume in a three-book series of "Chick-Lit" books featuring Francine Harper and her no-good husband, Dwayne. As the series is set in rural Georgia, the author calls the category "Grits-Lit."

As Divorcing Dwayne opens, Francine is in jail, facing felony assault charges for shooting at Dwayne and his stripper-lover, Carla, from the Peel 'n Squeal, a restaurant and local hangout. She had caught them together--in the very bed her daddy had carved and given to them at their wedding--and let go with both barrels. She hit the bed but missed Dwayne and Carla. In spite of her humiliation, in the course of the story Francine discovers her strength, divorces Dwayne, and regains her dignity via her trials (and court trial) and many errors along the way. Aided by her best friend, Ray Anne Pickles, Francine manages to run afoul of the law on several occasions, but in the end, she is vindicated.

]]> 363312 3.79 270 84 2008